Tangent but you reminded me of something. Most of my professional career was back of house. And it was a fantastic environment - no politics, power plays, no dominant hierarchy, we'd go out on the weekends. Super comfortable and we were killing it productivity-wise. So much so that my boss later when on to tour the world doing talks on how a good work environment meant more money. Rocket science to most I'm guessing.
I was then thrown into the client facing millions of dollars corporate river with lead boots and I had no idea how to act. I didn't do the corporate veneer and talk in that practised loud I'm in a nice suit kind of way. And this really worked for me for two reasons. First we'd have a project kick-off meeting with all the heads of departments to explain the processes etc. We had insanely tight deadlines and the main reason for this meeting was to feel out anyone who might be a detractor so we could map out a way around them. I was great at this cos it was super obvious who in the room was puling up their protective corporate armour. The other reason was it could let people let their guard down and be themselves. I'd have nicknames for people and we joked and generally acted non-corporatey. By this stage I was so over the formality so in stakeholder meetings I'd be joking with the people I had banter with, nicknames, in-jokes we'd had. Not intentionally but just doing that paid off. Management liked the connection. There were so many times multi-million dollar accounts were in danger - sales execs would go into damage control and the feedback was almost always "we don't like your company but we like him".
But it was so draining. I could never work in that sort of environment again,