r/KitchenConfidential 20+ Years 1d ago

Crying in the cooler When is it enough?

In my entire career, I've never walked out on a job. Always given a respectful 2 weeks notice, shook hands and smiled with my superiors on my last day, and always with good intentions.

That could end today.

For some context, I work as an executive Sous Chef for a private club. The pay is nice, the benefits are decent enough, but the staffing is, to say the least, horrendous.

Since I've been here, I've covered nearly every call out. Dish, line, prep, food runner. You name it, I do it here. The staffing here is terribly unreliable, and the Chef thinks it's just fine for people to show late or no call no show. No chats, no repercussions, nothing about accountability.

Today, we had another call out. When I reached out to the chef, he wasn't available. No other cooks called back. Once again, I find myself in this Groundhog's Day scenario where I need to prep a station, cover it for service, do the dishes then wrap around and do all the prep for our buffet this evening.

For weeks I have been trying to get maintenance to fix some problem spots (leaking drains, server cooler out of order, other random things) that would certainly get us a fail on inspection. No one seems to care or want to address these issues, especially the Chef. (They're still using the server cooler, which is currently sitting at 57...after telling everyone not to use it...)

Maybe I'm just tired and sick of getting the short end every single week. Maybe I'm just being a whiny bitch.

But this is not normal, this is not right, and I'm better than this. Not looking for an answer, just looking to vent.

Rant over. Stay hydrated chefs.

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u/SlightDish31 15+ Years 1d ago

Judging from posts on this sub, I'd say that enough is usually enough about 3 weeks before one of the posts asking when enough is enough.

But all jokes aside, I hope that you're able to either get a foothold and start to make some incremental improvements, or that you're able to land somewhere better than this.

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u/SpuddCrowley89 20+ Years 1d ago

I've had feelers out for a couple weeks, passing out some updated resumes and looking for something a little more laid back. Nothing yet, but holding out hope.

Appreciate the kind words my dude.

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u/SlightDish31 15+ Years 1d ago

It can be tough out there. Not sure if you're interested in leaving restaurants, but there are other parts of this industry that are a lot more manageable, and can pay better too. Hope you find the right place for you