What Works

last week will did an unscientific poll about work, and in a follow-up post, he mentioned that several people aspire to be chefs. which i think is appealing . . . on the surface. everyone likes food. yes, food is good. food is yummy as long as we're not talking about lima beans, spam, okra, or rhubarb. being a chef provides great opportunity for creativity, which i think is sadly lacking in not only corporate america, and also in our daily lives. which is why so many of us blog--we need and crave that outlet, to allow the words to pour forth after being pent up all day. which may explain my tendency to ramble and go off on tangents.

having taken some introductory cooking classes over the past few years at williams-sonoma, and having gotten to know a handful of local executive chefs that run some of the best restaurants in town, i think being a chef is a terrific profession. if you like working a lot. if you've ever worked for a restaurant or a restaurant company (like me in my mid 20s), you know that restaurant folks work long hours. and while i think being a chef would be absolutely incredible, fun, exhausting, challenging, and interesting, i am not sure i'm cut out for it. because i've thought about it. hard. one of the executive chefs that we became friendly with offered to allow me to intern in his kitchen after a few culinary classes under my belt at a local community college.

and while i do think it would be a tremendous learning experience and that i would love it, i actually don't think i'm creative enough to be a top chef. which isn't to say i couldn't be a pastry chef or a sous chef or a saute chef. but i would be surprised if people that didn't go to culinary school aspire to be head chef. maybe not.

one of the other chefs we became friendly with is the head pastry chef at a trendy italian eatery. one of the things that amazed us when we first met her was not that she had left corporate america to join the culinary world. no, it was her confession that work in the restaurant, for the most part, was boring. much, i think, like some of our jobs.

a few years ago i think i was on a career track. of sorts. i was a marketing manager of a midsized, local consulting services firm. i had my own parking spot, a nice office with a door and big windows. i had a corporate credit card. but i got bored with the job and the company. the firm, with 150 employees, had 15 owners, all with their own agenda. all with ulterior motives. once we were reassigned to report to the president, i think that was the beginning of the end for me because the guy i previously reported to was simply the best supervisor i've ever worked for.

again, i'm getting off the subject. which is, what lights our fire? what would we do if we could do what we really wanted to do. i often said i wish i could run the marketing department of a film studio. but truth be told, i've been to la, i've talked to people in the movie industry, and i know it's a meat grinder. could i survive it? probably. i'm a tough cookie most days.

but after watching the premiere of the second season of foodnetwork's addictive "the next foodnetwork star" and "top chef", i think that being in charge of marketing for foodnetwork would be the sweetest gig of all.

do we ever get to do what we dream of doing? i'm not sure of that. i know a few people that have achieved their dream and i admire them greatly. i wish i could take a chance, but i'm not ready yet. but maybe someday i will.