I left school mid-way through November so I could go to work at CR Sparks. They specifically asked for this because December is typically busy and they wanted me to have time to learn the place. I had enough credits to do this, and even though it meant missing a few classes to leave early, given the health problems I was having it seemed like a good idea at the time. Unfortunately it was trouble almost from the start. The first few days were okay; various people showed me around and how to run the pantry (salads, cold appetizers, and kids’ plates.) It wasn’t difficult work, but it didn’t get any easier as time went on. They do a lot of business there (250-300 people on a Friday or Saturday) but that’s not what bothered me. I was ready for the amount of work I was expected to do. What I was not prepared for was the people I had to work with.
The biggest problem I had was different people telling me different ways to do things. I started working with one guy, who told me how he wants salads made. Then another guy came in and told me no, do it this way. They would go back and forth, through me, how salads should be made, but no matter how I made them, someone wasn’t happy. Then one of the sous-chefs started sending all my salads back because they weren’t done the way he wanted them. As time went on I just kept getting more and more confused not by a lack of direction, but rather misdirection. I would be sent back to get something from a walk-in, waste time trying to find it, only to find that it wasn’t there to begin with, it was in a different walk-in. I was constantly given incorrect information, only to get in trouble for it later. I tried to learn by watching other people, then found out that they weren’t doing it correctly, so the chef would come to me and point out where I screwed up. I finally figured out that one of the sous-chefs was intentionally giving me the runaround just to have some fun at my expense: I was constantly told that I didn’t have enough greens on the plates, so I would remake it to be larger, only to be told that now it was too big. This happened every night that this particular sous-chef was up front; no one else had issues. One night a salad was sent back as being too large, so to test a theory I took the same salad and put it back up unchanged. I was now told BY THE SAME PERSON that it was too small. I took it back down, waited a minute or two, then put it back up. Now he says it’s perfect, but it shouldn’t have taken so long. I told the guy that it was the same salad he had rejected two times before, so what was different about it the third time? I don’t think he appreciated being caught because he didn’t talk to me the rest of the night. At this point though, I was really upset and realized that there was no way I was going to survive another four months of this, but if I left I would be left with no internship.
The third week, I was grabbed by the personnel manager and told that it wasn’t working out. The chef didn’t feel that this was a good fit (the only time I ever saw him was when he was telling me I had done something wrong.) During my trial shift I was right in there, and they were impressed with how I took charge of everything. She said that wasn’t what they were getting now, to which I replied that I wasn’t comfortable doing that. After the first few days I realized that the people I worked with didn’t appreciate that I was trying to run things, so I stepped back and let them show me their way to do it. I told her about the confusion. I told her about the frustration. I told her that I was sick with fever for most of the first week, but I came in and worked anyway (and was yelled at for being too slow, with comments like “I know you’re sick but suck it up!”) I told her that I was just not accepted by the employees. I didn’t tell her that I was planning on leaving anyway because I just was not happy there. I feel bad that I let down one person in particular – the sous-chef I reported to when I did my trial shift is a NECI grad, and I was a disappointment.
Turns out she did me a favor. I sent an e-mail to the school to let them know I blew it. I got an e-mail back telling me that the owner of the Colby Hill Inn was looking for me – I had called her in September to see if she needed an intern, at which time they did not. Two chefs later she decided to promote their line cook and look for an intern, but she couldn’t remember my name or number so she went to the school to find me. So I called her and then went in for an interview, and the following Wednesday did a trial shift. I ran the salads while the Chef did all the entrees. He explained what needed to be done, and I did it. He didn’t treat me like a lesser form of life, he spoke to me with respect, and we had a good time. (Sure we only did 8 people all night, but that’s typical for an Inn during the winter.) He offered me the internship after the shift, and I started the following Friday night. My fear was that it would be the same as it was at Sparks – the trial run would go well and then the actual work would suck.
Oh. My. God.
I cannot fully describe how completely opposite the two experiences are. CR Sparks is a typical restaurant where they are focused on putting as many asses in seats as possible per night. The quality of the food is not as much a concern as it should be; the emphasis is on getting everything out fast so people can come in, sit down, eat, and get out of there so more people can come in. It’s an assembly line, pure and simple. Colby Hill, on the other hand, is fine dining that does nowhere near the traffic. They are focused on the presentation of the food, making sure everything is perfect about the plating. The food is carefully prepared to order – the steaks are not precooked and reheated later. Granted it’s a different experience – you don’t go to a fine dining restaurant and expect your food in ten minutes. Fancy food takes longer, and you pay more for it, but it goes way beyond that. The attitude and atmosphere are very different – at Sparks, no one really talked to me unless they were giving me orders. There were a lot of conversations going on around me, but no matter how much I tried to join in, I was not included in them. I never talked to any of the servers, or even knew their names. I was treated like I didn’t belong there (one Saturday night I was swamped with orders, but could get no assistance because the guys were flirting with an 18-year-old intern from Johnson and Wales.) At Colby Hill, I joke around with the servers during service. The Chef treats me like a friend as well as a co-worker. We talk about anything and everything, not just work related stuff. I am encouraged to be creative, and was given control of family meal two days in a row. If I have ideas for menus, the Chef wants to hear them. The Chef is directly involved in the preparation of the meals as well, not just sitting in an office so far withdrawn from the food that he’s a Chef in name only. (There is such a thing as being too large – when the chef has so many people under him that he never even touches food anymore, it’s too large an operation.) I feel like a person there, not just a worker bee. I don’t leave the kitchen feeling frustrated and I don’t dread going into work every day. I feel like the focus is on the food. I enjoy what I do, and that was the point of all this!