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It's been four years, and Wroughtirony's not jumping around the industry any more, time for a fresh start. Updated slightly from Turkeybone's OP: Welcome to the Something Offal Restaurant Industry Thread! This thread is for those of us who work in the restaurant industry to talk shop and discuss industry related topics, and also for newbies who are seeking advice on how to start a culinary career. Front of house, back of house, big chain or level seven vegan brasserie, all are welcome so long as it's interesting. Anyone is welcome to post, as long as the thread rules are followed. Thread Rules *Keep it civil. Bluntness is fine, personal attacks are not. *Please read the OP before posting for the first time, it contains a useful FAQ *Front of House vs. Back of House mudslinging, dick-measuring and hostility is prohibited in this thread. It's not cute and it helps no one. *This is a newbie-friendly thread. That means only that nobody will be ridiculed for not knowing something. Willful ignorance is not protected under this rule. *Tipping discussion is not for this thread. Take it to D&D. Touchy Subjects *Kitchen Confidential This book is not a career guide. We've all read it, most of us liked it and virtually none of us behave that way. The professionalism issue is discussed in more detail in the FAQ. Check yourself before you post “facts” that come from this book. *Help, help! I'm being oppressed! We all have to start somewhere. There's nothing wrong with being super green and posting here. A lot of our regulars came here asking how to get a dishwashing gig. That said, a little humility goes a long way when you're starting out. Ranting about how your sous chef is a moron won't get you much sympathy, regardless of whether or not it's true. She's obviously doing something you're not, seeing as you're hauling trash until 2AM for min wage and she has a set schedule, benefits and a comma in her bank balance. The traditional kitchen is structured like a military unit. Dishwashing or low end prep is like boot camp. You have to kill your ego and learn to take orders or else you're useless. Unlike the military, a restaurant has no obligation or incentive to hold on to a willful, entitled private. Righteous indignation won't help your career. At best its a distraction, and at worse it will get you fired. What will help your career is to ask lots of questions and to keep an eye out for ways to do your job better, even if that job is peeling rutabagas or cleaning the grease trap. FAQ: I've never had a job in my life and I think I want to be a chef. What do I do? Well, the first thing you do is take a good hard look at your motivations for wanting to work in this industry. Is it because you like to watch Top Chef? Did you read Kitchen Confidential and think Bourdain's life sounded badass? Does everyone rave about your potato salad? If your reason is solely the result of media exposure and an enjoyment of cooking dinner for your family and friends, you might want to reevaluate. A lot of professional cooking is mindless assembly line work at an insane pace. Have you ever stood up for nine hours without sitting down once? Do you need your hands to get up from your knees? How's your work ethic? Bullshit tolerance? Ability to handle heat? The make-or-break qualities that separate those who make it from those who wash out rarely have to do with what we think of as the "culinary arts." We recommend one year as an entry-level cook/dishwasher/porter before anyone makes a hard decision about starting a career in this industry. You may be a hardass, but statistically, you'll wash out in weeks. And you know what? Deciding that you value free time, family, regular work hours, the respect of your peers, money, job security and benefits is a completely sane thing to do. A lot of us who have been ruined for anything other than restaurants probably wish we could go back in a time machine and finish college with a degree in finance. I've been working fifteen years as marketing director of Adidas. I'm ready for a change. How do I transition my skills to the restaurant industry? See above. Should I go to Culinary School? Well, personally I think it bought me about three to five years of basic experience in a kitchen. At no point will culinary school prevent you from having to prove yourself; there are just as many fuckups that come from school as do David Changs. If you need a quick jump on some experience, then maybe you should consider it. But seriously look into the program and the financing! Many, MANY schools are going to gently caress you over, are for-profit, etc. Community college is a cheap and great way to get some experience, especially if the school is respected. Most Le Cordon Bleu's are going to gently caress you over. Please don't go into serious debt for culinary school. I'm already a sucker who works in a restaurant.. when should I look for another job? When you don't feel challenged anymore. When you get panic attacks before service. When your paycheck bounces! NO IFS ANDS OR BUTS! A lot of you seem to be ex-industry people.... The restaurant industry has a hideous burnout rate and endemic low pay, as well as being hard on the body. A number of the regulars in this thread's predecessors have moved on to other ways to earn a buck due to burnout, injury, or getting other opportunites. Case in point: NinjaDebugger posted:Nobody is going to look out for your best interests but you, especially not in this crapsack industry. Look out for yourself first and foremost, or you're going to lose it all. Sandwich Anarchist posted:A single 6 hour shift on a slow night to see what someone can do is hardly "days of slave labor". A tasting isn't going to show me how he handles pressure, or how he works with the staff I already have. Nor will it give my commis the opportunity to give me their input on him. Previous thread can be found here. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 01:39 on Jul 31, 2017 |
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Jul 17, 2017 07:04
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pile of brown posted:Did you make this up or have I posted this story I honestly can't remember I think you posted it, I quoted that line from Turkeybone. 
