02.02.07
What Makes a Rough Day at the Office?
 It’s because too many of my days felt like this that I left the world of the cubicles… |
When I had an office job, I knew the factors involved that would make for a “rough” day. Unexpected emergencies cropping up, constant interruptions from coworkers and/or vendors, endless meetings to discuss why nothing is getting done, and an email inbox that would just refuse to shrink in size. My God, I can almost feel my blood pressure rising by describing that scenario.
But what about the kitchen? I have no email there, and I can only rarely hear my phone ringing in my pocket over perpetual background noise of the fans in the hood and the jets of the dishwasher. Sure, there is constant hard work, and if you look at new orders coming in as “interruptions” then you could say there are a lot of those as well. But then again, if you feel that filling orders is an “interruption” as supposed to “your job”, then perhaps a career in the kitchen is not right for you…
As I mentioned in an earlier post, it is sometimes hard to pick out what makes a good day in the kitchen. But when it happens, you know it! The corollary of this is that it can be hard to describe a bad day - but once again, there is no mistaking one when it gets you.
 “Hi, I know we didn’t make reservations and that it’s 7 o’clock on a Saturday night, but can we all get salads now please?…” |
Lucky for you, dear reader, I had just such a day yesterday. The first thing that makes for a rough day without a doubt is getting weeded early. No, I am not talking about smoking up before your shift, but rather “weeded” is the term for falling behind - having so much to do that by the time you get to the thing that is last on your list, it would be too late. Getting weeded is what happens when you are maxed out, and then a party of ten decides to show up randomly and they all want to eat RIGHT NOW.
Usually, getting weeded does not happen until I have already been at work for about 5 hours though. The first 3 hours or so of the day is used for the preparation of my station so that I have everything at the ready, so that I don’t get weeded when the crowds come pouring in the door. Yesterday was a different story though as I was weeded pretty much as soon as I walked in the door.
Jay is out of town on a week-long vacation, and the loss of an extra set of hands can be rough on a kitchen crew. Tasks that he normally picks up were still undone, and since I am the first chef in for the afternoon shift, I had to pick up the slack. That meant doing some prep for some catering orders, getting “family meal” started, cooking the soup of the day (I was finally able to make butternut squash soup!) and planning a whole new dish for the appetizer specials. It was an idea I had always wanted to try: stuffed calamari.
Aside on the creation of this dish: Jay wanted to bring in some calamari, and we were going to make fried calamari as per usual, but then I suggested we try something new, and stuff them instead. Jay came up with a spinach and crab stuffing (I was going to do spinach and mushroom myself…) and I ran a test of cooking them on the grill. They puff up like little balloons since the calamari tubes shrink as they cook, but the end result was really quite good. I topped them with homemade pesto and served them with an endive/watercress/daikon salad with a fresh lemon juice vinaigrette. Very nice!
Looking at the finished result with perfect hindsight, that looks easy enough to create, right? But remember, this was something we were still inventing step by step, element by element - all while I was trying to cook all of the other things on my daily list, and with people starting to walk in the front door. Add to this that I still have the rather involved foie gras preparation on the menu, and I was nothing short of slammed from the get go. Even with a nice half-hour delay of people coming in, getting seated and getting the dinner rush started, I was way behind. If this had been a Friday or Saturday, I would have been sunk.
There is only one way out of the weeds, and that is to keep attacking everything in front of you as fast as you can while maintaining the quality of the dishes that go out to the customers. The problem is, just like an engine that is red-lining for too long, eventually something is going to give. Either you will get caught up, or you will completely break down.
I wouldn’t say what happened to me was a complete break down, but it was obvious that there were little things that I was starting to get wrong as a result of being stuck in such a panicked state for so long. I sent out a pear salad without the blue cheese and walnuts, the first order for foie gras came in and I had forgotten to toast the brioche ahead of time. The first order of calamari came in and I forgot to hand the cooks the lemons to grill (part of the presentation) with the squid. Sure, none of these are catastrophic errors (except for the bad salads - that still pisses me off), but one by one they act like drops of water weathering down my tenuous grasp on control my station.
 I don’t drink caffiene myself, but I can really appreciate why everyone else does now… |
By the end of the shift, I was shot. I placed the orders for tomorrow and began cleaning up. It had been a long day, and without a doubt, a very rough day. But the best part of this job - I get to start fresh tomorrow. (Which happens to be today…)
In fact, my situation is better than starting fresh! See, all the work that had me in the weeds yesterday is effort I can apply towards today. The soup is made, the calamari sauces and salads are done, the party for this weekend has been prepped. None of those things should rear their ugly head to strike me down again today.
Of course, there may be a whole new set of tasks - that I did not know existed - waiting for me today, but I’ll take those as they come. See, they aren’t “interruptions”. They’re just “my job”.
Stumble it!
Brunch Bird said,
February 2, 2007 at 2:04 pm
I am really glad you wrote this post. I was home sick this week and watched the Top Chef Season I marathon (yes, I know your opinion of Top Chef, just humor me) and they kept saying, “Man, I’m in the weeds.” I’m like, “Dude, is that a cooking expression or something?” I must have heard it five times in two hours.
Matt said,
February 4, 2007 at 3:21 am
You’re welcome. I almost considered leaving that description out, as I thought, “Oh hey, everyone knows what that means”! I am glad to see it was a useful addition, and I am glad that you have one bit of kitchen jargon down pat.
Here’s another: “All day” means how many orders are currently on the line. For example: “How many Osso Buccos do I have all day?” means “How many orders for Osso Bucco are there on the line right now, so I know how many I should currently be making?” This is an eternally useful phrase in the kitchen, and it probably thrown about more than any other, as far as I have seen…
Hope that helped too!