What do we do?

I came home from work the other night. Typical Saturday; up at 8:00, off to the cafe for a little prep/backup shift. Done around 2:00 and then off to the PM place to bust out some prep and get ready for service. Usually finish anywhere between 9:30 and 11:00. My roommate, a 'wine guy' ,more will be discussed on what 'wine guy' means later, asks me if I want to come work for him. "Better hours, better pay", both attractive ideas. "You'd be able to enjoy cooking again", what? What the fuck? If I didn't enjoy cooking for a living, then why the fuck would I be cooking for a living. Nobody in there right mind would; 1)get paid shit, 2)wallow in stress about wether total know nothing strangers approve of their work, and 3)have little or no job stability, unless there was joy coming from it. See there is this general disconnect between what people think cooks are and what we really are. I do love to cook at home, though I don't do it very often. It's the old 'a Mechanic never works on his own car' addage. It's what really got me into this whole trip, but make no mistake the two things are completely different. You see it isn't about a love affair with food, though that's important if you don't want to get burned out and actually want to be more than a line cook. It's not about entertaining friends, though it is satisfying when customers pass on kudos throught the window and you develope friendly regulars. What it really isn't about is some sort of bullshit misconception involving creativity. There are no artists in the kitchen when the doors open. It's about people ordering a shit load of food, and being prepared enough and capable enough to bust it out perfectly every single time. It's about adrenaline, it's about speed, it's about getting your ass kicked and liking it. Knowing that the customers are lining up to kick your ass confirms that what your doing is good. And the faster you can do it and still be good even better. It's about transforming your self into a machine for six hours straight and doing nothing but reacting to what customers want. No home cooking is not like this. You are comparing some fat assed house wife jumping on a treadmill to El Guerrouj running the 1500. (A little aside, El Guerrouj is a world class miler, and has dominated middle distances for the past 5+ years. I guess for sake of clarity I just should have said "Some really fast olympic mother fucker" instead of actually naming someone. But you know, I'm here to educate). It's stressfull, it's potentially chaotic, it's underappreciated, but damn it can be fun. There is no finer feeling, (let me qualify. Anytime I use superlatives, or comparisons where the only thing that could be better would be sex, fell free to imply it. Consider it a sophisticated literary tool. It also saves time. I could write 'There is no finer feeling' or I could write the more cumbersome line: 'There is no finer feeling...other than having Scarlett Johansson tickling my balls oh so gently after hours of viagra and coke induced porn sex.' That would also be presumptuous. I have never taken viagra). Sometimes it feels like the restaurant is about to burn down around you, crumbling, smoldering pile of brick and glass, yet all you can do is calmly go about your job as efficiently as possible. Like some sort of lame matrix shit, all you see is people moving in slow motion while your chucking out perfect plate after perfect plate.