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Jul 17, 2017 22:10
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Chef De Cuisinart posted:After 8 hours a day in California, after 40/wk everywhere else. Even with that, there are legal ways to set 'alternate schedules' in California to accommodate stuff like working 4x10's without OT. My old employers had that set up for our Cali-based units.
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Jul 17, 2017 23:58
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TheKennedys posted:This is fair. I dunno, I'm still actively debating it, but I just feel like it's kind of a dick move, plus it's not -entirely- spite, I'm pretty good friends with most people here. It's me, I'm the idiot Dude, you are me ten years ago. Don't be me. There is nothing in this world that should ever keep you in a food job with terrible management that is wrecking your health, unless somehow there is literally nothing else you can do. Seriously, cooking jobs are so common and interchangeable at that level that there is absolutely no reason to put up with a bullshit environment that is hurting you. Kill your pride, start applying out, and glory in how good it's going to feel to never, ever have to go back in there again.
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Jul 19, 2017 04:17
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Sketchers for work via the Web do decent cheap nonslips.
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Jul 20, 2017 02:23
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Yeah, that seems pretty normal for chefs. Just don't make eye contact and leave him to it.
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Jul 25, 2017 09:56
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Welcome to the industry. Can you imagine what the reactions would be in any other professional environment? "Yeah, Shelley, we're going to need you to come in and run the desk for a couple days so we can get a feel for how you fit the culture before making a hiring decision..."
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Jul 29, 2017 05:28
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mindphlux posted:unpaid internships are a thing though? not defending lovely business owners, but I've definitely staged industry positions for free for ~2 weeks at a time, and gotten a lot out of it personally. Could or should I have been like 'uhhhh, you should pay me for this' - yeah probably, but there are always folks who would probably just do it for the chance to do it and learn something / get an angle on a gig they think is awesome. Unpaid internships should be illegal, same as unpaid stages or soliciting artists/writers/photographers to work for 'exposure'.
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Jul 29, 2017 12:02
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pentyne posted:Are you really comparing college educations to unpaid "stage" work? It's the same argument that insists the minimum wage should be set in stone and never increased because it will cause a certain number of businesses who are already one dead walk-in or food poisoning scare away from bankruptcy to go under if they have to pay the actual cost of their labor.
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Jul 30, 2017 15:46
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NinjaDebugger posted:These quotes should probably be added consecutively to the OP, I swear. Done. That needed to be here. People should have the occasional reminder that it is never safe to assume potential employers are going to comply with the law when literally dozens of dollars are on the line, much less real money.
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Jul 31, 2017 01:40
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Sandwich Anarchist posted:"Ah BLOO BLOO BLOO BLOO"- This Thread 2017 I'm deeply sorry that you're too loving cheap to pay people who are doing work for you. Seriously, it's not hard. If someone is doing work that is providing a value to your business, you pay them at least the local minimum wage. You are getting rear end-damaged over paying what, 6 hours @ 7.25, so $43.50 to find out if you think someone's going to work out or not. Is that the message you really want to send to your prospective employees, that their time has literally no value to you? gently caress off with that poo poo. Unpaid stages as a requirement for employment need to be up there with managers dipping into the tip pool and paychecks showing up late as reasons to bail. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Jul 31, 2017 |
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Jul 31, 2017 03:33
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poop dood posted:Think about it with regard to literally any other restaurant position. Would you ask a bartender to work without pay for a night? Absolutely loving not! I value my labor and would flatly turn down any potential employer that asked me to work for them for free. Deserves to, and is in fact required by law to be paid under the FLSA. The only thing that protects the industry as a whole is that it's not worth the cost to lawyer up over it for individuals, especially on a cook's pay. However, the law allows class action, to include legal fees and liquidated damages.
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Jul 31, 2017 04:14
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Just for yucks, here's a pretty detailed description of staging at Noma. Some highlights : quote:Find the number of the operation that you wish to visit, call it offer your services, sure they may insist you do a month or even more, but they need you, not the other way around remember that. They simply cannot function at their level without the use of the stagier. The restrictions on time are beneficial to both, they need to train less often, leaving their team to do their jobs properly with much less stress, and for yourself, you will see more, learn more, and gain more respect from the team than short termers like me. This is a place that runs 20-25 unpaid stagiers for 14-16 hour days six days a week to manage all their prep work. Usual stages there are a month.
