08.25.06
Tired to the Bone
My first full-time work week is done. 8AM to about 9PM almost every day (only until 5PM today since we are not open for dinner on Fridays) this week. A total of 59 hours worked, on my feet and working full-tilt. So while may pay is in general low, there are a lot of hours that I am working, so the pay is adequate enough for me to fund my half of the family budget. But the cost to my physical well being is indeed steep.
And in a sense, it is only my first week…
Vic said it pretty plainly this week. If you want to make it in this business, you need three things:
- Brains
- Love of cooking/food
- Willingness to work incredibly long hours
I have never feared hard work. I am willing to do any task set to me, and never is there a job that I shy away from. The new owner was telling me about a person who came in for kitchen helper job. She asked him to grab something off a top shelf and he said “Oh, it’s too high!” She (rightfully) fired him on the spot. All the tasks in a restaurant are hot and potentially dangerous and many are unsavory to say the least.
Example: lifting a heavy pot of boiling water and 6 lbs of pasta over another such boiling pot with flames jumping up at your hands and arms while your back screams in pain at the heavy burden that you dare not drop. And that’s just the morning prep!
Which brings me to a certain distinction that needs to be talked about at this time. The difference between cooking at home for friends, family and so forth, and professional kitchen cooking.
 Fortunately for me, I drew my inspiration to become a chef from other sources… |
The previous cooking style is what makes people like me (and most likely you as well gentle reader) fall in love with cooking. We invent new dishes and follow complex recipes and pour through cooking magazines like they were romance novels. And it is somewhere in the midst of all the creativity and adoration that is heaped upon us that we are lured into the realm of cooking as a profession.
And as I have mentioned before, cooking school does not prepare you for exactly what you are going to go through. They can’t because too many people would drop out quite frankly. And rightly so. This is not a vocation for everyone, and I hope that I am portraying that accurately in these postings.
The day in the early stages of working in kitchens consists of the following:
- Repetition
- Burns and cuts
- Repetition
- Heavy lifting
- Berating for everything you do
- Repetition
- No creativity allowed in your tasks
- and did I mention?…. oh yes, I did.
Now while it may sound like I am trying to cast dispersion on the profession, or talk of it like it is a bad career path, let me say now that I still love it with all my heart. Every day I am seeing improvement in my skills. I can handle more of the line on my own each day, and my superiors (everyone else basically) trust me with more and more of the tasks at hand.
But I am still miles away from making up menu items, or suggesting directions for the restaurant, or even choosing which tasks I do and don’t do. I am the low rung on the ladder. The bottom brick of the pyramid. And I will remain there for quite some time. Instead of being in charge of my own kitchen and having all the adoration heaped upon me, which is what lead me to this career, I now do nothing but that which I am told, and when it comes to praise for the food, I am completely invisible behind the real “chefs” of the restaurant.
Quite the culinary “bait and switch”, huh?
But I digress. This all started with me just saying “I’m tired”. So very, very tired. Perhaps I should close with the lyrics from the song “I’m Tired” in the great movie “Blazing Saddles“. (Lyrics and performed by Madeline Kahn)
 The late, great Madeline Kahn as Lili Von Shtupp |
Here I stand, the goddess of Desire
Set men on fire
I have this power
Morning noon and night it’s drink and dancing
Some quick romancing
And then a shower
Stage door johnnies always surround me
They always hound me
With one request
Who can satisfy their lustful habits
I’m not a rabbit
I need some rest
I’m tired
Sick and tired of love
I’ve had my fill of love
From below and above
Tired, tired of being admired
Tired of love uninspired
Let’s face it
I’m tired
I’ve been with 1000’s of men
Again and again
They promise the moon
They always coming and going
Going and coming
And always too soon
Right girls?
I’m tired,
Tired of playing the game
Ain’t it a crying shame
I’m so tired
God dammit I’m exhausted
Tired, tired of playing the game
Ain’t it a crying shame
I’m so tired
[Soldiers:]
She’s tired (She’s tired)
Sick and tired of love (Give her a break)
She’s had her fill of love (She’s not a snake)
From bellow and above (Can’t you see she’s sick)
Tired (She’s bushed)
Tired of being admired (Let her alone)
Tired of love uninspired (Get off the phone)
She’s tired (Don’t you know she’s pooped)
I’ve been with 1000’s of men
Again and again
They sing the same tune
They start with Byron and Shelly
And jump on your belly
And bust your balloon
Aye!
Tired, tired of playing the game
Ain’t it a freakin’ shame
I’m so…
Let’s face it everything below the waist is kapput!
[Soldiers:]
Tired!
Time now for some sleep.
Stumble it!
