It's pretty obvious from the last few post that I've written (which I have reconverted back into a draft because I sound like a super annoying whiner).... I'm not having the grandest time working in a restaurant.
Which is why I have decided to leave the restaurant and look for work in a Pastry Shop rather than in a Pastry Kitchen in a restaurant that happens to serve desserts on the side. Was asked by my manager why I wanted to quit and I told her because of the level of stress I was going through, to which she replied...
"It's only because of the promotion period, that's why it's so rush, after that everything won't be so busy anymore."
... to which I couldn't use the stress as an excuse and had to quickly think of another answer, which is because their pastry kitchen isn't really a kitchen I want to work in. It's just a small section in a restaurant and the truth is, (I didn't tell her this part but said something similar) choosing to work there was my last option when I was sending out my resume after completing my certificate program. None of the other bakeries I applied to got back to me and only the restaurant did.
And what happens when you have to settle for something less than what you wanted... a repeat of my interior design work life... granted the people in my restaurant are much friendlier than those in my interior design firm... well the waiters, managers and the part-timers are anyways, the full time cooks on the other hand are a different story, probably because they are on the verge of losing their sanity from working 10 to 12 hours everyday non-stop in the kitchen. Which is why now I feel for cooks working in a busy restaurant on the weekends, I have been there and it's not fun to be stuck in that situation of having just completed an order, only to have 3 new ones pop up.... the most being 6 popping up at once because the table of friends all ordered different types of desserts.
The good thing is that the kitchen has finally found more part time pastry cooks, all 3 happen to be friends with each other... and my Chef Trainer showed up today to over look how they work, all I can say is if I were to be spoken to like that on my first day, I would probably quit the following week. They are just students who are working to make some extra money on the side while waiting for their A Level results, not doing it to support their family or whatever super important reason.
It's only their second day of work and she was really strict with their attire, from their Chef Uniform to their hair, to the shoes they were wearing and her tone was really fierce as well... completely different from when she was teaching me and the first pastry cook I was working with. The manager told her to be firm with the employees and she is now really showing her authoritative figure, but I would tone it down a little considering the fact that you are speaking to a dying breed of cooks in your restaurant that you are severely lacking... the last thing you want to do is scare them off.
The fact that they are all friends makes it even more dangerous because if you were to offend one, it's equivalent to offending all 3, and if all 3 of them left, the pastry kitchen will be royally screwed over. They are in the process of opening a second branch... I don't know how they are going to be able to operate it when their first branch is already running low on manpower.
I actually felt a bit bad for the new cooks, it's the same feeling I get when I just finished my Basic Military Training and I see new recruits lining up outside the Ferry Terminal waiting to board the Ferry to get stuck in Tekong for their confinement period for the next few weeks before being able to come back to Mainland Singapore again. You feel bad for them, but you are glad you are not them, but in the case of the pastry cook, I feel bad for them and myself because we are all stuck in the same situation, except I actually understand the consequences of working there in the long run.
In the past it was always the restaurant who was managing my schedule, now they are planning my schedule around my free time... and that was before I told them I was going to quit, after telling them, they are begging me to stay a little longer, which I agreed to because I am a bloody idiot. It's not going to happen though, the moment I get my pay check for the month, I am out of that place and will start cooking up some excuse as to why I can't go back there.
I am leaving the job because of the stressful environment caused by both the work pace, with their "freshly baked as you order" motto which I can seriously do without, there is a difference between freshly baked everyday with things like cakes and tarts and freshly baked as you order which are items like souffles, and I would much rather be doing the former than the latter anytime....and the people, mainly the full timer, more mainly the hot kitchen cook, who are on the verge of having a mental breakdown, there's no way I am going to go back there. I thought working in a new restaurant that just set up was a good idea, I was wrong.
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