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Jul 31, 2017 04:32
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Shooting Blanks posted:Soak in hot water for a bit before you start scrubbing? Hot water and degreaser, honestly.
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Aug 1, 2017 03:19
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Sandwich Anarchist posted:Yeah we typically have a chat by nights end about whether or not we want to bring them on, and a couple 20s and a handshake shouldn't be hard to swing. It's never been about the money, we are doing well enough, it's just the precedent that we thought existed. Sometimes you need a push to get moving. I'm glad to see you reconsidering. Good on you. 'The way it's always been done' is why a bunch of really hosed up abuses of employees keep carrying on in the industry, and the regulatory bodies aren't funded well enough to do much about it on the individual level other than play whack-a-mole until it rises to stuff like corporate chains not paying OT chain wide. People doing right on the individual business level is the best solution we've got right now. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Aug 2, 2017 |
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Aug 2, 2017 00:18
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Hey man, some people are into elbow length rubber gloves and being given an itemized list of your failings. Don't judge.
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Aug 2, 2017 05:45
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Chef De Cuisinart posted:I applied around, already got some call backs for sous positions, and one catering manager position. I'll bounce back in a week or two no problem. I've also got a full size paycheck coming my way and 10k in my 401k if I absolutely have to. Do it. Likely he can get fees out of them, and gently caress them for that.
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Aug 4, 2017 15:11
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Chef De Cuisinart posted:Hydroxyzine puts you in a sleepwalking state sometimes. I had just taken one prior to cutting the poo poo out of my thumb on a can lid and fainting. Popped right back up on autopilot. Glad to hear it, keep us updated (to the extent that is wise) on how it works out! ADA compliance is good poo poo, and if what happened to you means they don't gently caress someone else over, then things are working as intended.
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Aug 7, 2017 12:30
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Willie Tomg posted:Shut up, you'll give them ideas We've doubled back around to why the ADA exists, I see.
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Aug 8, 2017 00:08
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This is not the place for shitposting, friends. The plight of migrant workers in the agricultural industry would be best taken up in D&D.
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Aug 8, 2017 14:57
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Just lay thin slices of it on a black rye crouton with a little dab of horseradish sauce.
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Aug 10, 2017 14:46
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Samizdata posted:It's more a side effect of thread hopping. In another thread, the Enrique thing is used to mock rich people. As in "I don't turn the shower on. I have Enrique to do it." and such. This is your one warning on this. Next time you're taking some time off to reconsider. The industry has enough problems with casual racism without it being in here as well, whether you think you have an ironic shitposting context for it or not.
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Aug 17, 2017 01:22
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Shooting Blanks posted:I think most of us ex-industry folks have a similar story. I quit at age 25 after an absolutely miserable experience opening a restaurant and was completely burned out. I had finished up my undergrad already so I took a job in software sales just to get the gently caress away from the industry - there are certainly days where I miss certain aspects of it, but yeah, life is much easier in general since getting out. Bailed out in my early 30's here after the third place stared the death spiral of late checks followed by closing. Three years later I'm making 4x my old hourly wage working in IT shif management and can actally take time off to do things. If you have the skills to manage in food, you can manage anywhere, for vastly better money.
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Aug 20, 2017 16:59
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Chef De Cuisinart posted:Otoh I'm close to 70k as a cdc(heh), the sous all make 80-100, and the exec is around 250. This is a 1000 room place though, with close to 50mil revenue scheduled for our opening year. And it'll only.go up. And you just got fired from your last dream job for taking prescribed medication and being involved in a workplace injury.
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Aug 21, 2017 01:38
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Yup. The house dipping into the tip pool is absolutely endemic. This is just a particularly lovely version of it.
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Aug 21, 2017 15:37
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Taima posted:Does skelaxin turn you into a chill, relaxed skeleton? Because that is incredibly my poo poo. Pretty much. Had some of the prescribed for a back injury that kept spasmong, and holy poo poo did it turn me into a pile of goo. Do not pass go, do not even reach for the remote because that is too much effort.
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Sep 2, 2017 02:53
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Trebuchet King posted:well, apparently new zealand has hospitality industry shortages and america keeps breaking my heart so i started the immigration application process. keep y'all's fingers crossed for me. Good luck! I don't know what the pay's like down there, but it can't be worse, right?
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Sep 4, 2017 06:13
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Shooting Blanks posted:I've never worked in a place that didn't have these rules, however they are incredibly difficult to enforce effectively. Getting high is a bigger problem in my mind - that just ups the chances of someone getting injured. Fraternization, if two employees can keep it to themselves then nobody will be the wiser. If they can't and it's a problem, just fire them both (especially if a manager is involved). I always stuck with 'if you're high enough or drunk enough that I notice, you're fired'. It led to me working shifts for people I had to fire a couple times, but it was worth it for not having useless people in the kitchen. I know at least two of my other cooks were stoners, but they could handle their poo poo and so long as they never gave me a reason to notice, they were fine. odinson posted:Lets talk otc stimulants. That poo poo will give you kidney stones in long term quantity, so good loving luck with that. As someone who's been on nights for fifteen years now, drink more coffee and sleep.
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Sep 5, 2017 05:53
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Tezcatlipoca posted:I really need to reverse sear a rib roast on my bbq. Serious question. Have you worked in the industry before? If not, save yourself a few grand and go wash dishes and do prep for six months. You'll know by then if you can do this for a living.
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Sep 25, 2017 04:16
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tweet my meat posted:He must be doing something right because god drat they make some good chicken tenders, best in the fast food business probably. There's a ton of restaurants doing One Thing amazingly out there that go under because of lack of capitalization. This guy clearly had money.
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Oct 16, 2017 01:12
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Bussamove posted:Sweet, sudden all store meeting tomorrow we all just found out about today. Those are always fun. Got a backup gig arranged? I'm 3/3 on those resulting in 'so we're closing'.
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Oct 17, 2017 07:26
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Shooting Blanks posted:My family keeps pushing me to open a restaurant because they know I love food. I'd like to open a bar - I ran those things for years and made a ton of money in the process. But food can gently caress off, it's not worth it. I considered that way back in the day when a friend had money to invest and wanted me to go in with him. Decided against it because running a bar in a college town had too much liability. Friend went ahead anyway, it went under the first summer when it turned into a ghost town and they had a kitchen fire. 
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Nov 7, 2017 05:52
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Willie Tomg posted:Reminder: the correct response to the callout "hot, behind" is "Thanks, I work out." Bonus points if you can do it in the key of LMFAO. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyx6JDQCslE
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Nov 19, 2017 16:18
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I'm super not a fan of dogs in restaurants. Service animals, cool, they're doing a job and are well trained. Your random pup? No way. I love dogs, but if one gets into the kitchen, they are likely going to get hurt, because nothing BoH is remotely dog safe.
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Nov 21, 2017 23:50
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Shooting Blanks posted:That's actually not a policy I like. I guess you can still take phone calls if there is an emergency but being able to check email during off hours is sort of important if you have any management duties. If you have management duties, you should be on salary. Otherwise, it is explicitly not your gently caress to give if poo poo happens when you're off shift, because you're not being paid to care.
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Dec 1, 2017 06:05
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pile of brown posted:I'm both ways on this, because even on salary I don't want to be on call 120 hours a week but if I need to send read or reply to an email at home I should still be able to... Email is my lowest priority anyways... Phone calls for emergencies, texts for "get back to me asap" and emails for " I probably won't read this today" Working off the clock always snowballs to fill time available. At least my current office gig has the decency to only have salaried management on-call, and provides on-call phones (or a bill subsidy if you use your own).
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Dec 1, 2017 07:49
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pile of brown posted:Right, but I am exec of a kitchen in a hotel that's open 365 from 7am to 11pm and now (suddenly) a fast casual health food buzzword breakfast and lunch eatery. If I don't answer emails or phone calls bad poo poo happens, even on my day off. And I knew that would happen when I signed up. Yeah, if I was gonna take a week off I'd redirect that poo poo but for texting "yep same order" to my bread guy each day at 3 it's fine, and if work made that hard for me they'd be shooting themselves in the foot. It's probably a little different in a larger organization but where I'm at I'm literally the only person who knows everything I do. Are you being paid relative to the world ending for the business should you get called for jury duty, or picked up for a DUI and left in the drunk tank over night?
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Dec 1, 2017 08:41
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Eh, I'm only against it because the UberEats drivers have no reason to treat your food well, because anything hosed up will be blamed on the restaurant when it arrives.
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Dec 2, 2017 17:31
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Field Mousepad posted:If you have a gluten allergy and you go into a pizza place you deserve whatever happens to you. I am again reminded of the sign on the bakery door telling people with gluten/flour allergies that coming in was not safe due to flour in the air and on every surface in the building.
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Dec 6, 2017 08:18
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pile of brown posted:I would have people rant at me about how allergic they were to gluten inside our one room bakery where there was basically a fine haze of flour in the air at all times Same. I'm at the counter, so dusted that my eyebrows are white with it, and staring at this person like 'oh, god, am I going to kill them?'
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Dec 6, 2017 16:59
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