owning you, and you will have sold off your best assets as a chef—your
honesty, reliability and integrity—in a business where these are
frequently rare and valuable qualities.
Temptation, of course, is everywhere. When you're a hungry, underpaid
line cook, those filet mignons you're searing off by the dozens look
mighty good. Pilfer one and you're bent. Ask for one, for chrissakes!
You'll probably get one. If they won't let you have one, you're probably
working in the wrong place.
Faking petty cash vouchers, stealing food, colluding with a purveyor or a
co-worker is extraordinarily easy. Avoid it. Really.
I was bent for the first half of my career, meaning, I pilfered food, turned
in the occasional inflated petty cash slip, nicked beer for the kitchen. It
didn't feel good. Slinking home at the end of the night, knowing that
you're a thief, whatever your excuse ("My boss is a thief" . . . "I need the
money" . . . "They'll never notice") feels lousy. And it can come back to
bite you later in your career.
Recently, I agreed to meet with the representative from a major seafood
wholesaler. I met him at the empty bar of my restaurant, during the slow
time between lunch and dinner, and told him that I'd done business with
his company at another restaurant. I was inclined to like the company.
The products and services had, in my experience so far, been first rate,
and what he needed to do to get my business was simply provide the
same or better-quality fish as my other purveyors—and do so at a lower
price. I meant it, too. I am absolutely tone-deaf to criminal solicitation.
It bores me. And for all my misbehavior over the years, I have never—
and I mean never—taken money or a thing of value from a purveyor in
return for my master's business.
"Junior" (that was his name), from X Seafood, seemed puzzled by my
apparent obtuseness that day. Thick-necked, crew-cutted, but oh-so-