i love moments like this

so, sunday was burger nite, and on burger nite i put a garbage can right in front of my broiler cause i end up with tons of used patty paper from both the burgers and the cheese.  so we're rocking it, it's busy, and loud, and awesome, and i guess that a sheet of patty paper caught on fire on the broiler and i didn't notice and threw it away into a garbage can full of other patty papers and empty fry bags.  suddenly i hear from the other side of the line "mike, your hands on fire!"  and i'm pretty sure they're not, that i would notice that.  so i slowly and deliberately raise my hands up in front of my face and turn them over to show everybody that no, my hands are very much not on fire.  and then one of the girls goes "no, your can is on fire!" and i turn around and it looks like a michael bay movie...just flaming away and threatening to blow the ansel system.  i can only imagine how it looked from their perspective...

"mike, your cans on fire"

*mike slowly raises his hands in front of his face, unaware of the raging inferno behind him*

sometimes i'm too awesome for words

chugging right along

so i think it's my schedule that is making it difficult for me to blog as much as i should, or as much as i used to.  i'm back on nights (power cooks for power shifts, i'm told) and nine times out of ten i don't get home till around midnight.  a shower and some food and a tall boy later it's one am and i just don't feel like typing.

anyway, things are going pretty well.  believe it or not, i've been at the new new place just as long as i was at new place.  took me a while to really get going, to figure out the groove of the kitchen and establish myself as one of the hardcores.  but i'm there.  i can fully say that i kick ass at work now.  plus we have a good goddamn time while we're kicking ass.  on friday, the daytime kitchen manager was still milling around and drinking and kinda stood there and watched the first hour or so of dinner service, and man, he just looked forlorn.  he left for a bit and i asked the nighttime kitchen manager "dude, who shit in miyagi's cereal?  he looks bummed" and i was told "he's just jealous of how much fun we can have and kick ass at the same time".  we were all dancing around to lady gaga or the scissor sisters and jacking our jaws and laughing and all that, but we were still absolutely cranking food out...six minute ticket times.  i guess there's power struggles and pissy attitudes during the day, but we don't see that at night.  we got a kickass crew, we all know our jobs, and we're a fucking team.  i guess not so much during the day.

so, yeah, things are good.  my schedule and paychecks so far leave something to be desired, but whatever...it is what it is.  the good outweighs the bad.  plus the mets are playing hot and the US drew with england yesterday.  so, yeah...things are good.

ok so maybe not so bad

ok.  i apologize to my loyal reader (readers?  does anybody still read this thing?), cause i have been a pissy little missy lately.  i have a problem getting down on myself, and i have a problem seeing the positives in a situation where there is negatives.  anyway.  i'm really trying to give my brain a 180 and keep myself positive and happy.  work is going a lot better for me than it was a couple weeks ago.  i feel like i've finally gotten where i wanted to be as far as knowing the menu and the flow of the kitchen.  i've had two weeks of good days at work.  i feel like i'm becoming part of the boys.  i actually found myself kind of training a new guy yesterday...nobody told me to, it just seemed like it needed to happen.  he is a dishwasher but our dish guys have to do lots of run-n-fetch for the cooks and occasionally heat stuff up, so i just lined him out on where stuff was and what to expect to get asked to do.

anyway, it's good times.  i am starting to like it a lot, and feel like i fit in and feel like i kick ass and all that.  the only problem i got now is that i'm not getting enough hours.  i really don't want to have to go somewhere else and start all over again, but there's tons of guys in the crew and we all need our hours...i'm not established enuf at this place to go demanding more hours or else, ya know?  i wish i was.  but i'm not.  there is another cook leaving next week to go work at a gas station (i know, right?), and i'm gonna talk to the kitchen manager about maybe picking up one of his shifts.  i really want this to work out.  it's getting fun, but i'm actually having trouble paying my bills at this point. 

aah, shit...if it's not one thing, it's another, right?  i guess i could have worse problems than three days off.  if i was getting 9+ hours a shift things would be ok but when it's slow i'm low man on the totem and i get sent home.  i'm in danger of not even hitting thirty hours this week.  i can not pay my bills with thirty hours a week.  and i got all excited cause last week i got a couple hours of OT, and i was like, "oh, i can do all the OT they wanna give me" and then i see my schedule and it's only four days, and then next week it's only four days, and i'm torn between being stoked i got three days off to sit on my ass and be lazy, and having to pay my bills.

