I shower and shave and perform the rest of my morning ablutions. I’ve been doing the purchasing, but today Wilks loses his training wheels.
I’ve done my best to get him good and nervous for haggling with suppliers, but in reality, so long as he can put on a smile and chat without making a total ass of himself, there’s really nothing to worry about. I’ve already put in a good word with some of my favored suppliers, so today should go pretty smoothly.
I give Wilks a quick call to make sure he’s up, moving, and ready to pee his pants when I tell him that he’ll be taking the lead negotiating prices today. It’s nothing personal; I just love fucking with the guy.
He’s suitably tense by the time I hang up the phone, and I smile my way to the apartment door.
When I open it, a small envelope falls to the ground. Curious, I bend down and pick it up.
The front of the envelope has my first name on it, but no postage. I open it up and find a Polaroid inside with a very familiar redhead, legs spread with the caption “Wish you were here” written on the bottom.
This might be funny or arousing if it weren’t so sad.
The idealist in me wants to figure out a way to help her realize there are other things in life worth exploring, but the pragmatist in me realizes that I’m not fucking Superman. She’s been a coitus aficionado long before I ever met her, and while I would love to think that I’m capable of bending women’s wills with my mind, I’m not stupid enough to believe it.
I didn’t ask for the picture, and I certainly didn’t take it myself, but I’m not about to just toss it on the kitchen counter for Leila to find either, so I put it in my pocket and lock the door as I leave.
Wilks is waiting outside his building when I come around the corner. He sees me from a distance but still doesn’t have the confidence to just walk up to me.
This has to be stopped.
While I am effectively useless at influencing women’s actions, I am a savant when it comes to molding people in a kitchen. Wilks is technically my boss now, although I have a feeling that particular fact might slip my mind while I’m trying to build the guy’s confidence.
I get within 10 yards of Wilks and stop.
I know he sees me. After all, the guy’s waving.
Our destinations lie in the opposite direction, and this is the perfect time to impart lesson number one of having your own staff:
If you can’t approach
Someone, you can’t possibly
Utilize their gifts.
Yes, lesson one is a haiku.
Yes, all of the lessons are haikus.
When I got my first head chef job a few years back, I had to learn all of these lessons the hard way. The haikus just help me remember them ,and I feel, give me the air of a guru whose every word must be followed.
Okay, that and I find the practice hilarious.
Wilks isn’t coming, so I turn around and start walking toward the first stop on our itinerary.
He catches up in a matter of seconds.
“Where are we going?” he asks.
“Lesson number two,” I tell him with no explanation whatsoever. “Questions whose answers you know are a complete waste of my fucking time.”
That one was particularly helpful in building staff resilience, or occasionally, weeding out people who can’t bear hearing one of my very favorite words on a frequent and often hostile basis. This was a must for my kitchen.
“Lesson number two?” he asks. “What are you talking about? What was lesson number one?”
“We’ll cover the lessons as the need arises,” I tell him. “Didn’t you write down our shopping list?”
“Yeah,” he says, pulling a notepad out of his breast pocket.