I don’t get out to Loyal Legion a lot, but I almost always like it here.
They’ve organized their tap list so it isn’t positively crippling to grok, even if they don’t go off the beaten path as Belmont Station or some of my other favorite taprooms in Southeast Portland can, and their menu is Generally Good. The old building with its cavernous room, three-sided bar stretching the length of it, and plush conversation booths with low tables are blessedly quiet on this last Saturday afternoon of the year.
I have a locally-made stout in my hand, words in my head, and a screen and keyboard in front of me. In some comforting ways, the world doesn’t change nearly as quickly as we think.
Towards the end of my days in the winery, it gets to a point where I realize I’m taking up space more than helping out. The other two members of my team are there- one usually plugging away at whatever events are going out soon, and one getting their station ready to handle restaurant business for the night and getting up to speed- events, reservations for the night, VIPs and the like they’ll need to see coming.
A sign of good training and good people is when they leap into work on their own without the need for supervision- and the sign of a good manager is when they know their job is done for the time being. A leader’s job is to train, support, and provide for their team so that they can do their jobs well. That means providing materials, guidance, information, time, manpower, whatever is required. I believe the first and last question a leader of any group needs to ask is “How can I help you succeed?” Frequently, in my case, the answer to that question becomes “Go do something else and step aside. We’ve got it from here, we’ll call if there’s an issue.”
Something I’ve come to learn and love OR hate about myself depending on the day is that I seem to have turned into the guy that everyone tells everything to.
It’s the part of working on yourself that I think broadcasts to everyone around you. As you learn to become kinder and safer for yourself, you radiate that out and become kinder and safer for others, and others respond.
Part of it is that, barring imminent danger, I’ve developed a pretty solid vault. I don’t pass along what people tell me, even when someone else comes along and I find myself biting my tongue- “If I could tell this person what so-and-so told me earlier, it could make things so much easier.” I’m no one’s messenger pigeon though, and I’m not gonna break trust for something as trivial as those conflicts usually are (in the grand scheme, anyway.)
It’s not that I’m really good at keeping a secret- it’s that I often either quickly forget or say “you do you” and figure it doesn’t concern me. I’m not a snitch, but I’m also no schoolyard hero.
The bigger part of it is something my therapist described to me, an idea in Tibetan Buddhism called drala– an energy that can infuse people, places and even things that isn’t “good” or “bad”- it simply is, and all it means is “take a breath, you are safe here.”
Here’s a bit of news that might be upsetting to some of my readers- or comforting, depending on how you look at it: Nothing the universe does is personal. The world isn’t out to get you, “everyone’s” not out to screw you. The universe and the world are neither cruel nor kind, they just are– and thank God for that.
Understanding and acting on this won’t suddenly make life easier or more manageable either, but it will let you focus your attention, energy, and will on what you can do about it, rather than wishing it wasn’t so. Again, it’s not personal- the universe doesn’t care how you feel about it. It’s waiting for you to decide what you’re gonna do about it.
Dandelions don’t register an opinion about where those jackass humans put cement. They just grow. Photo by George Becker on Pexels.com
When you work in a restaurant, experiencing growth in your skills or knowledge is often a humbling but pretty neat experience.
Imagine for a minute you are a capable chef. You’ve been at it for awhile and a couple cooks reporting to you. You’re not in charge of the restaurant, but the executive chef trusts you to work their will and keep the team performing. You’ve got techniques in your hands and recipes/formulas you trust to get the job done.
One day, one of your cooks- younger or maybe just newer- looks at a method and recipe you just handed them and says, “Hey, why do we do it this way?”
In a moment, a wave of responses flash through your mind: “That’s my method. Who does this little shit think they are? Kids these days are so fucking lazy…that’s the way we’ve always done it…”
You might feel enraged, exasperated, or at the very least annoyed… but there’s something else behind it all. We don’t wanna look at it. We can’t always afford to honor or accept it, so we spend a lot of time pushing it down or numbing it.
Doubt.Doubt and Questions.
It can seriously suck to feel Doubt when you are so used to the meritocracy of the kitchen. Doubt is the mind killer. Doubt is the little death that brings total clusterfuckery. You can’t afford the time or space to doubt.
But, in a moment, you realize “I never asked that question… I just did as I was told.” You look at the cook and finally say “That’s the way we do it here… why? Do you know another way?”
Maybe that cook suggests a method you know (from your knowledge and experience) won’t get the result you need. “We roast the squash rather than steaming because we don’t want the added moisture in the recipe.” “We coddle the eggs so they won’t be so cold the butter seizes when we add them to the batter.”
Maybe they don’t and it’s an honest question. It seems like a wasted step. It seems redundant. In all your knowledge and experience, you can’t explain why that method is so important. “It’s the way we’ve always done it…” it made sense to someone some time ago and no one’s ever been bothered to check their work.
That’s where the growth happens. You either figure out the reason, or you figure out it HAS no reason and it’s a waste. In a meritocracy, you are judged by what you accomplish and are capable of- not what you were, who you know, or how long something as been done your way.
By choosing Curiosity and Humility over Hubris, the answer is found. Dispassionate and clear as a failed sauce or a botched bake. It’s either “this is why’ or “this is a waste.”
Curiosity weaponizes Doubt against itself.Curiosity is powered by Humility. We can’t know everything, or everyone’s experiences.
For me, Curiosity and Humilty are crucial to leading well. If my staff are watching me and hoping to see their future in the field, I need to show them that asking questions and having doubts are good.
They need to see that even the pastry chef, with knowledge and experience, still has a lot to learn and can even learn from them. It’s been a tenet of mine for a long time that if one of my apprentices comes up with a new way to do something that renders a better product, does a job more efficiently, or both, that’s how we do itnow.My ego takes a backseat, and if it turns out there’s a problem with that new method, we all learn why.
Imagine what you will learn when you admit you don’t know everything.
The Black Hat Baker 