Conflict in the workplace

No matter the industry or setting, conflict of opinion, hostility, jealousy, and any other reason, can rise up and slow down progress. There is always a lot of effort to satisfy customers demands so often their really isn't time or energy left to settle interpersonal conflicts between employees. 

When I was a newbie in the industry, and barely able to drink, I experienced some prejudice at the workplace probably because some of the adults I was working with, and supervising, didn't take me serious, and some thought that I was just there to be cute.... nope. Then, of course, the minority girl issues, the chef life is dominated by white males, and when you are not reflective of the group, you can see or feel them test you or minimize you. There is a time frame in which chefs attempt to find out what you are made of, if you can take a joke, keep up with them on the bench, or be apart of the team both in and out of the kitchen. 

Once you have been tried and proven worthy/capable, often times you are knee deep with your crew bailing each other out until the race is won, only to be back at it again tomorrow. Even the best of brigades can have spurs up against each other from time to time. Bold personalities and workloads can force chefs to bit at each other about the little things and the bigger things. Most of the time individual production levels can bushel features because one or more on the team feel as if they are making up for someone's lack of accurate and usable work.

When tempers flare up in the kitchen, and they do, the big chef ego can get in the way of productive conversations about the problem. Small things become skyscrapers and tempers can fly very quickly. What shouldn't ever happen is that chefs are allowed to make their issue personal. When there are tactical issues, production issues, work overloads, painting a fellow chef as a villain only makes corrections harder, sometimes near impossible. No one is a saint, or even perfect, and serving customers and the community isn't a easy thing to do in the best of circumstances.

Chefs are not one dimensional cartoon cutouts who only exist in the kitchen, they have families, love affairs, some within the kitchen, economical demands, health issues, bills, and in the worst cases, chemical dependencies and alcohol problems. It is a harder life than working at a office, physically, but mentally its no punk either. We chefs are problem solvers drawn towards the chaos, sounds, smells, and noise of a commercial kitchen. We live for the oohs and ahhs of our clients, we get to be apart of the best moments of other's lives. The special night out, the anniversary dinner, the communion lunch or Sunday lunch after church is when we are on-duty and striving to make a nice day into a great one. 

Chefs often sweat, bleed, and get burned to please the customer. We block out of our minds lots of things like tired, hungry, hurting, and sleepy, chasing our high of choice, happy customers. In my new phase of my career, chef instructor, I consider it a victory when I show the kids a new vegetable that they like or get them to change even the smallest amount of their diet for the better. I teach in two neighborhoods that have a lot of challenges, but while I am their, I am working with them, creating a safe place, new exciting food, nutrition knowledge, and a hot meal. My students even earn a small stipend. It has never been easy but rewarding.

I have had to settle their drama, help their understanding, and redirect them to positive outlets. I can not afford to allow dissent in my class as it will deteriorate quickly, destroy our nurturing environment, and impede learning. The conflicts in my classroom are just the same as in the workplace, they often arise when egos get bruised.  Most of all conflicts, at the heart, are about folks' feelings, they don't feel respected, appreciated, or feel they are being taken advantage of them by others. The work is the work. It never goes away and you don't want it to go because then your paycheck goes away too. 

I have worked next to some that I literally thought about running them down with my car, but I still did my job. I love my job but I have not loved everyone I did it with nor every circumstances that I have had to my job. You can plan your butt off in the kitchen and dinning areas but it means nothing once the doors are open and the guest come in and get seated. I have had to deal with persons without much love for their fellow people, I have been spoken to totally disrespectfully, I have with the sweetest of persons, I have dealt with kids who were out of control, kitchen disasters, missing workers, injuries, the need to call the police to have people removed, I even had a wedding banquet happen that made to seating chart totally worthless and the guest count become so large that we had more people than glasses for drinking. 

Anything can happen and it usually does. The last thing anyone needs getting in the way of successful event is a coworker making it harder to accomplish than the customers did that day. A good leader can straighten things out so that no one gets hurt, most people just need to be heard, but there can be only a few environments more dangerous than a kitchen to have a conflict boil over.