Research has shown that happier employees are more productive in the workplace.
For the globe-trotting, Emmy Award-winning host of “Parts Unknown,” chef Anthony Bourdain, that can be achieved with one simple rule.
“The No A–hole Rule,” Bourdain said in a recent New Yorker podcast interview, when asked how he avoided burnout. “Absolutely everyone I do business with I like. I always ask myself: Look. There’s a lot of money involved here—but if the phone rings at 10 at night, am I going to go, ‘aw damn’? I’m not going to do that… life is too short.”
He added he doesn’t want to do anything that he’d be ashamed of — another necessity for surviving the the sometimes brutal restaurant business.
“Quality of life is very important to me,” he said.
For his job on the show, Bourdain has to work with quite a few people. He has to work with locals in Egypt, drivers and fixers, that may work for the government’s Interior Ministry. According to Bourdain, these drivers and fixers controlled what the film crew could shoot in the country.
Bourdain also authored a memoir, “Kitchen Confidential” in 2007, just one of several books.