Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The Workplace Rundown: Part 1

"Did you take the bakeshop clas yet?
"Yeah"
"Did you like it...are you good at baking?"
"Um...I liked it, but I'm not a fan of baking
"heh....neither am I"

~Me and Chef Shawn during my interveiw


I think that question during the interveiw, which was close to the end is when I first got a good feeling about wether or not I'd get the job. It also finished establishing the small little kinship me and Shawn kinda feel due to both going to Culinary School at GRCC. I'd like to say that in the long run Shawn is going to be the chef that ends up being a mentor and an inspiration to me. Every chef/cook has them. Bourdain had Bigfoot, Ramsey had Marco Pierre White, and so on. The downside to that theory is that I've really only worked one day when Shawn was there. So its not really proveable yet

The person I have worked alot with is Peter, the Sous-chef. He (along with Shawn) fit the whole Michael Symon mold of being a chef. In other words the guy you can't really see as a chef cause he's skinny (Symon totally got asked that during an episode of Dinner: Impossible). But he's super nice and he's black. I suppose I should use the more PC term of "African American". but I'm not totally convinced he's from Africa because he does have somewhat of an Central america type accent. Both days I've done prep he's been working and he has taken me somewhat under his wing in terms of teaching me stuff. Also we talked a little about adoption (he asked which of my parents was the white one, and which was the black one, and obviously I told him I didn't know because I was adopted) so that was kind of neat to connect with him a little.

Both Shawn and Peter have one or two shifts a week doing the cooking at nights, but other wise I work with Elvis, Steve or Tom.

Elvis actually isn't his realname. At this point I'm not really sure what it is, but oh well. I hang out with roller girls. I should be used to not knowing peoples real names. Like me, he is kind of quiet so we havn't talked alot out side of the normal work talk. But like most the people I work with, he's nice and is always fun to work with.

Steve and Tom are both a bit more outgoing so I've talked a little more to both of them. Also they both trained me (along with Elvis). So I've gotten to know them somewhat.

Then theres Justin who I've probably gotten to know the best. He's a big Obama supporter which became evident as he got in a semi-heated debate with Don about Obama and Mc Cain. He also trained me for a few days so he showed me the ropes to say. He's mostly just Kitchen Help as well as serving every now and then.

And finally theres Sergio. I've never worked a shift with him. But I've seen him on the tail end of his shifts. He seems pretty nice. But having never actually worked with him, I havn't really talked to him at all. Oh well.

Thats that

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