I am going to do something a little different tonight and I hope you can all bear with me on this.  As most of you know I am the last one to give myself credit for anything as a matter of fact I have a very low self esteem, especially when it comes to my artistic abilities, so please don’t think what I am going to type today reflects how I am as a person.  I have no ego.

 

Pride: noun, proper self respect, a source of great satisfaction for which one feels some responsibility, a sense of satisfaction, with one’s achievements etc.

 

This is one of my favorite words and one that has greatly fallen out of favor in the recent years.  I am a perfectionist and I won’t even attempt something if I cannot master it.  Albert Einstein once said, “If you can’t explain something to an eighth grader than you don’t know anything about it yourself.”  I take this quote to heart and believe it fully.  I am not a genius but I have read a lot, and taught myself more than I learned in college.   If something interests me I attack it with the ferocity of a ravenous bull shark with the taste of blood in his mouth.  I have this attitude toward every aspect of my life, I take great pride in everything I do, even if it goes overlooked by others.  I have failed a lot in life because if something proves too hard or beyond my grasp I give up on it.  I have had many jobs in my life and the worst part of my chronic need to excel is that if something is too easy or uninteresting to me I don’t give a 100% at all.  I have had many of those kinds of jobs believe me.  What frustrates me more than just about anything in the world is when I am giving my usual 100% and the people around me are not.  I never ask for any praise or recognition I just ask that the people around me give as much as I do.  I know that is a lot to ask for especially in this day and age of no one respecting anything but what makes me furious is when people who do far less then me and have no pride what-so-ever try to make discredit me and what I do.  If I like it I am going to be good at it, two years after I first threw a dart board at a dart I was one of the best shooters in Wisconsin, I hit .300 my final year of Babe Ruth baseball and played softball for over 20 years, fairly decently at times as well.  I have been working in the restaurant business on and off for over 25 years, I know what I am doing in a kitchen and I also know when something isn’t right.  I have worked in all types of restaurants from tiny roadside diners to five star resorts and I have made a positive impact at any one of them that I have been in.  I take my job seriously more so now than ever before since my two year bout with unemployment almost ruined me.  I need my job because I have a family to support that alone should be enough of a reason to take pride in my work but add my obsession with perfection into the mix and I start to get very defensive.  I should not have to defend myself, my work ethic or my pride because I may or may not have threatened someone.  The real fact of the matter is that I am the one who feels threatened and as I have stated many, many times in my blogs, when I am cornered I will fight, and I will win.  I like winning and I take pride in making sure I do.  The saddest part of this whole thing is that I enjoy sitting in the shadows and letting others take credit for my pride but when those same people try to through me under the bus I have no problem showing them who I really am, and that is bad news for them, very bad news.

The very fact that so many people these days take no pride in what they do makes me sick to my stomach and as you can tell, slightly angry.  Those same people are so disillusioned by their own selfish egos that they honestly believe they are as good as they think when the truth is the passed their primes long ago.  I do not like authority, I used to like having authority but when I saw what it entitled I began to refuse those positions.  I am not a back stabber, I am not two-faced, and I will not kiss anyone’s ass for any reason.  If I have a problem with someone they know it, if I have something to say when I feel disrespected I will say it.

Pride and self respect are what I bring to work everyday and I do my job just as well if not better than anyone in this business and I have been so content just sitting back and getting a paycheck, but I will not tolerate being disrespected or have my pride bruised due to jealousy and fear.  I need a paycheck and stability more than I need friends.  Cooking is my second passion but until I become a rich and famous author I plan on staying in the kitchen, unthreatened and at peace with the fact that I take pride in what I do……………………..PEACE!!!!!!