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I'm starting to regret not having kids. Because I have no idea how to deal with a human being refusing to come when I call him, not do his chores despite many gentle and firm reminders, and constantly go to Daddy to give him things I have taken away because of his bad behavior. Can I send my servers to one of those island reform schools where they torture and "reprogram" troubled kids whose parents don't want to deal with them?
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Aug 4, 2013 05:03
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| # ? May 5, 2024 21:17 |
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Send them to military school to learn some discipline.
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Aug 4, 2013 05:07
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Make them repeat it 3 times back to you, if they don't 4 times, then 5 etc
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Aug 4, 2013 06:06
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Wroughtirony posted:I'm starting to regret not having kids. While I don't think a reform school exists I've found a lot of parallels over the years between running a kitchen and a classroom. No matter how little you think they deserve it give them a tiny speck of respect cause they'll pay it back in spades. You don't have to be their friend at all but fair but firm works for me. The other thing that might work is trying to set up some sort of negotiated rules that you have some control over but that they feel they have some control over which tends to push them towards obeying the rules in general without too much coercion
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Aug 4, 2013 15:58
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Shooting Blanks posted:I was the bar manager at Beavers when they opened. Eat there. Much respect. The Myer lemon radish salad won me over. Never had a bad dish there. Its obvious the chef/cooks love what they do. Work is still an insane pressure cooker. I like it. Wish I could get more/better floor staff but I'm surviving.
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Aug 5, 2013 03:14
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knohDiCp9fg How long would you last before you just stabbed the motherfucker with the camera?
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Aug 5, 2013 05:44
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Not while he's on the slicer!! What the gently caress, seriously. Maybe that dude had some horrible French nightmare life, made to watch videos of his wife being murdered while he was tied down and mechanically masturbated in some Clockwork Orange type scenario, and he was now scared shitless of cameras and lived a solitary life in kitchens because the only way he could find a woman sexually attractive was if she was being murdered, and this prick is making him relive that poo poo six times a day. Also, he's clearly a low guy on the totem pole doing lots of prep and cleanup, like seriously, gently caress you. Those kinds of guys are the loving lifeblood and morale of any kitchen.
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Aug 5, 2013 06:17
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Hello industry thread. Longtime lurker, first time poster. So, a little about myself. The first job I got, literally the week I graduated high school, was at a mom and pop restaurant in my home town. I started washing dishes and within 2 years I was running the kitchen. I worked there 6 and a half years, then moved to another state (Nevada). There, I worked in a small organic kitchen for 6 months. After that, I fell into a retail job making about 4x what I was making as a cook and left for greener pastures. but back home in the original state I came from (South Carolina). It's been five years since I left the kitchen for sales/retail, and i've hated nearly every goddamn minute of it. During the 7 years in the kitchen, a good part of which I worked 6 days a week, I missed ONE day. Ever. I called out ONE time. Two weeks ago at my current job, I called out two days in a row just because I can't loving stand working there. It's always been in the back of my mind that I actually ENJOYED cooking, and it's what I should be doing, money be damned. Then, in March, there was a casting call for a tv show on Food Network that I entered with a partner. We entered, did a ton of interviews and paperwork, moved on round after round, and eventually got to the point where they had to tell us yes or no. It was a no, and although heartbroken that I wasn't going to be on TV, it made me realize it was time to make a move. I had a friend that knew the owner of a local restaurant that's been open 2 years that has been very successful. The owner is opening a 2nd location, with a different menu, in the same city and needed staff. He got me an interview, and it went something like this: Him: What are you doing now? How long have you been out of the kitchen? Me: Wasting my life away in retail sales. 5 years. Him: Do you have knife skills? Me: Yeah, but they are rusty. They are there, though. Him: Do you have experience with high volume? Me: Place I worked at for 6 and a half years did 700-1000 people on Sundays. Him: Can you wait a month? We open at the end of September and will be training two weeks before. Me: Yep. Him: Cool. Welcome aboard. Immediately, I remembered why I liked the kitchen so much. No more stuffy "wear a suit and tie" to an interview for some goddawful soul sucking lovely job doing sales for poo poo people don't need for a company run by incompetent assholes. It was personable, it was real, and it is what I have been missing. Bonus: My girlfriend and I are moving back to this town at the end of September after living in a slightly bigger town about 30 minutes away. The new location where I will be working? 0.4 miles away. It's like it's fate or something. Sorry for the wall of text, but I hope to be in this thread in about 6 weeks, right alongside you guys, bitching about terrible servers and lovely hours. Cheers!
