Long post, so here's a TL;DR right at the top:
My first Chef job; when I started, my workplace was one where the owners listened and provided. We're appreciated and not overburdened. And over the last year I've watched this business become just as callous and penny pinching and “Crew: Expendable” as any other that I've worked for. I thought I found a unicorn; turns out it was just a mule. Maybe they're are no unicorns.
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I've had my current job for 2.5 years. I'm a Chef, head of one of two restaurants that are a part of a hotel. The hotel also entertains large events such as weddings and business mixers, which my kitchen caters.
I started this job as a sous chef under one of my greatest and fondest mentors I will ever work for. When he passed away in 2021, I took on his position and became Chef; my first time running my own kitchen.
I've built something I never thought I would see. My kitchen is one of comraderie; a community of culinary discourse. My cooks do incredible work, and I fight like hell from them. I hired good cooks at better wages than their old jobs. I aggressively make sure raises happen, and that my cooks AND my dishwashers are treated with the respect and dignity they diserve. This is one of the things that makes my job enjoyable. They do so much for me, why would I not do the same for them.
I run an all-electric kitchen consisting of hot plates and Avantico easy-bake ovens. This is not by choice; the owners will not upgrade. The second kitchen is all gas, but the appliances are second hand and the ovens don't work. We have 2, electric, 26x18x18 convection ovens which both restaurants can rely upon to provide 2 full services worth of food, plus an equal amount in catering. My kitchen has 3 cooks, not including myself. The other kitchen has 4. That kitchen has its own Chef, Sous Chef, and prep chef. I don't get a prep chef, because No OnE wAnTs To WoRk. So that's a grand total of 11 people, expected to provide full service dinning for over 100 covers on both sides, plus 80-100 person (on average) catered events. Wtf. The prep chef leaves at 4pm.
My lament: today, I was expected to provide regular dinner service for my restaurant, along also being expected to provide full service for a 60 person holiday party for a local credit union (who spent a grand total of $12,000 on us for the space and the food). Still with 3 people. I get heckled about hours and overtime, so I can't bring my cooks in early. It's just me, prepping out for the event as much as I can; only because I'm prepping for the event, I haven't been able to prep out anything for my regular menu. I have no prep cook; when im not shopping, I'm prepping. So, I my counts are less than 10 orders for basically everything on my menu and I'm feeling like and asshole failure of a chef.
Regular service starts. I put out the charcuterie board and the salads for the event. Later on, I put out the meats, the vegan entrees, and the sides, then I go into the second kitchen to start plating desserts because they have more space.
Come back to my kitchen to check on the staff. They're in the weeds. Try as I might to shield them from having to deal with the cater, they're getting swamped by regular dining. One of them had to step out because they were about to throw up; had eaten or drank for too long. I internally slapped myself for leaving them alone for too long before Shutting It Down, Ramsy style, and ending all further dinner orders before jumping in to help them get through the remaing tickets. I tell the Owner time and time again that providing both services is physically beyond us and exhausting, but she doesn't listen.
I come out to plate the desserts for the clients who spent $12000 to use our historic venue, and as I pass my boss, she notices my face and says to me, and I quote directly,
“You need to use your resting bliss face.”
I say to her, please don't tell me how to look or how to feel.
But she cuts me off and says it again.
And my sister in Christ, I am but a humble wage slave slinging smoked tri-tip and mashed potatoes for your clients to make them happy, with the toil and efforts of my crew behind me, in order to pay your mortgage, as you were so candidly gossiping to the head bartender when you thought I was passing by too fast to overhear…
Like, let's put aside the fact that both the owners and myself took the mandatory workplace harassment training as required by California state law.
Maybe I'm being overly sensitive at the comment, but I'm sorry. That was out of line, offensive, and extremely ill-timed. And I told her so. Shortly after firing off an email to the HR deparent about the comment she said to me, my feelings about that comment, and the general feelings of the kitchen(s) crew about the expectations of us versus what we are capable of delivering with the tools, resources, and space available to us.
I said, “Do not ever presume to tell me how to hold my face or how to hold my demeanor. Ever. Thank you and have a great night.”
The owner was not happy about me setting a boundary. She says we're talking to HR next week and that “this isn't going to work”.
But I'll call that bluff. One of the benefits of fighting for your coworkers and ensuring they get the wages, time off, and respect they deserve, is that they pay that respect forward. She fires me, she loses two, yes, both kitchens worth of staff in the process. Which means she blew 6 figures to open a second restaurant for nothing. Now how easy is it to pay your mortgage.
I make $7 less an hour than my predessesor for doing the same job plus a overseeing a second restaurant. I had to write an email basically acusing my boss of fraud in order to get my sous chef a raise. The new cooks at the new restaurant have all been hired at $15-16 an hour, when I told her we need to be hiring at $18 at least if we want to be taken seriously on a want-ad. The chef at the second restaurant has been working 80 hour weeks and has been borrowing money from his parents to keep a roof, cause he makes the same rate as me but I don't have a wife and kids to support like he does.
I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna make my case and demand an apology, I know that. But really, what I want to say to her is that, “I am appalled at the person I have watched you become since Dave died.”
Dave was my chef and mentor. Rest in peace, Dave. Wish you were here.