C : Today, the assistant director of FnB is coming to eat. He must be treated VVIP. Do you think it's impt that he's a French chef, or that he's an assistant director?
A1: Both.
C: No, that he's a French chef, do you think I care if he's a Singaporean chef?
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C (talking to the part time waitress): To the bar. (signaling to bring some snacks to the guests at the bar)
A2 : Huh?
C : To the BAR!!! You know, the BAR?? Do you know what's a BAR?!
A2 takes snacks and walks away.
C : That's why I don't like the Chinese, they can't even understand English properly.
(as if C's English is any good.....)
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This is some time ago. A3 is a good worker but doesn't like the way things were run in the kitchen, and decided to quit. But a very good colleague, he came over to my station to help when it got busy. One of the nights, C was there to try to help too. C sees A3 helping me, and blurts out sacarstically:
C: Oh, you know, when people are leaving (the company), they are very helpful, right.
A3 puts down his stuff and walks back to his station, not turning his head. (I caught it again recently, when I overhead him saying the same thing to another colleague, during my last week there when I was helping out another colleague, but out of proper audible range.)
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This time, audibly, loud and clear.
At 11.20pm, well beyond the last order, they fired a caviar a la carte, which means blinis have to be made fresh and from scratch. Although unhappy, I went full steam ahead, as fast as I could, while C was helping A4 with some eggs, chives, etc that needed some chopping. I came back when the blinis were done and said, 'They are ready, at the pass.' I saw they were adding some finishing touches and need not more help, so I left them, went to the back to clear up the blini mixture and bowls. C rushed over, and shouted to me,
C: "Tu ne fais vraiment pas d'efforts, toi!" (Which means, you really are not making any effort at all!!)
So, what was I doing earlier, huh..?
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I got a whiff of trouble from him from the beginning. Nearing staff meal time, the rest of us were packing the vegetable deliveries into the walk-in chiller, some leaves/small fruits fell onto the ground. I took the initiative to sweep them up. (At night, there are cleaners from stewarding who come to scrub and mop the floor.) C said, "NO!! How can it be clean this way!! You need to take a scrub and soapy water." I took some soapy water and started to scrub the floor of the walk-in chiller and around. He came and say, "Only here??? What about there, there and there? Take a big pail of soapy water!!!" pointing to all around the kitchen. In my mind, I thought, "Ok, so we won't get to eat today", and started to scrub. He came by again, ask why we are so stupid, we don't know how to scrub floors, snatched the scrub from us and scrubbed like a madman, and threw the scrub back at us. Guy himself was there, tasting some dishes, C stopped us from scrubbing near him. And I think someone asked why are we not having our staff meals, C came to us and scolded us, "Don't you want to eat? STOP STOP! Mop up and go eat!!!" We look at the half the kitchen floor in suds, looked at each other.
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A5 is part of the kitchen team from another restaurant in the same complex, but their opening has been delayed, so he has been helping our team for the past month. It was late and we have had a stressful and busy service. Towards the end, we were cleaning up, almost finishing, so A4 stood at a corner just dazed out a little.
C (screamed at A4): YOU JUST STAND THERE MAKING SHIT, you are going to work at (name of other restaurant), and you are GOING TO MAKE SHIT FOR 'S' (name of the chef of the other restaurant)!!!
Come on, he did his share, his station is already cleaned, and we are almost finished, and is that how you treat people from other restaurant who came over to help you? If he has nothing to do, why don't you send him home?
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When I was at the soup station, during preparation time, we have to make some small snacks for the guests, one of which is a savory waffle, at the same time while the eggs were cooking in the thermal circulator machine. The eggs take a long time to cook, and it was near the staff meal time. C, trying to be helpful, offered to switch off the thermal circulator once the timer sounds, and that I should go for my staff meal. I said ok, and the same time, I have a last piece of waffle cooking in the waffle maker just in front of the eggs. Just 4-5 mins more and that can be taken out, about the same time as the eggs. It sizzles, it smells (good), and there's no way you can miss it, especially it's cooking right in front of the eggs machine.
When I am back from my meals, the eggs have been cooked and machine switched off correctly, but my waffle was burnt. I caught him saying under his breath something sarcastically that we employ these SG workers, and all they care abt is eating, and leaving things to burn.
Was it so difficult to switch off the waffle maker?
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During service time, things were getting busy at the fish/meat stations, I popped my head out of the cold station, and seeing where I can help. Seeing that I was observing, C looked up and and said, unjokingly,
C: Tu veux une photo? (Do you want a photo?)
That if I liked to watch so much, why don't I take a photo so I can remember better. I know he was being sarcastic, cos' I thought I heard wrong, looked quizzically at him, and I said, 'what?', he looked at me straight in the eyes disgustedly, and looked away.
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During service time, a chain of orders came in, before you could finish up 1 dish, the next one is fired, and you start doing up the second dish, losing track of what were being ordered and fired.
There are some minor things like taking some things out of the low fridge and let it warm up slowly so it can be heated when the order is fired. Obviously, today wasn't a day where you could do so, but still, I took it out a little later (because of the slew of orders going out earlier), it wasn't cold, and just need 4-5 seconds (I'm not kidding, just seconds!) under the griller to warm thoroughly, plenty of time when the order was fired. C was at my station to help, seeing that the item was just slowly warming up from room temp, and threw the plate on the table,
C: THIS IS COLD, WHY IS THIS COLD?? I am here helping you all this time, and you do NOTHING, YOU JUST DO NOTHING, and this item is COLD!!!!
Me: (who can't take it anymore) What do you mean I was doing nothing?? How do you think all the dishes went out earlier? You were here helping, and you know that we had a long chain of orders just now, you think the dishes magically appeared and went out of the door??? (This was loud enough for all in the kitchen to hear.)
C, kept quiet and sent me away to replenish some pots and pans for the next orders.
(I mean, we are all tired, we are under stress, and we had a long list of work to get done, we got it done well, we're trying our best, but instead of empathising with us, you slam us for little nothings. It's not helpful at all.)
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This last example, is classic of how petty and unprofessional C is.
When large tables' order is fired, we usually sauce the plates directly in the kitchen (instead of in front of the guests), and brought out. When I was doing one of these, towards the end of the saucing, the foam was getting thinner, and there were more sauce than the other plates than foam, I said sorry, mop up the excess sauce with paper towels, and got some new foam on it.
C who saw, and screamed out, "SO IS IT BECAUSE YOU ARE LEAVING (us), AND YOU CAN JUST DON'T CARE AND MAKE SHIT???"
I totally ignored it. Is this really necessary? I worked to my very last day and send out decent dishes, and a little more sauce which I mop up afterwards is no harm for alarm, and why link this to my leaving the company?
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Really no regrets not working for this type of co-worker. I wouldn't even call him my chef. It's one thing when I put myself in a foreign country, and I get this type of treatment, in a way, you can say I asked for it. It's another thing, when you are at your home country, and still get this treatment from foreigners! Hey if you don't like it here, go home! Get out! Go back to your beautiful country where everything is perfect.
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