Don't Burn Bridges!

So yesterday was a great day at a food convention, getting my class off-campus is hard but often worth the effort.  Let's add the fact that the students get to graze through the whole place, they love it.

As our day got underway, I ran into two chefs that I worked with in my last job. I loved catching up with them. They also were had a group of culinarian students with them.

I was sitting with a few of my students when my chefs walked by. Surprise! One of my kids had worked with one of my chefs before entering my program.  Small world, right.

Lesson to be learned? You never know when or where you will run into people. Luckily, their meeting was a positive one. Be careful not to burn your bridges. Their meeting could have been a disaster.

The culinary world is big but not big. There's movement all the time, folks work in the industry for lots of temporary careers, waiting tables part-time while in college, for example.  But those of us who have spent 30 years as a chef or something else,  you get to know many key people in the local market. Those folks you don't know are just 3 degrees of separation from each other.

Younger folks don't really understand that type of connections before it has bitten them in the butt.

If you burn all of your bridges, you may find yourself living on an island, without a boat.