industry

Paying the Piper- The Culinary Brain Drain

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You can feel it all around the United States. With the massive push of vaccinations and the slowly declining COVID-19 case numbers, restaurants and venues are starting to relax their requirements. People still need to wear masks, yes, and social distancing is still a thing- but you can eat inside now. You can sit with friends. You and your buddies can, within reason, go out and grab a beer just like you used to. We are starting to get back to normal after a year in a plague-ridden Hell of our own creation.

Not all industries are ready though:

“Hey, I need to hire two line cooks ASAP! Anyone give me any leads?”
“Guys, I’m desperate. I need a dishwasher, a busboy, and at least three cooks NOW- the restaurant is packed every night and I can’t take it anymore!”

“Why can’t I find capable help anymore?! Everyone I hire either flakes out, burns out, or just quits! WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE COOKS?!”

They found greener pastures, folks. They had no other choice. We need to raise a new crop of cooks from scratch- maybe we’ll be smarter about it this time.

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The Month That Lasted A Year

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We’d gotten a notion that things were gonna be a little off on the plane down to Florida.
It was our first vacation with my family in years, and one of Emily’s student’s parents gave us two N95 masks “just for the plane because of the new virus going around.”

The new virus. Some bullshit about about people eating bats in China or something? We’d joked around the kitchen about it, and gently teased a hypochondriac friend of mine. I said I’d get to the airport and lick someone’s eyeballs on the way back, catch it and get a bit more time off.

On the plane, there were a few older folks in masks. I’d been asked at a doctor’s office earlier in the year if I’d recently been to Wuhan China or was in contact with anyone who had. “God I wish,” I half-jokingly told the receptionist. “Anything to travel for a bit and take some time off of work!”

At Disney, there were hand sanitizer and washing stations sprinkled around the property. My parents switched on the news in the mornings, and we heard that it had spread on the West Coast. The day after we left, Disney closed it’s properties and sent everyone home. When we arrived in the late afternoon, PDX- one of America’s best airports- was nearly deserted.

This was no joke. It’s still not one year later.

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The Right Hand Man- How To Be A Good Sous Chef

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You would think that “servant leadership” would be immediately applicable to modern kitchen life, but as a leadership ethos it has yet to see the predominance it deserves. It is not at odds with the traditional brigade system as Auguste Escoffier envisioned it- though it is certainly at odds with the bullying and barbarism that has come to be associated with being “classically trained.” Hardly a terrible thing, since that “tradition” is itself at odds with little things like “health and safety of the worker” and “being a fucking human.”

“Servant leadership” is, at its core, an ethos that changes leadership from “Do what I tell you” to “This is what needs to get done- what can I do to help you do it better?” If you would like a masterclass in what that mentality can and should be like, look no farther than the sous chef– the second-in-command of a kitchen, and the chef’s “right hand man.”

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Why Multitasking Is Bullshit

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“Must be able to multitask!” “Are you a multitasking master?” “Must be quick, efficient, and able to multitask…”

It’s a pretty standard line on kitchen job postings, especially production positions (as distinct from line or service jobs.) The ideal candidate for any given production job is quick, clean, polite, efficient, honest, methodical, able to be coached but also a self-starter… and possesses this legendary ability to split their focus across several tasks but perform them all flawlessly.

People like that do exist- I have trained a few of them- but that seemingly unique ability to multitask does not exist. Not on a mental level and, in fact, not even on the physical level. Regularly attempting to divide your attention across several tasks can lead to mental fatigue and even damaging your brain.

Why do people keep asking employees to do it, then? Why do people brag about “being a multitasker,” and more importantly, how can we fix the damage it causes?

a young woman with long hair presses her fingers to her temples surrounded by books at a library table
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com
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Snapshots of the Bakeshop V- “Last Man Standing”

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It’s been ten months since my day job changed to answer COVID-19. The last time I wrote one of these, the “A-Team” was in charge. We ran our asses off for 12-hour days, making ends meet for the dawn of the apocalypse.

Ten months later, and they’re all gone. Quit from stress and depression, walked out in a huff, or simply went on leave and never really returned.

It’s a new team now. Eager, curious, capable… and as a Great Old Sage of an employee at two years, I’m doing my best to help them keep their hands on the wheel. I thought being the “Last Man Standing” would be a heady, affirmative feeling- “I’m finally indispensable. I’m the one that could hack it.”

Instead, I feel beaten. Beaten, tired, and sad. The “last man standing” is usually pretty lonely.

Photo by Samuel Silitonga on Pexels.com
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