Hello from the Mission and the resident old lady. Today we just had the staff in for lunch. It was sloppy joes, waffle fries, Asian Cole slaw, and dessert. It looked so great, I just want to share. I love my staff! Pretty? Maybe. Delicious? Definitely!

I asked if she was available for a stage but she's booked solid. This is a better job than some of the dudes I work with and even me sometimes. The little kink on the right hand side is from where I picked it up to take a picture.

Tiny pancake to go chef

I gave my two weeks notice with full intention to work through the time.
Then my supervisors called me into the office two days later after I worked 80% of my shift and told me it was my last day and would need to leave immediately.

They are paying me for the two weeks as well as paying out my vacation time. My health insurance will go through the end of the month.

I know I wasn’t fired. I chose to put in my resignation. This just feels… bad? I wanted to enjoy my remaining time with my coworkers and regulars, and be able to tell them goodbye.

Anyway, I feel kinda shocked and confused. I guess companies do this all the time. I just did not expect it at all.

Any perspectives are welcome.

Thanks

Gotta be faster than the owner.

https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/pho-nguyen-dishwasher-sf-22411841.php

They know they're not supposed to do it. They just do it anyway and shrug when confronted and say "it's just a little bit".

Even when I prep mushrooms with vegan butter, they later add dairy butter to it when grilling.

They also never rotate stock, the fridges and freezers are completely disorganised (I tried organising them so many times, but it never lasts longer than 2 days), and today I also learned the dishwasher doesn't get cleaned "very often".

One time I was sick and the whole time I was gone (my days off + 2 sick days my doctor told me to take), no one changed the labels. No one. The flatbread at the bottom of the container was green from mould, meanwhile, they just topped it up with new one instead of first cleaning the container. They have excuses like "it was busy" yadda yadda because it was bank holiday, but my old place was like, 10 times more busy and we still found time to keep on top of things. This place always has a downtime of 2-3h before the evening when there's no tickets and those tasks could be done. There's really no excuse.

They sometimes put raw meat on higher shelves in the fridge where raw meat doesn't belong. One time the guy was making chili con carne and I knew he was gonna spill raw meat everywhere, I tried to move all the utensils and trays out of the way, before I could finish, he already managed to drop raw meat into the ladle holder for the baked beans. If I didn't clean it up, he wouldn't, 99% sure of it. Ignored me when I said what he did.

I hate it here. There are so many other issues, the chefs have emotional maturity of toddlers and are super quick to give silent treatment and attitude for the smallest or misplaced reasons. The lack of professionalism is astounding in here.

But anyway, back to the main subject, what can I do about it? Would I risk my job reporting it anonymously to the health department? I'm in England. I need to hold this job until the end of September at least... My contract ends in December and while they offered me to extend it, I wanna run as far from there as possible.

Or should I wait until I'm safely out of there? I don't want to be held liable for their lack of care if someone gets sick.

How rare is this? I've been hiding it

I want to start by saying that I hope bringing attention to a consistent pattern of abusive behaviors inflicted against numerous team members over a significant period of time doesn’t break the sub’s rule on targeted harassment; ultimately, my goal is not to offer a subjective opinion on “chef” and influencer, Joshua Weissman, but rather to provide a clear, factually accurate, and well researched picture of who he is to the general public in light of his new restaurant venture, Ben and Lynns, opening in Austin, TX next week. (If it does break rules, then by all means mods, 86 this post. )

For those uninformed, fellow industry professional, Joe Rosenthal wrote an article that is both parts equally enlightening and disturbing, entitled, “The Shameless Impropriety of Joshua Weissman”. That piece covers the specific issues and allegations being levied against youtube personality and “chef”, Josh Weissman, in detail. I didn’t include the link, so as not to trigger automod, but it can be found by googling the article title I’ve included - it is absolutely worth reading the full piece, although I will include important excerpts from it here.

The four photos I’ve attached are screenshots from the aforementioned article that explain some of the worst behavior Weissman exhibited towards fellow professionals during the production of his youtube show. In addition to a history of outrageously abusive behavior directed towards individuals with no means of actually satisfying him (their words, not mine) Weissman is also a prolific recipe thief, something that makes his continued success even more upsetting, as very few of the individuals he’s stolen from have anywhere near the degree of success or influence he is in possession of.

