THe devil you know vs. The devil you don't

A few months ago I was bitching about my boss and is lack of moving forward. My friend said something very important and I did not realize it at the time, " It could be worse". I couldn't imagine work being any worse with a new Chef. Boy Did I learn a lesson.

The owner hired this kid with a great resume. First off a resume should get you a interview, not a job. I have a huge problem with resume Chefs. They all think they dont have to work since they washed dishes at some 3 star European bistro. Fuck them. Anyway this kid thinks he is Hot shit and is not afraid to tell you. That would not be so bad if he had the ability to teach others, mange his time, even order properly. He likes to sit in the office and wait until 430 to start dinner prep, he over orders to the point that boxes are stacked so high they block the light and you must use you cell phone as a flashlight to see anything in the walk-in.

My biggest problem is he is unreliable. He will tell you he will do something and then never do it. WTF? If you say you will stop at the produce stand, well then stop there because I am not. If you say you will be in at 10am, be there at 9:59. If you say you are going to change the schedule, then change it. We have ran out of bacon twice this month even after he said he would order it... all he has to do is say pork belly in the phone and that is it. Someone else takes care of it.

Before he started I spent a few days writing a "101" for my restaurant. He read none of it. He has asked me questions about how things get done, all of which were in the 101. I now tell him to refer back to the booklet. I am being a dick, but every time he opens it he will hopefully see something else he should be doing. Allot of time was spent writing down the little things to look for, he is did not read a page of it. (If anyone wants it I will be happy to email to them.)

A few weeks ago I started getting the phone calls and emails about this kid and his fucking attitude from former employees. Funny how you can go from restaurant to restaurant and make only enemies. I will never understand that. Most of you I know from working together, a few of you for over 10 years.

He also likes to lie to me and thinks I don't pick up on it. We got a "fresh" truffle in and I put it in some rice. he told me that he likes to order a whole bunch and then cryo and freeze them. I explained that we get an order twice a week and serve less then 50 people a night, so why buy $300 worth of truffle to put in the freezer? He ordered it anyway and told me that one of the top reps in the country fucked up the order. He also made a statement about "empty space" on the produce shelves. As you all know we now have produce from floor to ceiling and throw out half cases at a time due to them rotting.

He spent an entire week doing nothing but prep for the new menu and when the day came to change it he had nothing ready and as soon as the owner left he ran out front to talk with the servers about God knows what. The other Sous flipped out and almost walked, luckily the pastry chef was there and calmed him down. When dinner finally came around he wasn't even close to being prepared.... I flipped out told him off and walked out at 815. The first course had just left, should have went out at 730, and he still did not have the second course ready. I couldn't take it anymore. My speech went something like this:

"You little egotistical asshole, you walked around here all week pretending to be working on this menu and you were really doing nothing. You have let this entire restaurant family down because your giant ego and laziness. The difference between a Man and a boy is that a Man's ego is smaller then his cock, think how far you have to go to shrink your ego that small..BOY. This restaurant is already 4 bells, only an idiot could fuck that up."

I have never done anything like that before and I am not proud of it in the least. I only hope it knocked some sense into him.

He has a few positives, he can write great menus(although execution is a problem) and he has made the entire kitchen staff work as one unit, excluding him. And the fact that the sheltered 24 year old, who lives at home, cuts the crust off his sandwiches and drinks chocolate milk out of a coffee cup to fit in with the rest of us, has bad things to say should sum it up for everyone. I have never heard him say anything mean about anyone before. Actually I did not think he knew how to say anything but nice things.

The Good(?) news.. I have found another job at a great restaurant and a talented chef. It is sad to leave my home of two years, I love working there so much. The freedom there is like no other and I will miss it. I also hate that a little douche bag has made me quit. Well he really has not, if I stay I will run him out of there and that will not go over well with the owner. I would rather leave now on good terms then bad terms later. I would like to think I would go back someday, but I think what is so hard is that I doubt I will.

In summary- I will take a lazy EC anyday. At least I will know what will get done on my days off and expect it. The EC that says he will do something and does not.... he is a douche bag and will constantly be looking for another job.

Thank you all for reading this, I feel so much better venting it all out. Have a great week Chefs

bad juju

I seem to have a special gift of bringing out the worst in some employees.  (I think I can also bring out the best, but that never makes the news.)  The workers in question can usually be safely categorized as "lazy," but smart lazy, the kind of guys that explore every possible angle to do what they want when they want and just as much work as necessary for their personal gain.  I'm sure you've all experienced this at some point, but my special institution seems to thrive on this ghetto mentality.  I have butted heads with one person in particular since day one and the culinary gods really broke the mold when they shit this guy out.  He is the last of the "old guard" at my establishment and he should have been fired immediately, but I realize how much he does for the company and I've done everything possible to reign him in and avoid rocking the boat.  Well, he rocked all of our boats on Sunday when he posted this on Facebook: "have u ever work with a crackhead that feel they better than u always talking shit when u not around and when they saw u they smile like nothing happened go fuck yourself" Even more awesome, I also heard from the Pastry Chef that he mentioned how much he would like to punch me.  I'm of the opinion that I work a little too hard (and long) to have this additional stress added to my plate, so I guess the next step is obvious.  I had hoped that he would just quit of his own volition, preferably without giving notice so he comes off as the asshole that he truly is, but why would a glorified prep cook with no responsibilities give up the best schedule in town?  I would appreciate any of your thoughts or words of advice.  To-day is going to be another long, shitty day.

Two trailer park girls go round the outside.

There is a server in our restaurant who I've been giving a hard time to lately. At her classiest she is a hillbilly. She has no finesse, and nags at the rest of the staff a lot. I have and still will try to coach her and train her and support her successes. She thinks she knows everything and I find myself feeling sad for her and her crippling ignorance. Lately, I've been finding it difficult to even see her name on tickets.

Lately our main restaurant manager has been working hard to keep our FOH on their toes with quality and high standards of service. Today at server line up he gave them some critiques and recognized their improvements. I acknowledged those attempted improvements and reminded them that in the end we are all on the same team.

That is when the hillbilly spoke up:

"I had a guest today tell me her salad wasn't dressed properly. This seems to be happening a lot lately, for weeks now, and I've talked to all the lunch servers about it and some of them agree with me."

The other manager and myself immediately asked, "IF THERE WAS A GUEST COMPLAINT, THEN WHY THE ARE WE JUST HEARING ABOUT IT NOW???" It is a staple in our system that if a guest is unsatisfied with something, then a manager needs to know. That is how any restaurant maintains customer satisfaction with quality, especially with the insane amount of volume we do here. This was the first any of us are hearing about her "multiple complaints."

It was pretty obvious that she was saying that to try to piss me off and make the kitchen look bad in front of the staff because I've been riding her lately. Her white trashiness is rather transparent most of the time. Again, I pity her ignorance.

#1. If a guest is not happy we always take action. That is how we got this far.

#2. I will not let some hick ruin what we've worked so hard to achieve.

#3. She will undoubtedly be fired sometime, maybe soon. When that day comes I am going to do what I do to the ones who cross me. I'm going to stand outside the door, make her walk right by me on her way out, then watch her take the walk of shame to her pick up truck. All the while wearing a shit eating grin, and I will two simple words, "Good Luck."

I've seen 100's of people come and go through this restaurant. They will never love this place as much as I do. They will never sacrifice as much as I do. They will never know what it takes to hold this place together. And eventually they will realize that if they go toe to toe with me, they will inevitably lose.