Returning to the kitchen only happened on my third day here, when I had already started climbing the walls from boredom. But I must note that the return was triumphant. On the very first day, I was entrusted with a double shift because, essentially, there was no one else to close the restaurant, and then Batman Aziz appears, who was supposed to work only a "mid" shift, but I ended up working the night shift too. And I scrubbed the whole kitchen clean. Naturally, being out of practice, my arms and legs were falling off the next day, but that's okay.
Remember I said we would be proving something to someone? In essence, we have started that process. If before my arrival there was only Weldon (Editor's Note: A colleague from America with a strong character from last year, who had already been fired once last season) who wanted to change things, now there are two of us. We want to change small things that are easy to fix, but in moments of high busyness, these things will play a giant role. Last year's experience is already playing a role.
You know, that's how life is. You've already filed away in your head on some distant shelf that a certain thing must be exactly like this, and even after 8 months, it's still there. Yes, vaguely, but it's there. And then everything becomes the absolute opposite. You have to change everything in your understanding of the kitchen.
Returning to the expression "every broom sweeps in its own way," of course, but there are moments when you feel you can do it a little better. Or, at the very least, faster. Everything they want from us is good enough for the first weeks of work, while the "boom" of customers hasn't arrived yet. While there haven't been 15-20 simultaneous orders at once. And it will happen.
Undoubtedly, I now have two new, excellent managers at the helm who have a lot of kitchen experience, but my last year's season already showed that sometimes a medical student from Bulgaria and 2 foundation students from Uzbekistan can work significantly better than the state-side chefs.
And I'm not just talking about the kitchen, but about life in general. It's not always necessary to follow those who supposedly have more experience than you. After all, ordinary workers most often see the situation significantly better than managers and bosses, and therefore make more informed decisions than the latter.
The restaurant, by the way, has completely revised its menu policy and now we have Dinners. If before, for example, we just had breakfasts in the morning and lunches after 11 AM, which included burgers, sandwiches, trout, and steaks until night, now breakfast is until 12, and lunch is a bit more simplified. And after 5, dinner starts, when you can order trout, steak, chicken fried steak, fried chicken, or buffalo meatloaf. And all this with mashed potatoes, fried vegetables, and a special gravy. Different for each dish. In that regard, it's become somewhat more interesting.
Although otherwise, the menu has been simplified. Much has been abolished. Something has been added. There are many changes, so for almost the whole week, I had to cook while glancing at the menu with one eye to make sure I wasn't confusing anything. In essence, they didn't change anything special in the ingredients for the lunch menu, but they changed almost all the names, so at first, it was a real stupor.
But it is worth noting that everyone is happy with my return. The waiters like that I cook quickly and that food isn't returned by customers. The customer is happy, the waiter is happy, I am happy. The kitchen manager praises me to another manager. She praises me to me. In general. Sweetness. And all these sweet things flow into a new tipping system from the waiters, who now share their tips in a different way, as I received a little more than others. But I still haven't understood how it works.
The week, by the way, was terribly quiet except for Friday and Saturday, when, typically for Americans, they head to the mountains, which is why they hired a few more of us for the kitchen on that day than usual. Although usually, we work almost one person at a time now. And we clean the kitchen after closing by ourselves, by the way, too. It's a nightmare. Believe me. Running oil through a filter in the deep fryer, cleaning the stove, washing the line, changing every container of whatever contents, scrubbing the floors. Let me remind those who don't know - last year 3-4 people did this. And here there are 2 of us. Cook + dishwasher. And I'm the luckiest, because I get a dishwasher girl who just can't help me scrub the kitchen, so she finishes the dishes and leaves. Yeah, thanks.
There's also the matter that Weldon wanted to prove to everyone that we need a second closing cook, so on the day when he could have stayed to help me on Friday (right after a busy day), he went home according to our plan. He was scheduled until 9, so he went home, and I had to clean for a terribly long time, which, in fact, I did, since the kitchen was damn dirty. I finished after midnight, hating this kitchen, Weldon, all the customers, the food, the work, etc., but I have to admit that the plan worked. On that day, the manager on duty with me was the manager who makes the schedule. The very one I didn't like from the very beginning. Considering the fact that she had been there since 9 AM, the next day she made the schedule for the new week, where we have 2 closing cooks almost every day. #success Although this would have happened anyway, but the sooner, the easier for us.
Well, that's it for now. Told you a lot: interesting and uninteresting things.
P.s. oh, and yes, as you can see, I was given a real chef coat. Which I wear over my pajamas sometimes, but at work, I look just like a real chef.
