The Corporate Detox

I’ve fallen in love with food again. It happened at the Tuscan Gun Officine Alimentari in Brooklyn with Chef Gabriele Corcos serving as the interventionalist. The food was surprising, inspired and delicious. I remembered at that moment why I chose hospitality as my industry and culinary strategy as my specialty.

It’s been a long road to recovery after last August when my position was eliminated at the company where I worked for just under 24 years. It’s not a unique story involving the consolidation of resources under private equity ownership and a new (albeit short-lived) CEO. It’s not a unique story, but it’s my story.

Within a week, I had a trip booked to Thailand with an open-ended return. The idea was to replace my daily rhythms with new experiences, to remind myself that the world is infinitely larger than my perceptions, and to evolve my sense of self beyond the trappings of my career. While I’m blessed with an amazing family life, I believe that whatever you think about most is what is most important to you. The regularity with which I woke at 3:00 AM thinking about work made it clear that protecting my company’s business interests was more important than protecting my quality of life.

As I started my days in Thailand, I fretted that I shouldn’t be spending such money since I was newly unemployed. I decided that I needed to get $10K’s worth of spiritual enlightenment to justify my journey. It’s a laughable proposition now, but was a natural reaction considering I just came from a company tightening every dime under a leadership of hammers. Empirically I knew that inspiration isn’t a boardroom exercise quantified by Finance then marketed in PowerPoint, but every waking working day had convinced me otherwise. It wasn’t until Chiang Mai, the ancient capital of Thailand still enrobed by fortress walls, that I gave myself a break and considered that I might have earned this walkabout after 24 years of service.

The food in Chiang Mai was fresh, clean and uncomplicated. The best meal I had was prepared in a driveway and served on a picnic table. I tasted bok choy, not sugar. I tasted the aromatics of basil, not salt. Flavor wasn’t punctuated to obviousness in a test kitchen. I was gratefully reminded that food need not be so complicated. In fact, my life need not be so complicated. I continued my adventure with nary a thought to how I might reinvigorate the casual dining consumer. This wasn’t their journey.

That isn’t to say that I had an answer for my own path forward once this walkabout wound its way back home. I aspired for clarity in my career and thought to talk to a monk. A few temples throughout Thailand offered "monk chats" where you can ask a question and younger monks answer while practicing their English. My planned question was along the lines of "What's a man to do when they invested so much of themselves into their work and it's taken away?" I knew the intellectual answer (you work towards new work) and the spiritual answer (you accept the fact, listen for guidance, and do the work once the answer comes) and the short term answer (you travel Thailand and trust that you'll know the right next steps when you get back). Would a monk have deeper insight?

I ventured to Wat Chedi Luang in central Chaing Mai for their scheduled monk chat and was faced with a fee for admission. This elicited a weird feeling in my gut when I considered the role of money in my question. I decided to skip the chat and just revisit Wat Phan Tao next door, which was my favorite temple with its chanting monks, lots of wood, and hundreds of calming blue flags. I took off my shoes, walked in, and found a spot to sit. A dog walked up to me and laid down. She had a gash over her right eye, but it was treated so that made me happy. I gave her love beneath a Buddha who sat with one hand open and the other turned down. The dog and I spent ten minutes together on the floor of the temple. The Buddha let me know that what I have is enough, that what is in my hand is all I need and I need no more. Whether cosmic direction or just time with a calming dog I named Buddha, I had my answer.

My walkabout continued. After a visit to the backpacker haven of Pai where quesadillas and cheeseburgers constituted the street cuisine, I made it further up the countryside to Mae Hong Son in pursuit of Thai culture unencumbered by the tourist trappings. This is where my ego imprinted the journey to bring its own enlightenment since I was an American seeking Thai authenticity.

Mae Hong Son is a beautiful town with an even more beautiful countryside. My backpack and I were dropped off at the bus station and I hiked to a guest house amidst huts, trash heaps, and stray dogs. The authenticity I was craving was on full display, but soon its reality replaced my romanticism. The cuisine was delicious, but most every bite yielded a bone and gristle because locals would never waste. My guesthouse was well-appointed, but a new slew of bugs greeted me at every trip to the bathroom. The streets were safe, but stray dogs followed my every move and their fights electrified the night. Mae Hong Son appropriately reminded me that I was a visitor with ingrained concepts of comfort. The pursuit of authenticity is a variation on arrogance. I was a tourist. My mere presence altered the landscape almost as much as my perceptions. I rented a moped and finished my time in the north as a tourist.

I explored the island life of Thailand for a few weeks before experiencing the rustic urbanity of Siem Reap, Cambodia. If I were a salesman, I would look to the hawkers and masseuses of Siem Reap as the embodiment of never taking no for an answer. Khao San Road in Bangkok and Bangla Road in Phuket were tame by comparison because the merchants were committed to do what they do best – sell. The hotels and restaurants likewise embodied service excellence. Most every Cambodian I encountered performed their function as if their welfare depended upon it, because in many cases it did. It hurt my heart to recognize desperation as a motivation for performance. I left Cambodia as a more grateful man.

That gratitude reached even deeper depths as I traveled next to India. I won’t do justice to the degree of poverty and need that I witnessed in a country so rich in flavor and culture. The population far outnumbers resources and opportunity. I was humbled by what I saw and frankly grateful that I would eventually return home. I read a quote from Gandhi where he weighed the morality of industrialization. “Mechanization is good when the hands are too few for the work intended to be accomplished. It is an evil when there are more hands than required for the work.” This reminded me of one of my first experiences looking at the profitability of the company where I worked.

Millions in profit were being delivered one year to the family that owned the concept, but its total fell short of the targets. Naively, I thought how that should be alright since the family still made millions while thousands of people were being employed. I would of course learn that plans, investments and profits were a lot more complex than that in America (and would ultimately deliver millions in profits myself), but the fact of employing people is still a responsibility. The business must get served, but it’s people that are led.

In India, I had no pretense that I was anything other than a tourist. A local foodie took me to his favorite places where I enjoyed the best meals of my entire walkabout. In mass American cuisine, three ingredients are elevated as its standard bearers of flavor: salt, sugar and fat. India reminded me that flavor is more complex than what typically draws our attention.

My walkabout continued through Vienna, Salzburg and ultimately Paris where I dropped the backpack and checked into a premium hotel. I can’t help but wonder if the general austerity of my travels were a penance of sorts for my previous intoxication with corporate expectations. I had elevated work, status and income as priorities. That’s not to say I wasn’t inspired, because I was energized by the work and my team for the bulk of my career. Having started as a waiter, every couple of years gave me a new opportunity built on hard work until I owned the menu and ran the culinary team. In the last few months of my tenure however, it seemed every day became a fight for those ideals and I feared losing what I’d worked so hard to achieve. Fear corrodes inspiration and so signaled the end. The joy of food had been replaced with its commodification.

Fast forward to the Tuscan Grill. I sat at a counter being gifted with amazing flavors, great conversations, and culinary inspiration. I was reminded that I love food with its surprises and creativity. What a gift it is to work in such a dynamic industry whose primary function revolves around bringing people together. I had spent months putting distance from where my career ended to only be brought back to why it started.

A good friend of mine said “welcome back” after my walkabout. After replying that I was grateful to be home, he said “No, I didn’t mean welcome home. I meant welcome back. This past year, you let your work consume you. It's good to see the light back in your eyes." My corporate detox was at hand.

I’ve since moved with my family back to New York and started D.Square Hospitality with a mission to help restaurants become the best version of themselves. It starts with inspiration and why we do the work we do. Though we may sometimes lose our way, there will always be a path to lead you back home.