Sunday, January 22, 2012

I saw a survey a while ago for people who work in high stress jobs.  It was titled, "How do you stay happy when work is stressful?"  I don't know that "staying happy" is the correct word, but certainly being able to manage stress is a necessary attribute of a successful Chef.  Food is very important to a Chef.  It is the nature of our business. Our training, career, and pride revolve around the food we produce.  We want things to be perfect.  We learn to hope for the best and to plan for the worst. Great planning and organization makes all tasks, all events, even small disasters, more manageable.  But life doesn’t always allow perfection. That bastard Murphy walks in the door and despite all our best efforts and planning everything goes to hell.

One of my worst days ever was as follows: We had an off-site catered event, a plated dinner outside for 500 people.  Each course was prepared by a different restaurant and crew, we had the entree course.  We arrived, organized, tested equipment, and planned based upon the equipment provided.  We had 6 ovens and 54 pans of product to cook for our one course.  When we got to the 30 minute mark (time to jam!), we found that 2 ovens were down and 2 more were filled with the next chef's product.  We had to cook 54 sheet pans/hotel pans in 2 ovens and serve in 30 minutes!  We poured our souls out finding ways to accomplish what could not be done.  We improvised, used grills, braisers, ovens, stove tops, etc and got the job done, albeit hyperventilating the whole time.  When I got home I posted in facebook, "Today was one of those days when you just want to crawl under a rock and f__king die."

During these times of high stress/duress I hold on to my sanity in several ways:

• First, I try to look at the bigger picture… today will end, tomorrow will come and I will still be alive and have my family, even if this work day ends in the worst way.
• Second, break things down into bite sized pieces.  Don’t look at the sinking Titanic, instead, look at the one or two life rafts and keep them afloat... build from there.  Do what’s doable (remembering that a Chef will shed blood, sweat and tears to succeed where others quit).  Keep moving ahead.  Breath.
• Third, I take comfort in knowing that I have done all I could to avert, and then to conquer, whatever disaster has struck.  If I have planned correctly, staffed and prepped correctly, and both me and my staff have handled “the situation” to the fullest extent of our ability, then there is nothing more that can be done… ride it out and try to plan for or alter this type of event in the future.

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