Well, that's the idea anyway.
I like the cooking part of my job a lot; OK, it's not what I ultimately want to do in a kitchen, but working out portions for 175 people, learning about vacuum cooking, serving to customers directly, setting up buffets of posh food - all something I'm glad to be able to tick off and move on from.
What I don't like is the bullying and the abuse and being treated like a small child. Today's lesson for three year olds: how to fold a paper towel. For two minutes. Then a minute on how to use it to wipe clean a whiteboard. Got that children? Now, here's one I prepared earlier...
It was, well, uncomfortable last week with the sous-chef unable to believe that, for example, I didn't know the house mayonnaise recipe and variants off by heart, but this week things have really degenerated.
It really kicked off when Delivery Girl, never the friendliest person around, and I had a huge row on Tuesday morning. Because the S-C is on holiday I got volunteered to come in at 7.30 to stack up her delivery truck with that day's orders. She was supposed to leave the main gate shut but unlocked last night when she left so I could get in and stack the van, but she forgot. So I had to climb the gate - take a pause here, those of you who know me personally, to imagine me climbing a two-metre metal gate in the dark. Got that? Imagine how pissed I am? OK, read on.
Then she was late, horribly late, and chef was shouting down at the phone to me to get the orders out. How can I? She's not here! That, apparently, was my problem, so when she did finally turn up 20 minutes late I said that her leaving the gate locked had inconvenienced everyone, a delivery truck had turned round and cleared off and we'd all had to climb the gate to get in. Her reaction? A shrug, nothing else.
She could at least, I suggested, apologise. Hah! It was a mistake, she said, a small one. Everyone makes mistakes. Yes, I said, and then we usually apologise for the inconvenience we've caused. Apologise? she queried. Up your arse!
Now, I have done a lot to control my anger over the past few years; taken medicines, talked to specialists, the whole nine yards. I know what my anger is, why it happens, how it happens, how to control it and when it's appropriate. Now, I judged, was an appropriate moment to get angry so I invited Delivery Girl to go fuck herself. OK, not perhaps a constructive suggestion when she had all those deliveries still to make but it was all I could think of on the spur of the moment.
It had always been my understanding of kitchen dynamics that, when arguments start getting out of hand, one reaches for the nearest saucepan-shaped item and hurls it at the other person; Delivery Girl's weapon of choice is the telephone, and she uses it to call Chef at the shop where he's doing the mise en place before coming over to the kitchen. For 20 minutes. Personally I'd have sacked her on the spot, but then I don't know what she's got on him.
Anyway, long story short: when he finally arrives he tells me to calm down - done that, been there, got the empty psycho-med bottles to prove it - and apologise to her. Eh? Oh yes, she's apparently an hysterical young girl who needs to be treated with kid gloves. I'm the adult one here, gulp down that medicine and say sorry. Fine, already done that too. Well, now do it again.
Then Wednesday I made a horrible mistake: I sent all our vegetables - carrottes vichy - to a canteen 40 kilometres away. Oops, time to start peeling carrots.
On Thursday I misunderstood what Chef meant by 'lay a thick layer of salt and pepper on the table and put the filets of rouget on it'. I laid down approximately half a centimetre of the stuff, having no idea what was going on. He meant 'a layer such as you'd dust over your filet of rouget were it to be lying on a dining plate in front of you'. The problem for me here, as in so much that he tells me to do, is the 'why' or 'because'. 'Cover that table in salt and pepper'. Why? Who knows? Just do it. Anyway, a quick rinse later and the filets are fine.
Thursday evening as I was checking over the orders to be sent out today, I told him that there wasn't enough ratatouille to go round. A long shout later, it transpired that this was my problem, that he was going out now, right now, to a meeting, so he didn't care what happened.
Well, this was after an entire week of such stupidity; being told you've made a mistake is one thing. Being told that someone else has made a mistake but that it's still your fault is another. Being told this as if you're four years old is yet another. And being told it 50 times a day really starts to weigh after even just a week.
So, quite how I managed not to say "It's not my fucking problem, it's yours" I'm not quite sure. I may be losing it.
Anyway, he managed to calm down and we sorted out something frozen instead. Simple solution.
Then Friday. Today, I can't even breathe properly - apparently the reason the floor in the the cold room where I mostly work gets covered in condensation is because I breathe too heavily when I'm in there.
I also keep getting wrong which containers to put the salad, meat, veg, you name it into. The reason I keep getting it wrong, of course, is because the 'right' one keeps changing. Today, salads for customer X go into the white containers; yesterday they went into the transparent ones; the day before, into the shallow white ones. Same for the sauces - yesterday, shallow white containers; today, transparent ones. And yesterday the transparent containers were to be stacked two deep - today, no stacking at all. Next week probably three deep. Who knows? Only chef knows, and he seems to decide on the basis that whatever I'm doing is the wrong one.
This morning, I was packing and sending out frozen omelettes (I am not making this up). Delivery Girl comes back and proudly tells Chef that I've managed to send 26 out to customer X instead of the 13 they were due to receive. Ah, sighs Chef, Yet Another Mistake Chris; I'm getting tired of telling you about all your mistakes. He tells me this in his special, world-weary, no-5th-birthday-presents-for-you voice.
I protest; there was no way I managed to send double the requested number of omelettes, there simply wasn't room in the (presumably incorrect) container for 26 omelettes. Chef doesn't want to hear any of this and holds up his hand. This is his special hand, the one that looks quite a lot like the one police officers hold up to stop the traffic. It means, as he patiently explains ONCE again, that he doesn't want to hear reasons and explanations; he knows The Truth, no need for me to say anything, shut up and fuck off.
I later manage to work out The Omelette Story. Think of a round omelette; fold it in half; freeze it. Now stack them so that you can see the double-sided, open end of the fold. Now stack 13 together. Now count the edges you can see - 26! Magic!
When I recount this to Chef over an otherwise silent lunch, he replies with a gratifying, "Oh".
Right.
Then this evening; I'm making up the orders for Monday's starters - tomato and tuna salad. He gives me one large container of said salad. Should there not, I wonder, be a second? Cue explosion. When I protest that I don't want to be shouted at for no reason he says that he always shouts after 5 pm.
Fine.
So, long story short: I'm looking for another job. I haven't quit yet, mostly because I haven't been paid. Which is another sore point: I've still not seen, let alone signed, a contract and there's been no mention of the official 'training' as promised when I took the job.
Luckily there's no shortage of offers around - try navigating your way through http://www.anpe.fr and you'll see what I mean. If I can I'm going to stick this one for another week and/or until I get paid, just so I can put it down as a month on my CV; but frankly if I'm told once more that 'no ratatouille' is my problem then I'm going to explain that no, in fact, it's the problem of the person who's actually earning the money.
And yes, I am asking myself if this means that I'm just not able to cope with kitchen life, period. I don't think so, I enjoy - as I said at the start up above here - the cooking portion of what I get to do. And I don't think I'm bad at it - certainly the 30 or 40 people who eat it every day either don't complain or actively say they like it. So I don't think I'm a rubbish cook.
But I've only been doing this really for 3 weeks and I'm just not able to cope with being solely responsible for organising the ordering, cooking and delivery of 175 covers a day. This week, the sous-chef has been on holiday and the commis is off sick, presumed pregnant. I've been left to do both their jobs and the one I was employed to do with only those 50 "You're too slow and stupid" comments to help.
If this is kitchen life, I don't want it. But I suspect it isn't so I'm going to look elsewhere too.
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