Cooks must forego many family holiday experiences
Writing the schedule for the kitchen is one of the most daunting tasks I perform in my workplace, and this truth is even more valid around any holiday.
This is because I truly care about my brigade. I have a column on the side of the weekly schedule labelled ‘requests,’ a place where my cooks can pencil in time they would like to book away from the restaurant.
I have prided myself over the years on being able to grant all the requests. True, it is a little bit of a change from the kitchens of yore, even some of the kitchens I came up through, where the chef would scoff at requests for a life outside their kitchen walls. “No time off all summer!” or the ever cheery “I own you, Midgley!”
But times have changed for the better and there is more of a collective understanding in our industry about the importance of work-life balance. I have always reasoned that if I do my diligence juggling the schedule to make possible the requests, I am in a stronger position when I need to ask a cook to work an extra day in a week or pull some longer days to help us push through the heavy business. Happy brigade equals happy chef.
At least until the holidays come around. This time drawing up the schedule I noticed several requests for Oct. 8 or 9, or both. As I glanced at the requests piling up a few weeks out I got that familiar knot in my stomach created by a self-imposed stress that I might not be able to get these cooks the time they had asked for .“What the heck is going on Oct. 8 and 9?” a question to my sous chef. “Thanksgiving weekend, chef.” Of course.
The first step I take is to triage the situation and stop the bleeding. I scrawl a large note on the hanging schedule: ‘No more requests for Thanksgiving weekend.’ Then I sit and play a little make-believe mental Jenga. I try to play out staffing scenarios that might work: If Jun does sauce on Sunday, maybe Andy could work entremets, leaving Tabitha free to run garde-manger and Mark could work a mid-shift? In the end I come close to granting all wishes, but a bit of compromise leaks in, too.
The reality is this: cooks work hardest when the rest of the world is on holiday. If you hosted even the smallest Thanksgiving meal last weekend, you were likely exhausted by the logistics and preparation these nights take. Now multiply your experience umpteen times over and you will have glimpsed what professional cooking on a holiday weekend can feel like. As with many essential service personnel who drive busses, work in hospitals, protect our highways and citizens, cooks must forego many family holiday experiences for their chosen métier. They are the behind the scenes people who believe in a craft that brings happiness and fulfilment to a whole host of people enjoying time off. It is a sacrifice that sometimes stings, but in sacrificing together we grow stronger as a brigade; our extended work-family. It takes great commitment.
So, in the spirit of the holiday just past, I give great thanks for all my spectacular cooks who continue to commit their time, possibly disappointing loved ones at home, to make your holidays memorable. And I ask them to remember to book their requests early, Christmas vacation will be here soon.