If you were a chef looking for work, which of these three places would you choose to work at?

"The Hotness"

The experience of even sitting in this restaurant is amazing. The most important word to describe this place is quality. The meals are delectable, the servers are friendly. You can tell that the people at this place are professionals – they understand the value of a job well done and will work that extra bit to make sure your food is delivered on time and with the utmost quality – otherwise they themselves would not be satisfied. Staff at the hot restaurant are operating at a whole other level. Anyone new to the restaurant industry should consider themselves lucky to be working alongside such talented people to learn from - there's no better way to grow! No room for pretenders here - you're either good or you're gone.

"The Local"

Quality is not bad. The food is not bad. *Everything*...not bad. There are random talks of "quality" here or there but it's mostly just talk. Sometimes there are flashes of brilliance - but overall you stil get the feeling there's something missing. The people in charge are competent, but just competent - not astounding.

"The Abyss"

Abandon all hope. You're amazed that these people are even still in business. It's debatable how many customers they serve, if you can call what they do "service". Oftentimes there are small but noticable gaps in quality; for example, a knife is missing half of its teeth or a chicken foccaccia sandwich is 30 minutes late, if delivered at all, and upon arrival it is ice cold and missing its pesto mayonnaise. The furniture and the waitresses are having a competition to see who is further worn down and decripit.

Well, that was easy...

I'm sure we're all thinking that the answer is obvious - we'd work at "The Hotness". Would it surprise you at all if I said, that in my experience, many people would try for the Local or even "The Abyss"? On the surface, it seems insane to think that we all wouldn't want to be working at the greatest restaurant, knowing that we were making the best food and making our customers the happiest. Many people work their way up from the Abyss to The Local to The Hotness over the course of their career, but just as many if not more go from The Hotness back to The Local or even The Abyss. The reasons are varied:

The Shining

Some will leave the Hotness simply because it is much harder to stand out among many talented people. Some of these people are truly very skilled but there are only so many head chef positions to go around! Other times they may be a mid-level chef but realize that a mid-level chef at the Hotness could mean a head chef position at the Local. This career choice is often unfortunate; after all, how do you learn and grow enough to be a Hotness Head Chef if you're working at the Local, where they are not as concerned with those things?

The Pretender/Over-Evaluator

This is the scourge of the culinary industry. The pretender has several years experience under his belt and an inflated sense of importance and his own abilities. Oftentimes the pretender talks a great game about quality and leadership only to display neither in important moments. Food he produces often looks great on the outside but is raw and cold on the inside and ultimately sickens the patron. Despite this, you may find it is hard to convince the pretender that he is at fault, or even to get the pretender to take a little more responsibility.

Sometimes this attitude isn't entirely his fault - he may have spent time as the lead at a lesser restaurant for a while and thereby felt erroneously that he should automatically be a head chef at the Hotness as well. Other times he has had so many years under his belt that he feels his experience automatically entitles him to a head chef role despite never having produced anything notable out of his kitchen.

What separates a Pretender from the average chef is their response to adversity in the kitchen. The average chef, if placed in the Hotness, will realize he has much to learn and will work hard to become a competent peer. The Pretender, on the other hand, doesn't want to do that much work to become good - after all, quality is hard work! They will most likely leave to another Local restaurant and attempt to become a head chef there, rather than be fired.

This path to the Local or the Abyss is the most frightening, because many junior chefs get their start at one of these and then have no choice but to be "mentored" by the Pretender and his bad habits. This is particularly problematic - after all, it's a lot harder to unlearn techniques than it is to learn them in the first place.

Money

Sometimes the Hotness doesn't always need to pay an insane amount of cash to its workers - after all, the environment is so awesome and the people so passionate about what they do that they really don't mind making a little bit less. Every so often, however, the Abyss or the Local throw a lot of extra cash at some of these workers to come work for them instead. You'll find several workers migrating because of this - not everyone is motivated by the same things, and hey, we've all got families to feed, right?

Ambition

If you're already a head chef at the Hotness, where do you take your career in the future? Is there progression? Some of the more driven souls want the challenge of making a *new* Hotness out of a Local, or (goodness forbid) even an Abyss. This is certainly tough work and is a huge risk - there's a good chance that rather than making a new Hotness, you'll just succeed in burning yourself out. But the rewards are what make the risk worthwhile - after all, nothing in life comes without great risk, right?

In lieu of a good conclusion...

What kind of chef are you?   What restaurant do you work at?  What restaurant would you *like* to be working at?  What drives you?  Could I beat this analogy any further to death?