A few years ago, I wasn’t surprised to hear rumors of a study of the nation’s prison population which reportedly found that the leading civilian occupation amon

A few years ago, I wasn’t surprised to hear rumors of a study of the nation’s prison population which reportedly found that the leading civilian occupation among inmates before they were put behind bars was “cook.” As most of us in the restaurant business know, there is a powerful strain of criminality in the industry, ranging from the dope-dealing busboy with beeper and cell phone to the restaurant owner who has two sets of accounting books. I spent quite a few formative years working in food service/kitchen jobs and this is definitely something I noticed. I came up with a theory as to why, which I think is largely still true: Preparing food is a “fast loop” activity. By this I mean that the amount of time it takes to go from putting in work to seeing a reward is fairly short, often only a few minutes. You see the efforts of your labor quickly, without needing to conceptualize the idea of receiving a reward at some unknown point in the future. This makes it ideal for those with short attention spans, the type of people that do eat the marshmallow instead of waiting for a greater reward. [1.] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen...