Bringing back the fine dining PTSD and reflecting on the why part of being a chef
When you're a chef for a living, people love to ask you 2 very common questions. The first is what's your favourite thing to make? This question almost makes me as nauseous as the next one. Is it really like that in the kitchen? All the yelling and screaming and the anger?
I hate these questions. After 12 hours in a hot, stinking, sweaty workplace, ask me again if I even like to cook anything and you will probably get and answer like not really. Maybe there might be a really sarcastic answer like, I love to make beef wellington. Let me be clear, no-one likes cooking anything for one's self after working all day in a crazy environment with no windows.
In our business we like to say that we attract a certain type of personality. A certain breed if you will. The type of whacky misfits that struggled through school and couldn't get real jobs, so they decided to stand behind a stove all day sweating over the coals while the rest of the world takes Saturday night off. I used to think this too, but I believe the longer I do this is that we attract creative people who couldn't see themselves working at a desk for hours.
We are creative people, who enjoy making things with our hands and want so much for others to be happy that we forget about ourselves. There are really beautiful parts about our business, mainly when things go right and everyone understands one another you have an orchestra of individuals working together. You learn so much daily from the people you work beside, not only about food, but about life. You celebrate each other's success like your own, because you understand how hard you all work.
The thing they never really drove home in culinary school is how hard our business is. This is probably because we are paying to be educated by them and they would love to retain students to keep the school running. The time constraints and demands are crazy and they have become more crazy as time has passed.
When you are a chef, you live in a loud and crazy world for sometimes 60 hours a week and when you talk to other's about your workplace they look at you confused and wonder why you do it. I wonder the same thing myself every day. After a while you get used to the chaos, to the yelling, to the in your face emotional tension that is to be expected. It's a mainly testosterone filled environment that breeds competition and
You do it because you love it. You want to make the guest happy and will do anything to please them because if you don't, you may not have a job or place to work anymore.
I recently sat through another agonizing season of the Bear. When the show first came out I didn't want to watch it. I used to say why would I want to watch something about a subject I am currently living and about a place I was just at for 12 hours? So I finished the 3rd season and boy did it bring back the PTSD of young Katrina as happy as she could be working in the fine dining cooking world.
I thought I was so cool with my first job at a really high level place and I thought it was going to be great. Well it wasn't and I hated every minute of it. I hated the fact that it gave me anxiety attacks every week before I would go in for my 2 shifts every weekend. I didn't understand what else was out there and that I didn't have to be miserable. There were these unicorn restaurants where people looked happy and actually had a good time, but I hadn't found them yet. I didn't come to know that until I started working in hotels you could have a good rate of pay and benefits if you wanted.
So the answer to the second question above is, yes sometimes it is intense like that. Sometimes it is brutal and ugly and very much in your face. Do things like this happen in other types of work? Probably...I just couldn't tell you what types of situations those are. I wonder what the other side is like constantly and wonder if this type of crazy behaviour happens in other industries.
It must right? That's what I have to keep thinking to not go into a negative state during my work day. Sure it's crazy, but other places have to be too right?
So as you watch this season or reruns of Bar Rescue, and think about how crazy our world is, my ask is that when you go to a restaurant, look in the back and if you have a chance to say something nice to a chef, please do. They are probably having a very crappy day.
Keep cooking friends!
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