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Aug 5, 2013 07:22
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It's been eight years that I've been in the industry. You guys know the stories. Booze, drugs, waitresses, adrenaline. I love it, I hate it. I've been wasting the last year of my life running the kitchen in a comedy club. It's brutal. None of my bosses have ever worked anything other than 9-5 office jobs before they opened a club. I get two turns a night of 270 people who literally all sit down at once. My tickets print at the bar and are walked back to the kitchen by the waitstaff and hung where ever they feel like hanging them. All of my kitchen staff are 18 year old kids who have never had a job before, which would be fine except they're all related to the owners and know that I have no real power to discipline them. I'm burning out. I feel my passion for food slipping away, and if I leave this place, unless they get lucky with a new hire, it will fall apart. I've been offered an office job making literally twice what I make now. I know it's the smart move, I know I'll be miserable in months. Then, during a drunken 3 am dinner party, I run into a local restaurateur who owns my buddy's joint. Her other restaurant is easily the best restaurant in my city, and she wants me to work there. It's a place where I can grow as a cook, where people have passion for food and take huge amounts of pride in what they do. It, however, pays the same as what I make now, and I've been the boss for so long now that working under a chef is going to be a bit of a system shock. I'm torn. I love food first and foremost. The industry is something that's grown into a part of who I am. I know this was a very E/N post. It started as a sort of eulogy to my cooking career, but now that I've written it out I'm almost positive I'm going to take this job at the restaurant.
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Aug 5, 2013 19:51
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I love reading this thread. I had a point where I was seriously considering becoming a cook for a career but there was always stupid little things I couldn't deal with, and after working in 3 different kitchens as well as being on 2 opening teams for new ones I gave up. I still cook at home and enjoy it, I'll just never get a job in a kitchen unless it's a last resort. The places I worked at were a mid-range decent steakhouse, an independent fast food wrap joint and a bistro. The worst was the fast food wrap place - even though the owners had other successful, high scale restaurants in the city next to it they did some really awful poo poo, including: -The kitchen manager would dig through the trash in the morning/after work to find take out boxes that weren't stained and have the girls up front re-use them. This guy would also not properly wash the cutting boards and insist that you could just give the one you prepared meat on a quick rinse and start cutting salad greens. -The cook, who was also one of the owners, repeatedly told me that only men should be in the kitchen and I was worthless to him, so he only gave me lovely prep work to do since it was "woman's work". He'd spend his shifts saying I was only there until he found a replacement for me and that I only was in the kitchen because he wanted to leave earlier to go drink beer at the bar down the street. He then forced me to quit by cornering me in the office and physically blocked me from leaving to "fire" me. -The other owner was the stereotypical clueless old man. For some reason he's trying to work up front with the girls assembling wraps instead of sitting in the office or doing manager things, which ends up being really gross. He'll be cleaning the floor and switch to making a wrap without washing his hands or putting on gloves. We've caught him picking his nose, wipe it off on his shirt or pants and then go back to grilling. At least I ended up learning how to make really good creme brulees at my one job 
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Aug 5, 2013 20:03
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Welp, I'm awake at 3pm and here to say I did it. I got the job. I only had to do two days of training instead of three, and the owner simply told me to come back Thursday to get my apron, and I'm on the schedule now. This place is the next level compared to that lovely sorry bistro. Which is to say, it's a normal restaurant that crosses its t's and dots its i's. This guy does NOT gently caress around, the amount of opening and closing prep is intense. I'm doing my best to make the waiters happy and ingratiate myself, and I'm ready to be pretty torn apart after a month of this stuff -- I have to run up a flight of stairs for patio work at least a 100 times a night, so thighs of steel, here I come. I guess what helped is that at the end of last night, the owner came up to me. He told me that his parents do not speak english, but they liked me and thought I worked hard from what they saw; suddenly it made sense to me why there was this plain clothes old man lurking in the kitchen and glaring at me all drat night. I guess I don't get the idea of slacking on this sort of job. There's so much to do and you want 8 hours to go by as fast as possible with happy waiters, so just standing around and diddling myself never crossed my mind. Either way what a god drat relief. I can finally sleep at night and hopefully make enough to cover rent, since I'll be working 5-6 days a week it looks.
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Aug 5, 2013 20:18
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80% of the morning is dead. Yay! I can get some work done! Oh! It's 8am so here's the bakery delivery and half a dozen tables walking in at once. I can put away cakes, just gotta grab some gloves... drat they bought powdered. I'll remember not to touch my clothes... Oh hey they brought too many eclairs! Again! Get another tray... Phone for me? Fine. Don't touch clothes.... "Is this the manager?" "This is she." "Hi, I'm calling from blah-de-blah banking and I need to speak to the manager." "Yes. My name is Wrought. I am the general manager of this restaurant, but I don't have time to take a sales call." "This is not a sales call!" "Okay, what can I do for you?" "We are calling to offer you an oppor-" *click* *angrily brushes hands on black pants* Now where was I...
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Aug 7, 2013 02:10
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Well it looks like six months and I'll be out in the real world.. will I turn into a pretty pretty butterfly or go back to the old flame that we all love/hate? Tune in to find out!
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Aug 7, 2013 07:58
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It seems July has finally ended! Yesterday's volume was triple anything I've seen on Tuesday in a bit over a month and a touch more than what I was averaging in June. Now to just see if this sticks/keeps growing. Thinking about it maybe it'd have been better for this to start in 2ish weeks when we finish and switch to an updated menu.
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Aug 7, 2013 12:04
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Today's lesson to remember when doing prep work: when making lobster mashed potatoes, it's a good idea to actually put some lobster in it. Fortunately, it was a quick fix and it wasn't a desperate rush to get it done.
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Aug 8, 2013 01:03
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So close. Two more shifts on nights, and I switch to days. 
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Aug 8, 2013 21:27
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I don't have much kitchen experience beyond learning from my abuelita, She made some amazing tamales that I would always help wrap for her. Since her passing I inherited the recipe. Everyone that tries them seems to really like them and I've thought about selling them but there appears to be laws against selling homemade foods in my state. I know no other restaurants sell tamales in this town, I've looked. Should I just see if I can get nearby Mexican restaurants to try them and see if they'll purchase them? Since I got a few tamale spreaders I can churn them out pretty quickly.
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Aug 8, 2013 22:31
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Not to get all internet sleuthy, but what state? I'm sure there has to be a mobile food vendor somewhere. You won't generally be able to make them in your kitchen and sell them on the sidewalk, but if you were serious about it you could investigate a stand or fairs and the like.
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Aug 9, 2013 00:57
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Yeah, investigate getting a food cart or the like for fairs. Alternatively, if you want to make batches to sell to restaurants, you can look into renting a small catering kitchen. Dunno how financially feasible that would be, though.
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Aug 9, 2013 01:53
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I know in Louisiana it is not difficult to get your home kitchen certified for a small catering operation. From there, you might have to look at permits for vending depending on where you want to sell. Alternatively you could talk to Mexican restaurants about you going in a few times a week and making tamales for them in their kitchen. Get on the schedule at a few places and it could be a good part time gig! They could just pay you as an employee and you wouldn't have to worry about permits.
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Aug 9, 2013 02:38
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Makob posted:I don't have much kitchen experience beyond learning from my abuelita, She made some amazing tamales that I would always help wrap for her. Since her passing I inherited the recipe. Everyone that tries them seems to really like them and I've thought about selling them but there appears to be laws against selling homemade foods in my state. I know no other restaurants sell tamales in this town, I've looked. Should I just see if I can get nearby Mexican restaurants to try them and see if they'll purchase them? Since I got a few tamale spreaders I can churn them out pretty quickly. I'm in Ohio and my momma made desserts as a hobby for a pretty nice italian place back when I was a kid. It even got to the point that they offered her a job as their head pastry person, but she turned it down after they talked her into doing something like 500 mini desserts for a single new years party in a single oven  .I imagine its pretty easy.
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Aug 9, 2013 03:49
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Makob posted:I don't have much kitchen experience beyond learning from my abuelita, She made some amazing tamales that I would always help wrap for her. Since her passing I inherited the recipe. Everyone that tries them seems to really like them and I've thought about selling them but there appears to be laws against selling homemade foods in my state. I know no other restaurants sell tamales in this town, I've looked. Should I just see if I can get nearby Mexican restaurants to try them and see if they'll purchase them? Since I got a few tamale spreaders I can churn them out pretty quickly. If your state has laws about producing food at home and selling it, then you certainly can't sell it to a restaurant-- that's actually more illegal! What you can do is look for commissaries that rent space to small food businesses, or look for a food lab that has multiple small cooking operations. Or! If you know anyone who owns a bar with a kitchen and proper food production licensure, you can go for it there.