i'm sure it will all work out.  (see?  positive attitude.)  i want it to work out.  a couple weeks ago i wasn't so sure.  but on friday i brought the boys all red bulls and i've been staying after and having shifters with the guys occasionally and i finally feel like i broke thru the fences and am running around with the big dogs.  it's good times.

anyway.  i guess there isn't much point to this post.  i just wanted to post something that wasn't all "boo hoo poor me".  things at work are pretty awesome.  things in my wallet, not so much...but i'm working on it.

on a side note, this is the worst day in history for me to be stuck at work...the mets play the yankees on sunday night baseball, and also it's THE GODDAMN FINAL EPISODE OF LOST EVER.  i told my wife she can only text me about the game.  fuckin abc...i make sure i have tuesdays off so i can watch lost and they put the fucking finale on a sunday.  suck it, tv execs...

the grass is never greener anywhere

*sigh*

six months ago i was completely entrenched in a good job that paid extremely well.  i got along with all my coworkers, and i had fun at work and generally never dreaded going.

now, i'm new guy at a very busy place...and new guy always gets shit shifts and shit stations.  i gotta be honest, guys...i dread going to work.  i get along fine with everybody, but i have doubts as to whether they actually like me.  i used to get excited about big weekends (mothers day, graduation, etc) and now they scare the shit out of me.  i feel like i'm in the weeds from the second i clock on.  i keep running into situations that make me feel stupid and worthless.  example--yesterday i was on the salad station (easier than broiler) and i ran out of corn muffins...i asked where the backups were, and i got looked at like i was an idiot and told "um, you have to make them".  k, that's fine, but don't act like i'm dumb for not knowing that.  also, generally with baked things they're baked off ahead of time and you don't fire off pans of muffins during dinner rush.  anyway.  i've worked the salad station twice, counting last night.  nobody has trained me, i just kind of jumped in and started doing it.  the one dude in the kitchen who i think might not hate me, he helps me when he can, gives me pointers and whatnot, but i feel like i ask so many questions he gets annoyed with me.  and it's wierd sitting at the end of the kitchen in silence when everybody else is talking about their mutual friends and experiences.

i dunno.

i've just been really bummed lately, and it's hard for me to focus on the good things.  with the schedule that i got currently, four days a week i get home after the wife goes to bed and she's gone by the time i get up.   i miss her.  and for all the positive things about the job (#1---i have one) i seem to get stuck thinking that i made a huge mistake leaving my old job.  and once that thought creeps into my head, everything else gets tainted with dark clouds.

it is what it is.  what's done is done.  but let me pose a little thought for all of you reading...if the place across the street is hiring and it seems like it would be fun, be very fucking careful.  a great man once said (actually it was awesome 80s band cinderella) "don't know what you got till it's gone".

i miss my old job.  i miss the boss, i miss the girls, i miss the kitchen staff.  i miss my extreme familiarity with the menu and the processes.  but most of all i miss the paychecks.  i miss feeling like i don't suck ass, and i miss feeling like i fit in.

but it is what it is...

back to square one

i took my first kitchen job in feburary of 98.  i was a college student, and i was eating with my dad and grandma at one of our favorite places, and the hostess asked me if i wanted a job.  i remember working a couple of dish shifts my first few weeks, but i was pretty much a cook from the get go.  i wasn't terribly serious about it back then, but it grew on me and eventually i became the kick ass line ninja that i am today.  i worked my ass off to move up the chain, both pay wise and responsibility wise.  six months ago i was getting paid very well, but i had kind of topped out at the place i was at in terms of responsibility.  i was getting bored at work, we weren't as busy as i wanted to be, and the food i was cooking wasn't what i ultimately wanted to do.  and then i got an opportunity to do something different, and even though i took a hefty pay cut to do it, on paper it seemed like the right opportunity.

we all know how that turned out, now don't we?

