b"I'll go in there and get the boxes with you, no problem, I don't mind helping out. That would be when I had some contactwith other cook. They were supposed to be there at four a.m., by the time they got there is another story. But, you know,that's the time they were supposed to be there.Why would they overlap the two?To help out, like I said. What started happening was on days when the morning tour people wouldn't come to work, I was already there. I would get a call from the manager, Hepbourn, start lunch. I'd only been on the job two weeks,there was nobody there training me, I had the workers in the kitchen and everybody got something to do.Were there menus and recipes for you?Yes, there was menus and recipes that came from higher-ups and they told you to do it like this. But that way didntwork. I had to learn how to cook the Department of Correction way. Every job you have, you have to cook according towhat the chef wants. Can't do it your way, you got to do what the chef wants. Some chefs want things blonde, not brown.The structure in Correction wasn't the same as working in a restaurant. You said that your wife had worked for the City of New York. Was she also a member of the union, the Teamsters Local 237?She was in a different union, DC [District Council] 37.Did you attend union meetings?Yes, I did. Before I came to the City, I'd already been a union member. I came from Local 6, the hotel and restaurantunion. And then before that, I was a member of Local 100, a member of Local 69, a member of Local 3. These were all partof the cooks union, they've all merged into Local 6 now. I think that's the next big union in the city that deals with hotelsand restaurants, that's Local 6.So, not only were you an experienced cook, you were an experienced union member as well?Right. But it wasn't an all the time thing.Sometime you go. And working nights, I couldn't go to a lot of events.When you work nights, your body chemistry changes. The time when you used to be going to sleep, you got to thinkabout getting up to going to work. When you come home in the morning, if you're the type of person who likes to have a beer after work, you're buying beer at 8 o'clock in the morning because you just got off work. So, people are buying coffee and say: This guy, look like he's got a drinking problem. But I just left work.Were the union meetings that you went to, business meetings?They were sort of business meetings.Because 237 was a new union to me, I wanted to try to know the ins and outsof this union. I came from Local 6 and I knew how that union worked. This is a new experience. I remember the first dayon the job, working for the Department of Correction. I met the shop steward, Ms. Bradley. We clicked from there and I always had a good rapport with the shop steward. If I had a problem, I could always call on Ms. Bradley. She was alwaysthere, and would say: I remember you; and things of that matter. Since I came from Local 6, I knew how to, let's say176 "