ethnicity, and gender affect how workers experience their busiest periods, most cooks whom I observed indicated that their reactions depend on the “quality” of the day. The rush has a situated quality, determined by what has occurred before and during. This is evident when a cook notes that his “high” occurs when work is “smooth.” Cooks (and other workers) may use a drug metaphor to explain feelings of mental transformation: “It can be a downer or an upper. When you're all set and you're ready for it, it can be great. When things are happening that aren't supposed to, it can be a nightmare. It's a good night when you look at the clock and it's already ten-thirty” (Field notes, Owl's Nest). As with drugs, the emotion is not merely chemical but also social. Cooks distinguish between days in which things go well and other days in which things have not been prepared or external forces break their expectations: “I ask Ralph whether he enjoys the breakfast rush. ‘Some days I do; some days I absolutely hate it.' [Then I ask him] what does it depend on? ‘How smoothly things are going. It can be very stressful. Mr. Businessman has to get to his meeting, so you have to get his eggs on the table quickly…. You've got to perform’ ” (Field notes, Blakemore Hotel). Despite the situated character of the rush, several cooks remarked that their reactions are “automatic” in that they do not consciously plan or control their emotions or behavior resulting from the demands made of them. They have incorporated the response to the rush into their behavioral repertoire. This image of the rush is similar to “flow” in leisure (Csikszentmihalyi 1975). Cooks can be so caught up in the tempo and rhythm of their work that all else is transfixed. Just because these experiences respond to external forces—an interaction between self, other, and context—doesn't mean that they are consciously willed. Cooks remarked:
[A rush is] like a beat to music where you get a beat and start working with it, and bang, bang, food's being done automatically. I get a song in my head, and if work's going great, I can hear that song in my mind and work with it.
(Personal interview, Owl's Nest)
I concentrate totally, so I don't know how I feel. I'm not even conscious of it. It's like a third sense just takes over.
(Personal interview, La Pomme de Terre)
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