Am I naive or do people really do this???

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I had kind of a rough youth, so I thought I'd seen it all, but my husband tells me things that just make my jaw drop about his coworkers in the culinary field. He told me that the chef of the last restaurant where he worked tripped on acid in the kitchen (he seems normal--has a wife and 2 kids, lives in suburbia), screwed several of the cuter waitresses, etc.. He's also said similar things about other chefs and wait staff he's worked with. He says that they do coke and say gross things about women. He said that he overheard a waitress talking about having a group orgy type thing with bikers. I saw her being all lovey with a guy at the restaurant but it looked to me more like the honeymoon phase of a new relationship.

He told me that his coworkers poisoned his drink and put grits in his gas tank. I think he mistook the "poisoning" for some sort of stomach trouble, since I had a similar, but apparrently not so severe ailment a few days earlier.

He tells me about things like that and quits jobs left and right. Is it really that bad??? Are there that many morally depraved people out there or have I been somehow sheltered? I thought blatant wickedness like that was only in the movies. Is he exaggerating things and using this as a justification for quitting jobs he doesn't like?

Dear Mindsigh,

It sounds like you have a co-worker who's figured out that your believe people are basically honest, and is trying to see how much BS he can hand you. He's also manipulative, trying to isolate you from your co-workers by telling you that they can't be trusted. He quits jobs right and left because he gets fired. He won't mention that.

He is a liar. He is evil. You shouldn't let him keep you from connecting with people who will give you a better view of the world.

Good luck and I remain

Your friend,
Ikari Gendo

There are people like that indeed, but they are far from the majority. Most people who have stable jobs are not going around doing lines of coke and having orgies. What kind of restaurant does he work at? If it's like a bar I could see that sort of thing being much more common since they attract more of the "crazy partier" type of personality. But at an upscale restaurant, they typically won't tolerate that kind of behavior.

Thanks for your input. He's not a co-worker. He's my husband, talking about his co-workers. I've been at my job for over 15 years because most of my co-workers are very well-behaved, religious people. I'm not particularly religious myself, but I appreciate their committment to their apostolate.

I think my husband is trying to hand me some BS to justify his job-quitting, but he seems so convinced of these wild stories that I wonder if he may just have dismal luck in picking jobs if he always winds up with weirdos like these.

Aside from the poisoning part, I've personally known many people who do all the things he described, and most of them did work either in restaurants (not the really classy ones, though) and bars, as labourers, or were unemployed. Many of them have plenty of stories of their coworkers doing the same sort of thing as well, and many of them change jobs frequently but tend to stay in the same industry.

My guess is that it's because those are all plentiful jobs with low training requirements and high turnover, where it's actually possible to lead that sort of lifestyle and stay employed. In addition, working in a bar or a liquor-serving restaurant tends to constantly expose a person to heavy drinking (customers as well as coworkers). I think the fact that such behaviour is common in some of those places also can lead to employees starting to perceive it as normal and being more likely to begin or maintain it themselves, also.

I'm sure that people living those kinds of lifestyles wouldn't admit to it easily, especially when employed and with a family. Some people are good at acting respectable outside of certain environments so that unless you see their behaviour first hand, you may not notice their immorality. For that reason alone it's probably more common than you think.

What's troubling is that the HR department, manager, owner, etc don't get involved or monitor performance enough to stop that kind of behaviour at the workplace. I can see it happening at a place that isn't managed very well.

Assuming that most of these stories are true, but slightly exaggerated,
they have mainly to do with co-workers personal habits and home life.
It is hard to imagine that every co-worker mentioned would be too drugged to work safely.

Why then would he leave because of co-workers private lives and habits?
The grit in the fuel tank is an offence, but how was he sure about it? Why would he be targeted with poison and car damage?

Unless the workers lifestyle choices are causing a health and safety risk at work, I can't see it as a valid reason to quit.

The behaviors listed as well as gossip, clicking, brown nosing are all reasons why it scares me to work again. I worked for 8 months with cheaters, gossipers, etc. and because I was quiet and didn't divulge my personal life nor join in the gossip I was picked on, constantly questioned and eventually got my hours cut! This was in the health care field and some people would come to work high or drunk.

Sounds like about half the restaurants I've worked in, and not just the shady ones either. The restaurant industry is a *little* different than most others, unless you're working for a chain you typically don't have HR or layers of management, many of the workers are transient, drug testing is rare, and if you show up on time and do your job no one really cares what you're on.