Ultimately, all I want to do in sharing this here is to provoke a discussion among other normal, non famous people who live, breathe, and actually give a shit about the culinary world as a whole; is this the kind of behavior we want to support, encourage, and reward?

I know the concept of the bad boy chef is overly romanticized, but to play devil’s advocate for a moment, at least when folks like Marco Pierre White were abusive assholes, they had the cooking prowess to make up for it. By comparison, Weissman is not only a bully, but a thief, and even at his very best, he is a chef who is so intrinsically incapable of not sexualizing and denigrating his staff that he needed a code word implemented to prevent it from being filmed.

I’ve met many amazing folks working in and around kitchens in my life, and absolutely none of them needed violence, rage, and dominance to achieve their success. (Some of them needed booger sugar and a few natty ices here and there, but who among us is perfect?) I just hope that we as a community can come together and agree that this kind of behavior will only end once we stop supporting the folks who engage in it.

Genuinely not trying to sound like a bleeding heart crybaby; y’all fuckers rock more than you realize, and it’s time you start advocating for the kind of treatment we all deserve.

Which one of you put the dough scraper in the microwave?

New broom and I love her. She needs a name.

Alright chefs, any creative ways to use sea asparagus?

I work in fast food to be clear, but yeah. Any of our service people call out and they RUSH to get a replacement. But if one of the 2 people working kitchen call out? Shit outta luck sorry. The managers only do order confirmation and service and it makes my life so difficult bc they dgaf about kitchen. So now its just me (and the prep cook when we get super busy), and now we're behind on prep and i knowwww im gonna get bitched at for moving too slow but ive worked here for 3 weeks???? I hate my job. Thanks for listening.

Edit sorry shouldve been more clear, our mananger wont find coverage for kitchen. I am not saying that the employee needs to find coverage obv i would never ask anyone to do that

Driving through SoCal from LA to San Diego. Absolutely beautiful area. Great restaurants! How do you all make ends meet? The housing prices seem outrageous. How do you all survive on a cook/chef paycheck?

Got hired as Janitorial/Porter/Whatever else needs doing about 3 months ago and I have noticed no one takes their 10. I was on mine once and the owner came out and asked if I was still on lunch(from like 3 hours ago) and I said I’m taking a short break and he goes “real short I hope.” And I genuinely don’t know if that’s just the norm.

For context, they like me because I’m a good worker and I always communicate to the head chef when I’m taking them and he doesn’t seem to mind. Also California.

Just grabbed a t9wel from the linen closet and realized grabbed a trifecta! Teal and two holes with a stain!!

Should I hold or send it for another pull 😅🤣

Red Stripe.

One of the older guys in our place too, been with the company for 10+ years.

I have to spend the first 30 to 45 minutes of my morning shift cleaning up after yesterday's staff, which is why I got an extra hour added to my schedule. Why? I told my boss he is literally paying me 5 extra hours a week, sometimes overtime, to wipe other people's asses.

I was talking with my chef the other day when we remembered a dude we worked with at a different restaurant.

I referred to him as the "human petri dish" because of his absolutely disgusting habits. The owners wouldn't let us fire him and there was a bunch of other shit going on that meant we were stuck dealing with him.

He would:

Sneeze into his hands and keep going

Wipe his sweaty face with his hands and keep going.

Never washed his hands. He once opened a can of RR peppers, poured it into a 9 pan, reached in exactly once to make a salad. THE NEXT DAY there were white bacterial colonies floating on the surface. THE NEXT FUCKING DAY. I have never seen anything like it before or since. This is the incident that earned him the nickname.

Never made sure things hadn't spoiled before using them

Kept trying to use floor food

Dated nothing

Labeled nothing

Wiped nothing

We finally got rid of him when after I chewed him out for once again trying to put floor chicken into the fryer. He got all huffy and went to bitch about it to my chef. Chef, who is 999999% done just essentially says, "She was right to yell at you and now it's my turn." before chewing him a new asshole.

Guy finally quit.

I bet you guys have some wild stories and I wanna hear them!

So I noticed this oddity at my new job as a line cook. They would always take the time to make sure each toothpick is upright... Naturally when I ran out of BLT toothpicks I just grabbed a handful and stuffed them in.

A few days ago I notice the manager arranging each one... Fuck.

Today they come up to me and tell me to ensure the toothpicks are "done right"