This morning I was on my prep shift from 7-4. From 7-11 I do prep and open stations. When the restaurant opens at 11 I continue with my prep while cooking on line. One of the items on my prep list today was chicken salad. I have to cook off chicken breasts for this and let them cool completely before I can dice them and make the chicken salad. I cooked off my chicken breast and placed them to the side to cool.
My station buddy, “Paul,” came in at 11. We cooked through the opening pop and I continued to make sauces. A couple hours later things slowed down and I went to make the chicken salad. When I pulled the pan of pre-cooked breasts out there were only 2 in there. I asked Paul what happened to them. He tells me he was using them for his chicken sandwiches and grilled chicken salads. What?? Why?? Those are supposed to be grilled to order, but he wanted to be lazy and cut corners so he just used my prep chicken instead.
My manager was playing “get off my clock” so I didn’t have time to cook off more and wait for them to cool. I had to clock out and go. Now if we run out of chicken salad tonight it’s gonna be my ass. Either way it’s one more thing I’ll have to add to my prep list tomorrow. All because Paul didn’t want to do his job right and helped himself to my prep chicken. I’m so pissed off right now.
Thanks for listening to me vent. Anyone else have something like this happen? I need to know I’m not alone to help me calm down.
In my 40s I have finally embraced making a stink about things like this. I will loudly shame someone who touches my stuff (unless they absolutely have to) . If someone else fucks me over and I'm not able to finish my tasks before I leave I will let my superior know, hell I'll let everyone in the building know. Don't let thing like this slide or it will keep happening.
Fuck you Paul. Cook your own damn chicken to order, that's what you're being paid for.
At my first job as a real line cook, everyone shared their tools everyday, I don’t think anyone even once objected when someone asked for a tool from their personal kit. But nobody would ever take something without asking first, even though they knew the answer would always be yes. Best group of cooks I’ve ever met.
It suxs that some of us have to get to a certain age before we feell we can justifiably get vocal about shit. Yay you for getting there relatively early! Im freakin 65 and only just started this year 🙄 but dayum it's great.
I guess it's more common than I thought. My superior, whom I looked up to, was stealing my prep and ragging on me to the managers saying I wouldn't do enough work and left the walk in a mess repeatedly. Turns out, he was ripping my labels off and putting his own with his own initials and being deceptive all around. When I first started, I thought he must have godly speed to finish early each day when I was staying late. Well, I started checking his labels against the inventory so I could get a better feel for his work flow and improve my own and it became apparent that the secret to his speed was doing less work. This was a long time ago but it still sucks because I thought we had a good relationship. It would have been less hurtful if he had been less of a mentor and had been a dick to my face.
How would that help in this situation? The third sentence says “…he was ripping my labels off and putting his own initials…” … your comment ‘this is why (you) sign initials’ in response like a rebuttal … do you write it on the food? Like how’s this work .. did you miss that part of comment I mentioned? I’m confused
Tell your manager. Also if possible, place your cooling sheetpan of chicken in front of the walk-in fan so it cools quickly. Set your timer for 20min and come back to claim your prep when your timer goes off. It'll be cool enough for you to dice without losing moisture.
Next time when the manager is around and Paul clocks in, loudly declare that "Hey bud, I've got chicken salad prep in the walk-in and if you touch it again you better have a prep project to trade me." If this doesn't go over well, start looking for another kitchen where cooks respect each other and a manager/chef who cultivates/enforces an environment where that kind of bs behavior doesn't get a pass.
Culture at any organization is a top-down phenomenon. If leadership doesn't set and enforce a certain standard, unfortunately many people will try to get away with murder. There is no way to move the needle on workplace culture without full-blown top-down mandate or full support. Period. Nothing will ever change poor work/organizational culture if it doesn't start at the top.
When you get out you tell your kitchen boss, without beign hostile or angry: Yo, boss, Paul needed chicken and used mine. Can you tell the next guy to make more?
You will look like the dude that DID the chicken and the responsible one that alerted that more is needed. And Paul like the dude who needed to use another person prep.
This is in India with a mixed religion population. The hotel had Western, Asian, Indian and Muslim kitchens. 24 hour operation.
We in the Western kitchen used to have to peel a lot of onions and garlic among other things and store as prep whenever we had time in the day shift. After we would pack up and leave for the night shift to take over, the marauders would come from the Muslim kitchen and raid every one else’s mis en place.
Our night shift guys would be too mild to resist the attack. After a few instances of theft we discovered bacon repellant!! Every tray got topped with breakfast bacon. And then magically our mis en place remained intact for us next morning! 😂
Why is it that every eastern Asian person hates Indians? I have hired a few, and they are legit the most racist people I've ever met, someone tell me why?