I worked at a wing joint in Denver where the cooks kept 40s on the counter above their line stations and watched pornos with the sound off while they cooked (never got the appeal there), the manager was drunk half the time, the floor staff were constantly hot-boxing the walk in, you name it. The first time I ever saw cocaine was at this place, the store manager would use his company ID card to break it up and line up rails on the prep table in the back.
Another place I worked, the staff did a robust side business in stolen goods, as the store had gotten a reputation as somewhere that you could usually find a buyer for electronics and other consumer goods. I still have a plasma TV that I bought out of the trunk of a car, $200 back in '07. We sold a lot of weed out of that store too, though that was mostly one coworker in particular.

I currently work at a pretty classy place, and though no one shows up drunk or anything, we're allowed to drink on the clock as long as we keep it under control. Our walk in doesn't see much hookup action, though we also have a very small and all male staff; at one of my previous jobs, the dough room was the preferred place for workplace trysts.

In short, those stories sound absolutely legit to this food service veteran, certainly no worse than I've personally seen.

After working in hospitality for quite a few years when I was younger - this stuff isn't uncommon. I would go so far as to say it is the norm in hospitality in many places, unless you're talking 5 star. I worked in a great place at my first job - then when I moved, I found out what the usual was - and hell I was in for a shock. I got out of there as soon as I could - but I have still worked in 2 places like the one he describes. Most of my jobs have been at high end places though.

Almost everyone I know who works in hospitality either smokes, drinks or does drugs in order to cope with the stress of the job. It's full on, all the time - and more often that not when it's constant it's too much to handle on a long term basis. It's one of the reasons the field has such a high turnover rate.

One of my old head chefs: smokes, drinks, does weed - all daily - and only drinks cola and coffee ~ never water (and I mean never), doesn't eat more than once a day. And he was one of the sane ones. Another younger 3 from the kitchen at the same place have all ruined their lives by getting involved in harder drugs plus weed, drinking and smoking. One of them used to always come in either stoned or tripping off acid - it was normal for him. The other 2 used to come in stoned or hungover regularly.

This stuff doesn't go on in most 5 star places or you're out of a job, but anything under that and it's usually free game.

The managers and waitresses were no better. One manager took 400 dollars from the till to pay her rent and got fired for it. Another waitress had slept with every single male staff member we had there at the same time she was except 2 (so over 18 guys). And this was just in one restaurant. And there was a lot more than what I'm saying - this was just a small snapshot of it, there was a hell of a lot more - I won't say the things we walked in on multiple times.

Bottom line: Hospitality as an industry attracts certain kinds of people. Those who are truly good at their jobs and talented get promoted quickly and end up working in top end restaurants. Those who are there because they just need a job, consider other things more important than work, don't have any other qualification or experience, or generally just don't give a damn end up making up the majority of the industry. And yes the majority of the industry is pretty f*cked up.

It seems like being a cook/chef in many places seems to be quite a ride, Mindsigh. It can be a high stress environment and the pay is usually not great. A lot of drugs, booze, and sex can be involved in that case. Of coarse, I mostly base this off of some Anthony Bourdain Books that I've read and some people I used to know. I've also known people who like to get blazed before their job, however, the weed laws are very relaxed here generally, and a hit or two won't put most people in the can't function mindset anyways. I would not be surprised by people tripping, I've known people who apparently were on various strong hallucinogens while even at school, I guess they were comfortable enough, and they made it through. Putting grits in the gas tank sounds like something someone angry would do, but the poisoning part sounds pretty bad and not normal.

In most of these places, it's been the manager/owner engaging in the behaviour. My city is apparrently developing a rep as a food destination in the southern U. S., with lots of fantastic little independent restaurants with gourmet food. One of the local guys competed on Iron Chef and won, and another is a bestselling cookbook author.

I've worked short stints in several restaurants, lounges, bars and nightclubs, and I will say that restaurants are usually only one small step above nightclubs. And nightclubs don't have a very good reputation.

My experience in the restaurant industry wasn't this bad (to my knowledge anyway)
but my boss was drunk all the time, the cooks were high (just weed) all the time and the waitresses seemed pretty slu*ty although at the time I didn't even talk to girls

All of this is why I learned to cook and eat at home, or only eat at restaurants where the staff are asians and they have a good health/safety record.

I think most people would be shocked what goes on in a lot of restaurants.

My sister had a short stint at a fast food restaurant and told me that they often picked up food off the floor and served it.

This right here is the bottom line. Even at the nice places, chances are that something's going down in the back that you'd rather not know about.