So I started working for a restraunt recently, right as it was opening as one of the back of house kitchen staff. There are only a few of us in total (usually only work with one other person) and one is usually in charge of prep and the other is usually in charge of the hot items on the line (getting everything ready for opening and then keeping things stocked).
I thought I had been doing well but I was pulled aside today by my manager at the end of my shift and was told I was not going fast enough and my hours would be cut if I did not improve. But that also I would be starting an hour later and still expected to have all the hot food ready for the line 15 minutes before we opened (which gives me about 2 hours and 15 minutes to have everything good to go). I had barely been able to get everything out on time back when i had another hour. They talked a lot about pace and multitasking and all that. I said that I would try my best and that I think it may just be that I had to figure out which items could be done at the same time as what, and figuring out the best order for everything.
I told them I'd think on it more tonight and try to come up with a game plan so that I could have everything ready.
I thought on it once I got back from work. Wrote out all the things I needed to have ready, cook times on each of them, and estimated prep time, and began to notice something concerning. Cook times for just the stuff being cooked off in the oven clocked in at 1 hour 50 minutes. Not to mention that a lot of the items are cooked at different temperatures, and even though our oven could adjust pretty quickly, it still took on average a few minutes. With the average time of the temperature changes, to be done when they want me to, I would have to get the first item in 4 minutes after I got there and constantly having more stuff going in once the last thing comes out. This is not even the difficult part. The difficult part is the prep times aside from that, panning things up, bringing them to the line, and the ADDITIONAL grill items I have to worry about.
For obvious reasons I cannot multitasking things like cutting cooked meat and weighing out ingredients. And when I made a potential timeline for everything, even with multitasking as much as is possible and using my lowest possible estimation for prep time, I still would not be able to complete everything in time.
The only way in which the timeline worked out was if also I assumed every time I took something out of the oven, adjusted the temperature, put something in, panned items for the line, and added/flipped/removed food from the grill it was instantaneous and took zero time whatsoever. Even then, the end time was right when we open, not 15 minutes before like my boss wants me to do.
Edit: oh and did I mention, they basically said if I couldn't show that I could do this they're gonna cut my hours?