What Are The Hardest "Regular Person" Jobs?
This week on Redline Radio we had last year’s Top Chef winner and Executive Chef at Spiaggia, Joe Flamm on. The guy is the real deal. So Chicago it hurts. South side kid, son of a Police Officer and the type of guy you want to grab beers with. Awesome interview and he made us this incredible “Chicago Beef” dish out of Korean Shortrib and his homemade Giardinera. His path to being one of the best Chefs in the City and the Top Chef champion was incredible. Dropped out of college, started in a front of house position at a restaurant, then worked for free in the kitchen for free before getting a MAJOR raise all the way up to $5.90/hour. Long shifts, late nights, on your feet in the heat of a kitchen for 12 to 16 hours at a time then taking the redline all the way down to 95th at 2AM. Sounds like an ABSOLUTELY miserable job. The only way you put up with that type of schedule and pay is because you truly love what you’re doing. It made me think that being a chef might be the toughest “regular person” job. I mean Joe Flamm thought it was a good idea to just keep on working after he stabbed himself in the stomach. Oh I’m bleeding out…cool, just let me just clean it with grain alcohol and salt, wrap it up, and finish my shift like a PSYCHO
And when I say “regular person” that basically means all jobs that aren’t like Military jobs or being a trauma unit surgeon. I have worked my share of SHITTY jobs. I worked in a manufacturing machine shop facility in the summers during college. Shift started at 5am, ended at 3pm, and I did ALL the worst jobs in the factory because I was unskilled labor. Cleaning axel grease out of pits, sweeping floors, climbing under machines to vacuum up debris, etc. It SUCKED. Hard labor type shit. I still don’t think that compares to life in the kitchen because at the end of the day I still got paid pretty well for a 19 year old. Joe did all the worst jobs, for no money, and just kept grinding and grinding until he got to the top. Just an awesome episode and something everyone should listen to.
As far as the other difficult regular person jobs…I just tried to think of things I would NEVER want to do. Top of that list was middle school teacher. Peak punk ass smelly annoying kid phase and you’ve got to deal with HUNDREDS of them for very little money and then when you’re done with your 8 hours of punk ass kids you need to go home and grade papers that their dumbasses wrote and since you gave them a bad grade because they’re dumb you’ll hear from their millenial parents who want to know why you’re so hard on their dumb kid. No fucking thanks.