I hate the concept.
Full blast.
Balls out.
When I was an Executive Chef and later a business owner and manager, I used to hate it when I exacted the bare minimum from an employee.
Especially when I knew they had much more to give but had decided they would dole out just enough talent to keep their job. As soon as it became recognizable, adios muchacho!
As a worker, I wanted to do better than anyone else before me, even the smallest, most inconsequential tasks. If they wanted me to peel potatoes, I wanted to peel them faster and more efficiently with less waste than anyone else on the planet had ever done and probably never would be able to replicate for all-time.
And that’s how I approached every single task or responsibility.
Not too much of an ego.
Now decades-removed from the high-profile food service arena, I can reflect and see my biggest fault as a chef was nothing technical.
It was me.
I could and did, produce absolute brilliance on a nightly basis in a starred French restaurant and received awards and good press recognition for my talents.
The expression is “hindsight is 20/20,” and I see now I should have shown my staff more respect than I did.
In all of the kitchens in which I toiled, from the little ten-seat grill in Santa Barbara I briefly worked at for a pittance and a few free beers per shift, to the huge industrial kitchen of a major manufacturer in northwest Ohio, I never found anyone as anal as I was/am about giving your best effort….at EVERYTHING.
In retrospect, I had no right.
Who the fuck did I think I was?
I used to tell the Pee-Wee Pop Warner football team I coached that “I want 100% of what you’ve got in the tank. If you failed a test at school, or if your girlfriend broke up with you, I don’t care what it is that might reduce the 100% in your tank. If all you’ve got is 87%, then we’re gonna need all 87.”
Knute Rockne I wasn’t.
After all, the little guys were only 7 and 8 years-old.
Now switching sports to the big girls… the WNBA. They should be on top of the world after signing on with the NBA as sponsors and lifeline. This move will ensure the women at least get a shot at building something global.
But not if they kill the goose that laid the golden egg, so to speak. Without Caitlin Clark, there is no big-time WNBA. The NBA said no thanks for thirty years and there have been some great women basketball players. Hall of fame names like Rebecca Lobo, Diana Taurasi, and Sheryl Swopes.
As soon as Clarkmania hit, The Association took notice, and right after she was drafted, voila! The NBA is a proud sponsor of women’s basketball.
So benign.
At least they are consistent.
Kudos to the Canadian Football League, that’s right the CFL, for telling disgraced University of Cincinnati quarterback Brendan Sorsby “thanks, but no thanks” to him joining their football league. Someone who places 9,000 bets including bets on teams on which he was playing, has a problem that evidently he and only he, doesn’t see.
Get some help, dude (Gambler’s Anonymous?), then go kick ass.
Take care of yourself first little brother.
Stay well.