anyway, here i am, new guy at a new restaurant, where nobody really knows the time i've put in and nobody cares how much i used to get paid.  low man on the totem pole...after 12 years on the line, i'm the new guy again, the guy they put on the busiest station to get his ass kicked, the guy who seems to get fucked all night long.  they're breaking me in, even though i'm old and well broken by this point.  i understand, of course, and if i was in their shoes i'd do the same thing.  but it's wierd, and totally humbling.  there's a part of me that feels like "fuck!  i've been doing this for too long to fucking count wings and drop basket after basket of fries" and there's another part of me that knows that's just how it goes.  that's the game, folks...i didn't get transferred or promoted, i just started a new job.  i didn't come in as the new chef or the guy that's gonna clean house, just as a regular dude who needed a job. 

it is what it is.

the good parts of all this is that the fellas in the kitchen are fucking power cooks, and they're all super fucking cool.  they're doing a helluva job at making me feel welcome and comfortable.  and even though i have little to no creative control over anything (i get to make soups occasionally) i'm finally cooking the kind of food i've always wanted to cook.  nothing pretentious, nothing fancy, nothing you'd read on the menu and have to ask what it is...just food food.  pub food.  but virtually everything we do is from scratch, from baking our own burger buns, hoagie rolls, and pita bread to making all our sauces and dressings, breaking down big cuts of meat to get little ones as opposed to ordering pre-fab, and all that.  i've always been a big believer in the "if you can make it yourself why don't you?" school of thought.  the place i work now thinks that way too.  and we have a fantastic customer base, and we're busy as hell.  i've noticed that we don't so much have a dinner rush as we're just busy as shit all night long, which is not something i'm used to.

hmm.  i'm having a hard time putting this to words today.  i guess what i'm really trying to say is that it sucks to be the new guy again, but it's awesome to be where i am and working with who i get to work with.  i just have to put in the time, get my ass kicked and bounce back, and get in there and show everybody what i'm made of.  i've always fancied myself as a power cook, and now i just have to prove it.

i'm gonna need a couple of red bulls...

introducing the f n g. again.

for those of you not in the business, f n g means fucking new guy.  for the second time in around three months, i am the f n g.  but that's good, though, cause it means i got a job!  i was out of work for a week.  dropped tons of resumes but only got two callbacks.  the good thing is the second callback was for a place i really wanted to work.  the first place is a highly recommended steakhouse, but it's a bit of a drive, and the job i took is way easier to get to.  i also take perverse pleasure in the fact that it's just a stone's throw from the place i was unceremoniously dumped from.  although, i gotta tell ya, a week after the fact, i honestly couldn't care less.  it wasn't really working for me anyway.  i am glad that i made up with some people, and word on the street is that everybody knows what really went down, so it's all good.  although i did hear today from somebody who heard it was "a mutual thing" that i left.

ha.

anyway...i don't care.  everybody at that place rules except for one lying little snake-type creature, and that person digs their own holes, and kitchen karma works way faster than regular karma. 

anyway, new job!  it's awesome!  i rocked the broiler and the fryers.  made lots and lots of killer fish tacos, and cooked a ton of BIG FAT JUICY burgers.  new new place (i gotta find a better name for it) has a kick ass menu, and virtually everything is scratch made...just how i like it.

my pizza is done and the mets game is on, so i'm not gonna go on and on, although i could.  new job is rad.  love it already.

also glad to blog again.

a final act of classiness

so, how we did the tips at the old place (place i was just pushed out of) is that instead of having each server tip the cooks and dishwashers out at the end of each shift, all the tips are pooled and on the fridays we don't get paid we got our tips.  they were always split equally between the day crew (who did most of the prep) and night crew (who did lots of cooking).  so, yesterday was the tip friday.  after all the stuff that went down i didn't go back and get my tips cause i needed to cool off, and i was busy looking for another job.  so i went in this morning.  calm, smiling, not looking for a fight or to cause a scene.  el chefe was out front and i said "hey, do i got tips?" and he goes "no, we split them up between everybody else, we didn't think you were coming back."  i said "well, i'm not really coming back, i just want my tips."  he said "we thought you'd never set foot in here again"

is that a good reason to not give me the tips i worked for and rightfully deserve?  i don't think so.  was i surprised?  fuck no!  do i feel my last paycheck is in jeopardy?  fuck yes!  do i feel fucked out of fifty bucks?  you bet!  am i gonna get mad and do something about it?  nah. 

but do i want to?

hell yes i do.