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burun wrote:

same wrote:Can someone explain to me why these food service people are so often such cunts? Everyone from the Food Network celebrities to the people on these reality shows to people I've worked with in restaurants to the culinary students I overhear on the train are so surprisingly arrogant, ostentatious, and pedantic that I really have to wonder if I'm missing something.

This is why I was so surprised when you told me you used to work in a restaurant! You are so different from pretty much every line cook/prep cook/sous chef I have ever met.

Bourdain sort of tries to explain it in his book, but I think it's just a ruse. I think the reality is that the hours are shitty and the work is really grinding, so I guess people develop a chip on their shoulder about it.

I guess that's why I don't do it anymore. It was good money in college but not my scene.

And you really may be onto something there. I remember cooks always talking shit on the servers in pretty much every place I've worked, based mainly on the fact that they (the servers) make a lot more money and arguably work significantly less hard, and their job often requires less education (most cooking jobs in the city these days require a culinary certificate). But hey assholes, guess what? Nobody told you to become a cook, so fuck off. Stop doing annoying shit like playing little power games with the waitresses and talking down to people who do more noble work because they don't sweat and get burned all day at their jobs.


P.S. Somone who completely defies this stereotype yet is a food service god is Doug of Hot Doug's. So hats off Doug, I salute thee.

burun wrote:

same wrote:Can someone explain to me why these food service people are so often such cunts? Everyone from the Food Network celebrities to the people on these reality shows to people I've worked with in restaurants to the culinary students I overhear on the train are so surprisingly arrogant, ostentatious, and pedantic that I really have to wonder if I'm missing something.

This is why I was so surprised when you told me you used to work in a restaurant! You are so different from pretty much every line cook/prep cook/sous chef I have ever met.

Bourdain sort of tries to explain it in his book, but I think it's just a ruse. I think the reality is that the hours are shitty and the work is really grinding, so I guess people develop a chip on their shoulder about it.

I could be way off base here.

That, and the restaurant industry is populated with undereducated people and awash with drugs. You can drop out of high school and work your way up in the restaurant industry. Some people think you need to go to culinary school, but this isn't necessarily the case.

So, you have Joe Schmoe, who works in restaurants, which (having worked in about seven or eight over the course of my life) is a real grind. The people get off work at 10 or 11 or later, and they feel "crap, I don't want to go home and just stare at the wall and go to sleep and then have to be here at 10AM the next morning to do prep. I want a life" so they go home, take a shower, go out and party 'til about 3 AM or 4 AM. Then they go home, crash, wake up, they need a little "pick up" in the morning, so they chain smoking, drinking coffee, and later if they go to work, maybe one of the waitresses, who clean house on tips and partying, maybe has something extra they can put in their system to stay awake. Then they get amped up, work their ass off all day for customers who don't show gratitude, and then finish the night, and what do you want to do? Relax, party a little. Repeat cycle.

A lot of restaurant types don't budget well, they overspend and live hand to mouth, which is also stressful.

Anyway, I was never the "party" type. So I never got into that cycle, but I've seen it in just about every restaurant I've ever worked in. And don't get me started on how incestuous those places can be with the kitchen and the waitstaff playing musical doink the chairs.

sleepkid wrote:Anyway, I was never the "party" type. So I never got into that cycle, but I've seen it in just about every restaurant I've ever worked in. And don't get me started on how incestuous those places can be with the kitchen and the waitstaff playing musical doink the chairs.

Me either, and when you don't party with these people every night you become the odd man out. I was always the black sheep of the kitchen because of my lack of shared excess (not that I can't put 'em back from time to time, but I don't want to go out drinking every night with a highschool dropout who's got a tatoo of Taz flipping the bird).

same wrote:
Me either, and when you don't party with these people every night you become the odd man out. I was always the black sheep of the kitchen because of my lack of shared excess (not that I can't put 'em back from time to time, but I don't want to go out drinking every night with a highschool dropout who's got a tatoo of Taz flipping the bird).

Exactly. Same here.

I actually have worked both as a server and in the kitchen. To be honest, even though the kitchen work is harder, I find it less stressful than being a server. I also enjoy preparing food. But, I'm really too old for that kind of job now (even though I am currently helping out part-time at a friend's restaurant, but this is different, as I know them.)

I always found that you had stoners and drinkers in the kitchens, but cokeheads and speed freaks on the waitstaff. This led to numerable problems. Such as (a true conversation):

"WHERE'S MY ESCARGOT FOR TABLE 4!?! THEY'VE BEEN WAITING FOR 25 MINUTES!!!!"

"Yrr.. wha? Escargot? Didn't we send that out already? No wait, I think it was 86'd. . . so, whatcha doing later?"

"YYYYAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHH!"

...or something along those lines.

Yes, cooking is physically harder work but can definately be less stressful. Being at the mercy of dipshit cooks while having to deal with demanding asshole customers invokes that quintinsential "man I really should go back to school" thought. Very frustrating. Most people treat food servers like shit and it really pisses me off when I see it.

I am so addicted to this show...and I don't even have a fucking TV (I go to a friends house every week for the new episode).

When that guy ground up the scallops, lobster, and shrimp for the handmade seafood sausage I just about flooded the room with drool.

I am getting the sausage maker attachment for my kitchen aid mixer just to make that...

Oh crap. A new season? I guess I have to get cable/sat or find a decent pay usenet service. I love the season with that precocious prick Marcel and the Joe Average guy Mike.

What exactly is a pizza shooter?

eva03 wrote:What exactly is a pizza shooter?

Vodka and Pizza.

*bump*

Anyone watch the season that just ended? It seemed these people were not all incredible assholes and could actually cook.

Strange.