Money in my Pocket, but I Just Can't Get No Love.

Listening: Might know too much but I'm no soft touch. Brought you up to recognize lies as such. I need no crutch. Childhood was arduous and, if there is a God, I'm sure He would pardon us. Must be working hard in us, not to harden us. What's my problem? It's been too long. So it has been eons. Seriously. My TV is not turning on until I have something significant on the page. My balcony door is open. My laptop is on my lap. Faithless is on the stereo. And I am relaxing on my Sunday. The story of the past five months is that I have been working every day, at least a little bit, even on "days off." I am one of two sous-chefs at a new, fledgling restaurant that had great ideas, but had no foresight, wherewithal, or heart to push it through. I am a sous-chef in command of a restaurant that had a lot of potential, which is what drew me to it, but I need help. The other sous-chef is as prepared to be a sous as I thought I was. He's 22 years old, a good executor, but lacks the wisdom, heart, and experience to lead a crew. He's out anyways. He's taking a job as a line cook for a pretty good restaurant in Cambridge. The chef de cuisine isn't qualified to be a CDC either. He has worked with chef for a long time and has worked with the owner for even longer. He is an Asian equivalent of an Amigo (which in this case, I might call him a "peng you" - pronounced pung yo), who has been in the country for over ten years. His English is fantastic, but accented. He is also a great executor. He bangs out the work like it's nobody's business, but he's not a manager or delegator. He's not a constant creative. He doesn't even think he deserves a sous-chef title. I disagree. I don't think he should have the chef de cuisine title though. And then there's Chef. On the national scene, she's a player. As of late, she's had some bad luck in Boston, but I think that a lot of that is due to the fact that she hasn't played her hand very well and she is constantly anti-Boston, something that is very dangerous for someone from New York City. She's opened more restaurants than I have even worked at. People throw money at her. It's too bad this restaurant is going down the shitter. Finally, we have the clueless owner. He cares about the night life and that's it. He doesn't care about the food. He cares about the nightclub attached to the restaurant and the bottom line. Of course, kitchen labor costs are going to be the highest expense of the restaurant. But for some reason, he and Chef seem to think that you can get minimum wage workers to turn shit into plates of gold. I need skilled veterans and then I can turn shit into gold, or I can get less skilled cooks to turn gold into more gold. It's one or the other or both, but what's happening right now isn't going to make people like the food more. It's tough for me. This is my first sous-chef position. I should still be chained to the stove. Instead I'm out front expediting every night, dealing with logistics, hiring, firing, training the front of the house, doing payroll, and keeping the new GM at bay. Every night, I think about whether I can trust the food going out to be seasoned correctly, how I can get more talent in the kitchen, how I can get the most out of the kids we have, whether my paycheck is going to bounce, how I can make the most out of questionable product, how I can get my chef to order appropriately, how I can get my owner to green light an purveyor that's not restaurant depot, and the list goes on. I am working at least as much as I was at Island Creek, but my commute it much nicer, I get a whole lot more respect and responsibility, and I feel like I might get some good networking contacts out of this job, even if it does go down the shitter. I would be lying if I didn't say that four months after opening this restaurant's doors, I'm not looking at it. I was sort of talking to another new restaurant in Boston about going and being the sous-chef there, but there are some things that I kind of want to see how they play out with this place. First of all, Chef is considering opening up a restaurant in Chicago. This would, as I have been trying to for the past five or six years, get me out of Boston, at least for a little while. I now have experience opening up two restaurants. I might as well keep going until it's time to open my own. Second, Chef is trying to get me a consulting gig in Shanghai. That's the dream. For realz. No raise could get me to give up that dream. And if someone were to offer me my dream job, I would at least negotiate in my travel time and budget. In other news, I at least have a little bit more of a work/life balance working at this new place. When I was working for Island Creek, I would wake up, clean up, hop on the train in the winter or on my bike in the summer, commute for a half hour to an hour, work til midnight or one in the morning, and either cab or bike home. On lucky nights, I would take the train home for another hour commute. I was so exhausted on my constantly changing days off that I would never be able to make plans. At least now, I have consistent "days off." I'm able to make plans, go to concerts, go one the occasional date, hang out with pals, etc. Overall, I'm much happier with my life now than I was a year ago. I just wish I could be doing better food and I wish people appreciated the food that we are doing. The restaurant is grossly misbranded. It's a place with an identity crisis. It is neither owner driven nor chef driven. I constantly tell people that we should take a four pound chain to the place and distress the hell out of it. Make it dark and dank. There is far too much glitz and polish. And for as much glitz and polish as there is, the planning and the build out on the restaurant was absolutely horrendous. Things are already falling apart or aren't working. Also, the entire front of the house staff is so under-educated. How can you serve Asian food if you have no knowledge base? How can you sell, sell, sell, if you don't know what your selling and you don't have the hunger to know what it is you're selling? Maybe I have been lucky working with career servers in fine dining-ish environments, but I expect a server to know a little something about the food. I expect them to be behind the food. I feel like I'm the only one who is really trying to be behind the food. I care. I'm trying to get others to care. That's the trick really though, huh? Getting others to care. How do you do that? You get people who are excited by the project to run it. The kitchen should already be excited about it. But how can you get people excited about things that they don't even know about. I'm sure it's going to be something I deal with a lot over time. Anyhow, I kind of need a vacation. I don't have the cash for it right now, or the time, but I kind of need one. I want to be on a beach for a few days or somewhere that I have no obligations and I might not speak the language. I want to be somewhere with food that I can't get in Boston. I want a little bit of relaxation, because I'm wound tighter than... Well... I can't think of anything. A coil? A spool of thread? To top it off, I'm now an uncle to four, which all happened in a matter of weeks. One set of friends had a little girl and my pal in New York had triplet sons. I got some kids to spoil now. But right now I'm gonna spoil myself with some sushi. I deserve it. Omakase, here I come.