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Aug 9, 2013 13:36
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Five minutes from walking out of a Starbucks and into the hotel down the street to do a tasting for a sous chef job. Please wish me luck. Need this job like a motherfucker. Unemployed in two days.
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Aug 9, 2013 15:30
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I was cut today because there's too much rain and the patio is closed. drat it. I hope business picks up soon, I'm already afraid of tips so meager I won't even be able to cover rent. EDIT: Good luck cods! You'll nail it.
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Aug 9, 2013 19:25
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Take 2/3 of every set of tips you take home and put them in a jar in your room. That way you have some cash to toss around, but you end up saving enough for next month's rent.
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Aug 9, 2013 21:50
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Kenning posted:Take 2/3 of every set of tips you take home and put them in a jar in your room. That way you have some cash to toss around, but you end up saving enough for next month's rent. That's the plan. I think the hours and minimum wage alone should be enough to cover rent and basic expenses (I got lucky with a place that has ALL utilities included, save for internet), I just hope that tips skyrocket next month when everyone comes back to college and the city is flooded. Otherwise it'll be another case of making money just to keep making money with no gains. I've also decided to record down what I get tipped by who every day, like the last job. It's interesting to see the trends and get a feeling for who likes me and who doesn't.
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Aug 9, 2013 22:36
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Tasting went alright. Was more of a chopped/dig through our walk in and make four courses, but I do a write up about that later when I have more time because I just got home and I have to wake up in a few because I have a follow up thing for Jr. Sous crack of dawn early somewhere else. Need quick advice: sell soul and be sous at hotel where there is a lot if frozen poo poo and everything comes pre-portioned or Jr. Sous at new farm to table resto but for a lot less money, no bennies etc? Also tomorrow is my last service at current restaurant so whatever I decide it has to be like soon.
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Aug 10, 2013 06:08
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Go for the hotel. You can slowly move away from most of the frozen food. When I started at my hotel, even some of the banquet food was out of the box. We make almost everything now, save for things like cheese and deli meats.
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Aug 10, 2013 06:44
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Ok so I hope working from 4:30-11:30 and then having to get right up at 7:30 for another 8 hour shift doesn't become a regular thing. I didn't work today but I can't really sleep and I need to be up in 6 hours. I don't mind working 6 days a week for 10 hours a day as long as the times are a little consistent. I imagine they're just testing me out for the morning shift though. I suddenly see why an intravenous drip of red bull is so common in these settings.
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Aug 10, 2013 06:50
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cods posted:Tasting went alright. Was more of a chopped/dig through our walk in and make four courses, but I do a write up about that later when I have more time because I just got home and I have to wake up in a few because I have a follow up thing for Jr. Sous crack of dawn early somewhere else. Take the loving hotel job. It's not selling your soul. I really wish people would stop with that attitude that making money, and having set hours, and benefits is somehow "selling out" or something. A hotel is large enough that you'll be able to do really amazing things, like take vacations, have sick days, and get health insurance. You're not going to get that at the special snowflake restaurants. At the end of the day, take care of you first. Once you get to the hotel, and have worked there for a time, there is nothing stopping you from crunching the numbers, and showing how buying some of the items fresh, and making them from scratch will still churn out consistent product (which is what a hotel will want; their customers want to know what to expect every time, and no surprises), and will save them money in ingredients, you have the option of bringing that in.
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Aug 10, 2013 15:40
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cods posted:Tasting went alright. Was more of a chopped/dig through our walk in and make four courses, but I do a write up about that later when I have more time because I just got home and I have to wake up in a few because I have a follow up thing for Jr. Sous crack of dawn early somewhere else. There is literally no point to working food service in NYC if you want to cook frozen premade food - do that poo poo someplace you can afford to have a nice apartment and a back yard. You already slogged through your first nyc resume building job, don't gently caress it up by bailing for a bullshit kitchen. Go work at daniel, or lafayette, or another place where the sous team and cdc is loving legit. Or better yet, stop asking for advice from a group of nobodies on an internet forum and ask your chef for advice.
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Aug 10, 2013 17:36
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infiniteguest posted:There is literally no point to working food service in NYC if you want to cook frozen premade food - do that poo poo someplace you can afford to have a nice apartment and a back yard. You already slogged through your first nyc resume building job, don't gently caress it up by bailing for a bullshit kitchen. Go work at daniel, or lafayette, or another place where the sous team and cdc is loving legit. Or better yet, stop asking for advice from a group of nobodies on an internet forum and ask your chef for advice. I read this as 'get the hell out of NYC, be happier'.
