"Chefs Gone Desperate" - When That Dream Job Isn't Available, But You Still Have To Pay The Bills

[DonRocks]

A chef I know wrote me a letter that was hilarious (on paper) but sad (in reality).

In order to tide him over, he accepted a stable job at a country club. Here is the middle paragraph of his letter, reproduced with his permission (and without comment):

"When they hired me, all I heard was, 'we want fine dining, fancy, unique ingredients.'  Implemented it.  It was as if I dropped my pants and took a shit on the 18th green in front of the Ladies Golf League.  Now I'm serving meatloaf, liver and onions and a blue plate special."

Sound familiar? Do any chefs who have been through this have any advice for this poor man?

I don't know quite what he's going through, but close enough: I did once have a Monday-Friday job that I absolutely hated - so much so, that anxiety and dread started building up on Sunday morning, sometimes even Saturday night when I got home from being out. It is truly awful having a job that you despise, and I thank goodness that I actually look forward to working on this website every single morning that I wake up. (I will add that I was a whiz-kid, making my company look fantastic, but my supervisor stabbed me in the back and took *all* credit for it. He was a duplicitous MBA with fantastic political skills; I was a hard-charging MS in Computer Science who wanted to get the job done - I left after one year after giving senior management an ultimatum: 'Give me an early promotion, or I'm gone.' I've never looked back, and I never had any regrets - the next year I did similar work on my own and doubled my income. Unfortunately, chefs don't have that luxury.

"Chasing your dreams" sounds like such a wonderful slogan, but sometimes it isn't possible, and you just have to bide your time - and man-oh-man is that a miserable period in ones life.

[DaveO]

That is both creative writing and interesting.  If the country club is in the greater DC area, it suggests several points:

1.  Not everyone in the region is a foodie or wants to experiment.

2.  If it is in this area the upside is simply that there has been such an enormous explosion of restaurants in this region over the last few years there are a greater number of opportunities to switch jobs than in years past.     The reference from this article  referenced elesewhere on this forum, speaks to the growth of opportunities in this region.

[Antonio Burrell]

Yeah, I tend to think that this forum is more geared to chefs or others, stories of having no other choice but to settle for a less than ideal job just to get by.

I don't know about other job fields. What I know is the hospitality industry. What I can tell you is there is a lot of turnover in all phases of a restaurant. As a cook, you are often looking to move on in 1-2 years in order to learn more. You generally learn about a Chef within a year so you move on to the next thing..just the way it is. After a certain point you find someplace where you settle in and work your way up the ladder to the highest you can go. Either sous or Chef de cuisine, hopefully eventually Exec Chef. Sometimes that works out and sometimes it doesn't. I worked at Vidalia for 3.5 years hoping to work my way up to Chef. Guess what. Peter Smith wasn't going anywhere. So I left to try to do my own thing. I wound up back at Bis 6 months later because it fit me better and was what I wanted in the first place. The job I took in the meantime? The Radisson Barcelo and Gabriel. Was it what I really wanted at the time I took it? Not by a long shot. But the job I wanted wasn't available at the time. Cathal hadn't left Bis yet and like I said, Pete wasn't leaving for another 4 years to open PS7's.

 
As I'm sure Eater made everyone aware, I've moved around quite a bit in the last few years. It's not easy finding the right fit for the right time in your life. Some places seem like a great fit when you interview. You both are like you're on a great first date. You're trying to impress the other person. You are both thinking great thoughts about all the great possibilities. Yet it almost never works out like that. Sometimes life gets in the way. Sometimes what you want isn't what they want. Sometimes you get told you can do anything you want but then you get a menu you can't change. Sometimes you wind up cooking a cuisine that doesn't cater to a core portion of the clientele, and even though it's meant to broaden the client base in the long run, you get so discouraged by the constant special orders that going to work becomes a soul crushing proposition. Sometimes you fail to live up to your end. These are all reasons that almost all Chefs are looking for the "next" best fit. It is alot easier to move on to the next job if you are proactive. Plus, what unhappy idiot is content being miserable. Add to that that tenure at ones job tends to be more subjective in our industry, 6-9 months at a job is probably easier to explain as a cook than as say, a lawyer.

 
So you're constantly looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You are always looking for that "dream" job. But guess what? You don't know you've got that job till YOU ACTUALLY HAVE THAT JOB. Maybe it's owning your own place. Maybe it's getting total freedom. Maybe it's working with a great friend and mentor. I know all types of Chefs who all have different dreams for themselves. You always know what you think you're looking for and sometimes you get that and it sucks so you have to redefine or refine what your dream is. I tend to think this dimension isn't much different than most fields. I do feel that movement in most other fields is frowned upon thus the misconception amongst outsiders that movement within our industy is as "bad" as it is in their own career. But I also think that when anyone finds someplace where one feels at home and can truly settle in, that feeling they feel is unlike any other. The feel of being home and at ease? That feeling is elusive but sooooo worth it. I can tell you that from experience.

[DonRocks]

As I'm sure Eater made everyone aware, I've moved around quite a bit in the last few years. It's not easy finding the right fit for the right time in your life. Some places seem like a great fit when you interview. You both are like you're on a great first date. You're trying to impress the other person. You are both thinking great thoughts about all the great possibilities. Yet it almost never works out like that. Sometimes life gets in the way. Sometimes what you want isn't what they want. Sometimes you get told you can do anything you want but then you get a menu you can't change. 

I can't remember if i ever talked about this with you or not, but the publications (and there were several) that labeled you as a 'peripatetic chef' were going by prima facie evidence alone - basically, what they read - and didn't understand you, or your situation, at all. Not once did I stop recommending you to people because I had taken the time to understand your situation, just as I do with other chefs (some of whom *are* peripatetic by nature and unreliable). I knew very well that you in no way deserved to be painted like this, and "news sources" that did, (does anyone know which ones did?), bluntly stated, didn't have the knowledge to be printing such falsehoods. Granted, they didn't know any better, but is that an excuse?

I'm sometimes criticized, often via indirect reference (which I find cowardly), for "chumming around with chefs," but that is simply not true right now: I have not been to a restaurant with any chef, GM, or restaurant owner in 2014. I'm not saying I won't in the future, but to say it now would simply be wrong. Yes, I do consider several people in the industry to be my friends (who I keep in contact with by email, PM, and Facebook), and I'm by no means ashamed to say it. In fact, I look forward to the day when I can break bread with some of these people, and I will always be honest and straightforward with our readers about this so they can decide for themselves if I've committed anything ethical breaches.