Well, it’s a new day. I don’t yet know what I’m going to write about. I’ll probably keep this one short.
I woke up and had my daily routine which consists mainly of coffee and breakfast. On weekends, I tend to sit in a sort of meditative state until work. I don’t like to use my phone much anymore.
On Saturdays, I drive Possum to work. She is a music educator. I’ll leave it at that, for now. I think it’s a very admirable job. I think being a cook is an admirable job too, but maybe not at the kitchen I work at.
I worked in a kitchen before which was quite a bit nicer than this one. I had some pride in the other kitchen because, even though a lot of the food was unhealthy, there was a lot more work that went into it. Our burgers were freshly shipped and portioned on site in the mornings, our sauces were all made in the mornings, our hollandaise was mixed by hand by my close colleague, our chef and sous-chef were hard-working people who always tried to keep a friendly and talkative atmosphere. We went above and beyond for the type of restaurant we were.
The kitchen I work at now gets burgers pre-packaged and shipped in every week or so, our sauces are usually pre-made in bottles or just a matter of mixing different sauces, our hollandaise comes in powdered form, and our chef is a little off-putting and doesn’t seem to work as hard as everyone else. The standards are much lower.
Today, I had the daily pleasure to be able to spend time with Possum before the working day. I think sometimes I take this time for granted as it happens every day, it’s hard not to. But today was a little different because she was going to play a bar show in the big city and would be gone overnight. The last time we spent a night apart was when I did the same thing in November.
I dropped her off and went home, took the dog out, and went to work where I spent the whole day. Now I’m back home and I have the place to myself. I just finished proofreading and editing my metaphysics paper and have been studying for my computer science midterm.
I think that might be all for now. I’m oddly tired tonight. Work was very busy, I suppose. The restaurant made about $8’000 in sales by the time I left. It’s funny because we can deal with all the people at this restaurant so much easier than the other one I used to work at. I think that’s partly because the food is generally not as good and quicker to make.
I remember one day working at the other restaurant, it was the middle of the day, roughly 3:00PM. Back then, I worked 9 to 5 which was pretty great. Now I’m 11 to 7 which is still okay but I like getting to work earlier. Come March, I’m going to be doing 7 to 3 which ought to be interesting. I’ll be doing a lot of prep. Anyways, It’s 3:00 at the other restaurant and it’s just me and the sous-chef as it often was on Saturday afternoons. My close colleague (who, interesting story, now works with me at the other restaurant) just left, so it was just the two of us and an empty restaurant, save for the few waitresses in the front. Suddenly, as we were told, a middle-aged douchebag walked in the restaurant and asked the waitress.
“Are you having a good day?”
“Yes!” she responded as if she were someone being paid to be personable.
“Well,” the douchebag started, “It’s about to get a whole lot better.”
Suddenly, 12 people were walking in the restaurant. This bastard brought with him twelve fuckers without calling and reserving, and the sous-chef and I panicked.
We made sure the line was stocked and, when the bill was rung in, we threw everything on and cooked it as fast as we could. It took us all of 12 minutes. Even the servers were impressed. But we felt good after that and, luckily, more cooks showed up right after.
The reason I’m telling this is that 12 people coming in at that restaurant unannounced was a big deal. We needed to be absolutely focused, fast, and ready to make all that food in such short order. The restaurant I’m at now, however, seems to find it easier for some reason. Also, the customers are much worse at this restaurant. We regularly get 13 tops who don’t call ahead. If there’s a hockey game nearby, we’ll easily get 30 tops unannounced, and that’s just fine. It always goes by well. Honestly, I wish it didn’t. I wish I was a little more challenged. But we’re never panicked as much as we were at the other restaurant. I remember having 40 open at the other restaurant was a huge deal and everyone would’ve been shitting their pants at the thought of 40 waiting, hungry mouths. But we get 40 open every night here. And it’s just slightly annoying.
I think I thrive on the challenge. I don’t think most people are like that and I don’t think most people would enjoy being a cook. But I don’t feel as challenged at this restaurant.
At the other restaurant, everything had to be perfect. “Perfect Plates” was the motto. Here, our chef just goes by “Good Enough”, it seems.
That’s it for tonight, I think. Overall, I’m pretty alright with my current job. There’s a lot of annoying things about it, but there were annoying things at the other restaurant, and it’s a good experience I think, since I won’t be a cook for my whole life; it’ll be cool to know it’s something I did and more or less found fulfilling.
MyShelf 