'You have to be insane'

Hi, I'm Alex.
I'm in the service industry, erm, pardon: the HOSPITALITY industry.
You'll find me often drunkenly blathering about how utterly important that distinction is. That the words you choose to use, the language that spills out of your mouth must be carefully chosen. It's not service, we don't SERVE them, that's belittling to us. We create an experience for the guest out of a sense of hospitality toward them, and at the end of the entire shebang there's a little paper with a number on it that shows how much it cost them for this experience, and if you did it well and they aren't scumbags, you'll get 20% of that number (or more) as a gift from them. You most certainly will have worked for it. So remember not to call it service, or to ask your guests if they are still 'working on their food.' No, don't ask anything that could possibly suggest anything other than sunshine and rainbows. Or, in the back, I'm going to tell you you're fucking up.

But, of course, like any self aggrandizing fuck who decides the world not only needs his words to reverberate around the world and possibly hit your ears but also thinks they should be digitized and filed online, I plead you to 'do as I say and not as I do.'
If you did as I do you'd wind up in legal trouble every two or three years, burning through jobs and friendships and most importantly of all, that pile of tips at the end of the night. If you did as I do you'll have lived in 5 different cities in 7 years, at one point having five addresses in three states over one year.
So do as I say instead, and save that money, pay off your student loans for that liberal arts degree, don't drink and drive, drink responsibly, and for God's sakes eat healthy.

People always ask me if I'm going to get out of this industry. I say 'no! I fucking love it!'
"You love working 12 hour shifts until three in the morning?"
Yes, and even later.
"You love dealing with drunk people?"
To a certain point, yes.
"You love serving food and cleaning up after people?"
I love food, why should I not also love serving it?
However many more questions come down the pike, it always ends the same:
"You have to be INSANE to stay doing that!"

..........

How many well-meaning people on their odious trip to self-actualization, in their cartoon Tasmanian Devil fashion brought on by the words of some guy with bleached teeth, ask you 'do you know what the definition of insanity is?'

Merriam-Webster can fuck off here, because its always the same bullshit out of their mouths.
'Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.'

In that case, getting into the restaurant industry is absolutely insane. Most new restaurants close real quickly. The shelf life of a successful one is about 5-10 years, and that's pushing it, Yet they still pop up, almost more than anything else in our culture. A restaurant might close, but the essence of it isn't going anywhere. It's been there for as long as people were too busy to cook for themselves, and it's not going anywhere.

And the people who are going to work it? There's always going to be those people. The people 'who must be insane,'
Well what do you know? Yes I am. Yes, a bunch of us are.
 I am an alcoholic, barely functioning. I used to be a drug addict. I am Bipolar type 2, I have horrible anxiety and I almost dropped out of high school because I couldn't get with the schedule I was forced into. I was also a very gifted student and child and have been able to coast on my intelligence through life without having to work very hard and still getting a B+ as opposed to busting my ass for the A. My first job in a restaurant ended with a horrible panic attack and swearing it off forever. Three years later I showed up to an interview for a bartender stoned off of my ass, babbled about Black Flag for a while and somehow got a job. Since then I've worked for famous chefs, lived in several cities, created cocktail programs, and learned more than I ever thought I could or would want to. And I fucking love it. Every day in this industry you learn something new while doing the same fucking thing you did the day before. Something changes each day.

So yeah, I must be insane.

This blog will be about food, cocktails, hospitality, mental illness, alcoholism and whatever else I feel like. Enjoy.