Hayden Scott was the bloke who got things done. Fixed problems, kept going, and didn’t make a fuss.
Then he started feeling sick on the drive to work.
After 25 years as a chef, including 15 working alongside acclaimed restaurateur and chef Al Brown, something had shifted. The anxious, unsettled feeling Scott associated with giving a big speech was turning up on an ordinary commute.
“Why am I feeling this driving to work every day?” he asked himself.
For someone accustomed to delivering under pressure in busy restaurant kitchens, admitting he wasn’t coping proved harder than facing another long shift.
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“I fix problems, I solve problems, I get stuff done silently, so everyone’s just going to assume that I’m always okay until I start telling them I’m not.”
It’s a common problem in the workplace and one that men in particular often grapple with alone. The hospitality industry has a special reputation for being a pressure cooker environment.
The public image of hard-charging celebrity chefs like Anthony Bourdain, Marco Pierre-White, and Gordon Ramsay associated culinary excellence with conflict, dysfunction and a culture of pushing through service at all costs.
Getting through, at a cost
Early in his career, Scott, who grew up in a small town in South Otago, dealt with kitchen pressures like many chefs and restaurant staff – by drinking.
“My coping mechanism was alcohol, which in hindsight is a very unhealthy way to deal with difficult things because it is just another form of bottling up.”
About 23, he stopped. He had begun noticing cracks in his behaviour and that of his co-workers. Giving up alcohol meant taking responsibility for his choices, but also changing how he spent his time.
Instead of staying for drinks after a shift, he went home to his wife. Friendships, painting and fixing bikes gave him things to care about beyond the kitchen.
Still, work usually came first. The hours were always long, and major catering events added an extra level of stress.
“I gave it everything I could, but definitely to my detriment at times,” Scott says.
Working with Brown, who made his name in Wellington with iconic restaurant Logan Brown before moving to Auckland to found popular eateries Depot, The Fed, and Best Ugly Bagels, brought Scott variety, travel and creative opportunities.
He’d be in the kitchen at Depot one day, helping Brown on a TV shoot the next. He loved the opportunity to learn. But after covid, he felt the effort going into hospitality was no longer producing the same results. The lockdowns were brutal for the industry, piling financial pressure on virtually everyone in it.
Scott describes businesses treading water and an increasingly painful mismatch between what he put in and what came back.
“I’m giving this everything I have, to be told that it’s not enough.”
It was, he says, “soul-crushing”.
The conversation he nearly avoided
Scott first talked with his wife and acknowledged that he wasn’t okay. Then came the conversation with Brown.
He waited until the end of the working day. Even then, he nearly backed out.
“My brain went, ‘You know what? Maybe tomorrow’s okay’.”
Instead, he walked into the office and asked: “Have you got a minute?”
He broke down in tears. Brown responded like a good friend and colleague would, with genuine concern, asking what they could do to fix the situation.
Scott realised he needed to leave. It was a thought that had never crossed his mind during their 15 years together. Now he wanted to find out whether the artisanal knife-making business he had gradually built in his spare time could become his livelihood.
The work itself had stopped giving him what he needed.
“Every day I come to work, I’m giving up a day of my life for something that is not meaningful to me any longer,” he explains.
His answer wasn’t to reject hard work. He still enjoys difficult things. But he now distinguishes between a challenge that helps him grow and prolonged suffering that drains him.
Strength isn’t staying silent
Scott remembers early overseas kitchens as hostile, “dog-eat-dog” workplaces. He has also seen kitchens where support, empathy and apologies make demanding work more manageable.
“Just be human, check in with them,” he says. “If you can see they’re struggling, give them five minutes of your time.”
High standards needn’t mean attacking someone’s worth. A technical problem calls for coaching, not humiliation.
“If this thing isn’t working, it doesn’t mean you’re no good as a person.”
To a young chef worried that asking for help looks weak, his message is blunt.
“I think there’s a real strength of character to put your hand up and say, ‘Hey, I’m in the shit over here’ or ‘I’m not doing okay, and I need some support’.”
Something worth talking about
Scott is taking that openness to The Talking Stick initiative during Mental Health Awareness Week (Oct 12-18). He’s teaming up with Brown, former Chiefs/Waikato Rugby player Dwayne Sweeney, and Aaron Styles, founder of the fishing-inspired lifestyle and menswear brand Just Another Fisherman, to encourage men to open up to their mates about what’s troubling them.
The Talking Stick is a collaboration between Just Another Fisherman and fishing rod maker Daiwa to raise funds for mental health charity Gumboot Friday. They are urging anglers to talk to their mates while out on the water.
For Scott, doing something alongside someone can make a difficult conversation less confrontational.
“The conversation’s easier when you’re sort of distracted and focused on a task like fishing,” he says.
Therapy helped him recognise what matters – family, connection and creativity. Making knives under his own brand, Champion Knives, which has been featured on the YouTube channel of Kiwi and YouTube celebrity chef Andy Hearnden, brings those things together while keeping him connected to food.
He is as ambitious as ever. But he has found work that gives something back.
And speaking honestly, he says, can help others do the same.
“Me letting you know that I have a tough time is kind of granting you permission to go, ‘Oh yeah, I have tough times too’.”
This is editorial produced by our journalists. Southern Cross Healthcare is a sponsor of the Working Well series but does not necessarily endorse these articles. It is not its opinion. Read more in the series as it progresses here.