Product. Passion & Salt.

Most people wear some kind of uniform at work.  Or school.  Maybe it’s a suit, a white shirt and a length of colored ribbon knotted around the neck, maybe it’s high heels and makeup.  For me, it’s jeans and Lucchese boots (although I have recently begun wearing Birks.  So sue me.)

I’ve been wearing jeans pretty much exclusively for over 45 years.   I got married in jeans in ’76.   In fact, it’s probably not a stretch to say that being able to be myself and not having to wear a suit or tie was a major factor in my choosing to become a cook.  It was definitely a factor in my choosing Memphis State for my freshman year of college as the other schools I applied to back in 1970 did not allow jeans on campus.  Seriously.

But I digress.

I wear jeans and do not own a pair of ‘slacks’.  It has become a point of pride.  So when I went to Las Vegas to interview for a job there I wore jeans.  I met the Executive ‘Chef’ and the vice president of Food and Beverage, then the Vice President in charge of restaurant development,  and then I met the President of the entire operation, all the while wearing jeans.  Finally I was invited into the inner sanctum to meet the owner.  I was wearing jeans.  And so it went.  I got the job.  In fact, I got a restaurant named after me.

A couple of months later we moved to Las Vegas and I reported to work at an off-site office building, as the hotel/casino was under construction.  On my first day the chef comes up to me and says “Sorry Jimmy, but you can’t wear jeans here”.

I felt as if my whole world was crumbling.

I noted that in seven interviews I wore jeans.  His reply: “When you open the restaurant you can wear jeans.  But here in the offices, you can’t.  Simple as that.”

So I went home to tell Stacey not to unpack our shit:  It looks like we’re going back to the East coast.  “You are not quitting this job over jeans!”  There was a tone in her voice that I had only heard once or twice in our marriage.

This sucks.

So I compromised on my scruples, my integrity and my identity and bought a pair of black Dockers.  For seven months I would ride my motorcycle to work wearing my jeans, go to my cubicle, open the drawer, pull out my Dockers and change, hoping nobody important would walk by.

I’m still trying to understand why that job didn’t work out……