Given duty, sort of chef is up and working (10)
I believe the answer is:
commission
'given duty sort' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both to do with social activities as well as being verbs in their base form.
Perhaps you can see a link between them that I can't see?
'chef is up and working' is the wordplay.
'chef' becomes 'commis' (I have seen 'Junior chef ' mean 'commis' so perhaps 'chef' could also mean 'commis').
'up' says the letters should be written in reverse (in down clue: letters go upwards).
'and' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'working' becomes 'on' (e.g. a machine is working or on).
'is' backwards is 'si'.
'commis'+'si'+'on'='COMMISSION'
'of' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for commission that I've seen before include "task" , "Instruction, command" .)