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Aug 10, 2013 18:33
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New York is a great place to work if you want to be broke, live beyond your means, and focus on advancing your craft by working under amazing talent. The competition is stiffer, and the pressure is way higher. You get to be "in the game," so to speak. It's also pretty gross and the real estate is terrible. I have managed to blindly stumble across a life I find acceptable (mostly because of a very tolerant partner who babysits idiot cooks like me for a living) but your average corporate cooking gig will be far more posh in an area where a ghetto studio apartment isn't $900. But we have cooks like Damon Wise.
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Aug 10, 2013 19:30
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I can do all of that here in Austin, and not be broke. Austin's a pretty good place to be in food right now. It's not NYC, but I like my paid vacation and corporate kitchen that lets me gently caress around and just decide to do some charcuterie because why not.
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Aug 11, 2013 03:19
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How do you feel about the Berserker work ethic in the kitchen, the guy or girl who works best when angry or stressed out who can easily and effortlessly wash dishes or plate well but on the other hand is as sociable as an angry shark who just smelled blood.
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Aug 11, 2013 04:00
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So best loving news of my life happed today. Had a sitdown to talk about the Jr. Sous job, expecting to get some lowball salary offer that would barely pay my bills and I was probably going to take it because I really didn't want to work in that hotel, but it ended up being for about 10k more a year, and in a few months(new restaurant) it's going to grow into a sous job when lunch service starts. Soooo relieved.... Today was my last day at my job before we close for a month, and because I pretty much just moved here so I can't afford to live off unemployment, or not work. And working only forty hours a week for the last two months has left me broke as gently caress and can barely get rent/bills paid. When I started I was working sixty so I could actually feed myself, and other such luxuries. I've been vomiting in the back of my throat 24/7 for the last few weeks worrying about being homeless and stressing out about not working. It's not official until I sign my offer letter Monday, but for the first time in over a month I can breathe. Thank you goons for listening to my bullsjit, because I know my grirlfiend is tired if it.
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Aug 11, 2013 05:32
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cods posted:So best loving news of my life happed today. Had a sitdown to talk about the Jr. Sous job, expecting to get some lowball salary offer that would barely pay my bills and I was probably going to take it because I really didn't want to work in that hotel, but it ended up being for about 10k more a year, and in a few months(new restaurant) it's going to grow into a sous job when lunch service starts. Congrats! You're going to kick rear end. I feel you on the significant other being sick of hearing about work stuff. Mr. W is very much not pleased about how much more time I spend talking/venting about my job since I got promoted. He has no problem "leaving it at the office" so why should I? When I took this job I had no idea how lonely it would be. I don't have any co-workers at the same level of management as I am. I have people who work under me, and people who work over me, and it's not really appropriate for me to commiserate with either. Don't get me wrong, the new job is great, but the lack of camaraderie has been an unexpected downside. gyrobot posted:How do you feel about the Berserker work ethic in the kitchen, the guy or girl who works best when angry or stressed out who can easily and effortlessly wash dishes or plate well but on the other hand is as sociable as an angry shark who just smelled blood. Either learn not to let their behavior effect your mood, or yell back at them. They probably won't mind because you'll be speaking their native language. One of my problem child waiters declared that he likes me better when I'm sick (nasty head cold) after I snapped "It's loving tilapia- it's a poo poo fish and we probably get it from a cesspit in loving China. Tell them it's from a free-range organic fish farm run by recovering heroin addicts in a commune in Idaho. What the gently caress." after he told me a guest would like to know where we source our fish. Apparently the chef told him our tilapia was wild-caught in the north Atlantic, and to gently caress off. (yes, I did go out and personally explain to the guest where our fish comes from, don't get your panties in a twist.)
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Aug 11, 2013 13:36
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Jesus Christ, it's like Portlandia in real life. loving tilapia?! Who gives a flying gently caress when you're talking about one of the most worthless pieces of fish. That's like asking for the source of your fried cube steak at a diner.
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Aug 12, 2013 15:00
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Were they happy fish though? That's really what matters here.
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Aug 12, 2013 16:03
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| # ? May 5, 2024 21:17 |
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Yeah the flavor is off if they died in fear or shame. I simply cannot bear a shamefish filet. 
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Aug 12, 2013 17:38
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