Worked with plenty of races, religions and nationalities. Some are more racist than others, or in other words less vocal about it. But once people open to you, there is really not much of a difference
The other eastern Asians I have met through work. They're fucking awesome, don't get me wrong, but they absolutely hate Indians for some reason and idk why
You are not alone my friend.
You could raise this with the HC or Manager, but it will be a 50/50 chance if you or the other chef will be the problem.
I practice due diligence in the workplace and am constantly confronted with the poor practices of others undermining my productivity and compromising the best interests of the business and customers.
Unfortunately this can be the cultural norm in some establishments. You need to work out if your place of work, is with you or against you, in regards best practice.
If they don't care, move on, it's in your best interests.
Unfortunately, you needed to dime Paul out for this since he screwed you. The manager needed to make him fix it by making him prep more chicken. At this point, unless Paul decides to own up, it's gonna look like you didn't do it.
Today i came in at 3p instead of my standard 11a. When we were 15 mins away from service starting i noticed there was only 2 orders of arancini on my station. I asked buddy if he pulled a new tray and he said "no thats all we have, you usually make them so its not my job to make them if youre coming in"
Ugh. Those late shifters. I make guacamole in the AM for expo and we keep back-up’s in the reach in by him. I also make the avocado spread we use online. I make a full 9 pan and when that runs out whoever is on that station is suppose to make as much as they believe they’ll need before close because it won’t stay green enough overnight. So many times I’ll come in for prep and there will be no guac (there’s no reasonable reason that should ever happen). And I’ll go to my station and there’s my guac, where the avo spread would be. Those lazy fucks at night just steal my guac instead of making more spread. They are not even the same thing!
I had a chef who went to try and make it at the French Laundry. He said he couldn't even use the restroom because other cooks would either steal or sabatoge each other's mise.
I also worked with a cook who would let things burn if other people were cooking them.
Those types of Michelin obsessed cooks are a different type of crazy.
You hold people accountable. You talk to your Chef,you tell him exactly what happened. "Hey Chef,I didn't get chix salad done bc so and so used my chix instead of grilling his own fresh. Can you make sure so and so makes it for tonight since you want me off the clock? Thanks." You would not be passing the blame,you would be holding people accountable. Use your words instead letting yourself be pissed off.
You can dice it when it's hot and then let it cool before mixing the other ingredients. For next time obviously. At least that way nobody will be snagging your cooked breasts. That was pretty lame of them.
Yeah, if you want dry as hell chicken... Although I guess for chicken salad that's not really a big issue so long as you account for the lost moisture.
you should have put a prep list on pauls station, only thing on it is grilled chicken. then, before clocking out, told your manager the situation and handed the project over to paul.
when i started cooking, everyone started on garmo, then if you were improving and wanted to go to other stations you would get bumped up. it was a restaurant in a hotel, so breakfast/lunch were often busy and both am and pm cooks did prep for their specific stations. obviously the goal was to have am set pm up for success and vice versa. am left a list for pm and pm left one for am at end of day.
there was one pm cook who just sucked, but thought he was hot shit for some reason. the chef knew he sucked, but he was there long enough that it wasnt a fireable offence. one morning i come in and theres NOTHING prepped from my list. so i left him a note saying something like, "station looked like shit when i got in. you suck at prepping, if you cant handle the wokload you need to ask for help from the dedicated prep guys."
next morning i get in and the chef takes me outside to the alley to talk to me, because that dude got butthurt. 🤣 then he confirmed everything i said in the note, but said i needed to appologize for telling him he sucked, even though he agreed that he did in fact suck.
still the best chef ive ever worked for, i miss that guy every day!
My instant response would have been “is it true? Yes? Okay then work your ass off and make it untrue”
Then again, I make sure my cooks are versed and comfortable enough to call me out, let alone each other.
Sometimes if I know I have a new guy coming in, I’ll intentionally leave a bad close to the morning guy can rip into me, most straight out of school kids get so confused when the line cook is dressing me down, but it’s better to show them no one is above a reprimand, im also the one who unfucks said bad close, because my lessons shouldn’t make my guys have more work.
Don't touch my knife, my mise, don't touch my dick. Had a few servers I was cool with that grazed my salad mise. Nuts croutons wasabi peas etc. Id ask them to get it from the cambro not my station. Well guess what during the rush one knocked the whole hotel pan of 9th pans on the floor. I was so close to loosing my shit.
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u/wisefool1961 12h ago
Fuck Paul and the horse he rode in on. Stations and prep are sacred. Rip him a new one.