That’s the way you see it and that’s fine.

From my perspective as someone who spent 17 long years cooking in fine dining restaurants, I didn’t do it for you, I did it for me. You don’t understand my perspective because you think I’m being demeaned by the people who eat my food, but it’s not the way I see it.

It means a lot to me to work with the best. Cooking the best. Giving others the best. Showing that I can be the best. It’s a very special feeling and not easy to describe, I’m a cook not a poet.

I don’t know why you think that doing my job strips me of my dignity. I’ve been treated with much respect by my patrons over my career. People write newspaper articles about how amazing their experiences are when they come to a restaurant I’ve worked in. People buy me expensive wines and yearn for my attention. When I go out to eat myself I’m treated like a king and don’t have to pay. I have felt a lot of things, but never underappreciated.

There’s a certain pride and self respect that comes along with knowing you’re good at your art, your trade, your science. You can’t truly get great at something without paying attention to the details, and if you care to do that, you might consider more than the color of a bandaid.

But one thing is certain, that one detail, of the bandaid being blue, has a great many implications concerning a table side server in a fine dining restaurant.