I loved cooking in a professional kitchen. The job itself was great. Some of the coworkers were all over the place, but I fucking loved the good ones.

And there’s something immensely satisfying about the teamwork behind turning a bunch of raw ingredients into multiple delicious meals, perfectly timed out with each dish hitting the table at the right moment. (The frustration of a kitchen that isn’t doing this is a separate story.)

But the industry itself has so much toxicity. Bad managers, bad owners. Substance abuse problems. And the real reason I left wasn’t actually the bad pay. It was the miserable hours. I was always a night owl but I couldn’t deal with the isolating separation from my family and non-industry friends from working nights, weekends, and holidays when everyone else was building memories and reinforcing bonds.