Spring Flurries

While this may sounds like a weather report, it is not, and Chicago often has snow in Spring. What I am referring to is the storm of change and work tied into our programming during the Spring sessions. The last month or more has been fantastically busy and rewarding. My last session ended near the end of May and due to all the extra work needed, it became difficult to make all of the appointments.

Scholarship competitions, fundraisers, meetings, professional development, interviews for Summer term, planning, syllabus modification, more meetings, doctor appointments, medical issues, orchestra and band concerts, field trips, and the closing of my own kids schooling for the year. Phew.

Now things can slow down a bit and leave me to do some catching up. The first thing on my list was to catch up on some missed sleep. Recharging is essential. These last weeks proved to be telling me that I am a bit more fragile than I'd like to admit.

Some hard work comes with the satisfaction of knowing that you didn't let it beat you in the end. Some hard work comes with little visible evidence of success. And some hard work doesn't pay off right away, they are the long-term gains that manifest over lots of years. I have been asked if I thought that teaching culinary at this level was harder than working in the industry, quick and without hesitation, my answer was yes.

There isn't a single parent that hasn't questioned their skill based upon the child's advancement or success despite the fact that a lot of things that happen along a child's life, especially in teenage years that may have nothing to do with parental input. Years and years later, most of the successful adults, will say that their parental influence was positive and necessary, even when the adult may have dropped out of school or had a teenage pregnancy, or any other negative impact on life that we can all agree makes life much harder to be successful.

I count it all profitable to gain even the smallest shift in a students opinion, taste, or concept of the world at large. I dance when a kid goes from "that's nasty" to "wow, I like that".  The work can take a long time, can be hard to do, requires that I trust my kids in class and that they trust me. I have to position myself somewhere between a parental role, a type of friendship, a teacher, and a wise elder in order to do what I do successfully. This work is also about how the student sees themselves and their future.

I have always began each term with asking the kids to write about their life goals. Those kids who have been in my class in multiple times, have had the answers on the page turn from "I don't know" to "I'd like to become _____". I have heard, and witnessed, kids begin to take small steps to change what they eat, how they project themselves, how they see themselves, how they expect certain reactions from me and how we interact. To have a student start off with no idea who they want to be and have no care about what they eat, change towards a new image and shoot for much higher goals, it is all worth the effort.

I have set a personal goal with this blog and related podcast, having a regular scheduled time table, so when I have to miss days, I get a bit hard on myself, but I am working on letting go of negative self-talk.

Spring is all about new growth and return of better weather, a renewal. Rebirth. Imagine, as we all post pictures about graduations, proms, and Spring weddings, that we are all just Spring flowers nestled under the cold blankets of winter, just aching for Spring rains to melt off our heaviness and allow us to bloom.

Respect Yourself, even if no one else does.

A lot of the time, if you talk with chefs who have been in the industry more than a couple of years, you will hear a few horror stories about bad practices, bosses, and/or jobs. There are some that will stay in a job until the bitter end. This position of not wanting to do a job search and interview procedures can lead you in position where it is no longer beneficial to yourself and/or the company. Waking each day with a dreadful disposition and coming home the same is not healthy, no matter who you are professionally.

Respect yourself enough to understand when it is time to move on and stop being afraid to step forward into something new. Fear of the unknown and fear of rejection can keep the best of us from making changes in our lives. But if you are not in a place that you can nurture and it nurture you, then the place you are occupying is killing your spirit and in turn you are probably throwing shade on other people instead of uplifting them.

I have been guilty of these negative actions myself. Dragging my own pitiful butt out of the bed every day, dreading what I was possibly walking into, and knowing that I would not be happy at all at the end of the day. Why torture yourself and others?

Even if no one every tells you your worth, still respect your value. You have trained and studied to become who you are, so why do you think less of yourself? Take little time out of your day to do a job search to see what opportunities are available. Sometimes you will find that you didn't know that your own company has put out ads to hire new people and sometimes the job of your dreams is out there waiting for your resume to get on their interview list. Yes, you need to act upon your own abilities, knowledge, ego, faith, financial needs, or whatever else it takes to get you motivated enough to seek out your destiny.

I was taught to adhere to a very blue collar outlook at the job site. Keep your nose clean, do your work, don't let co-workers know too much about you, don't date at the job, and stick there until you earn that retirement package and the gold watch. Unfortunately, most of that wisdom isn't valid anymore. Chefs, especially, find that they will be on to the next position in about 5 years time, often. The company doesn't have a lot of benefits offered, might not be totally full time, and with the fickle customer base, they don't want to have such continuity. Is the whole industry like this? No, but it is a fairly consistent experience within and outside of the culinary world. Most of us chefs can have a hard time writing a resume that is limited to 1 or 2 pages.

Please understand that the same skills that got you hired in your current position, are the same skills that will get you hired elsewhere, and if you have added to your skill base since you were hired, then your stock price has gone up and you maybe a more qualified candidate than you were before. Add to this, if you are seeking new ground while still employed, you are not as pressed for time as you would be unemployed.

I have skills that are needed by organizations, families, communities, and what have you. I have worked for homeless shelters, schools, charities, churches, restaurants, hotels, sport arenas, and a few bars. I have ever starved working in this food city and in this industry. I have been paid less than I am worth, I have worked with horrible people, bad bosses, and ungrateful companies. But, know this, they can take away your employment but no one can take your skills and knowledge.  

How I got my life back....

When I began working in the industry I was 18 years old, in the age of dinosaurs, and I committed to working hard, working long hours, and never turning down an opportunity to learn. I was successful in my pursuits as the hospitality work is never ending.

I was lucky that one day one of my professors at Roosevelt University took me by the hand to the Palmer House Hotel where he was the Food and Beverage Director. He set a meeting for me to get introduced to how that organization operated and I was quickly hired by the Exec. Chef. I was placed in the party department and began to expand my craft. I failed to realize the good fortune in its fullness, at the time, as that department allowed all the team members to work a steady shift 90% of the time. We were on the 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. shift. Employees could use the hotel gym that included a sauna. There was an employee cafeteria where we could eat for free.

With the goal in mind, to never turn down an opportunity to learn, I soon found myself also working as cocktail waitress, a couple nights a week, in the hotel bar. This gave me some very nice additional income and taught me more about good customer service. When I would work a shift in the bar, I would get off work at 4:30, grab some food, maybe even hit the gym, and then change from one uniform to another, starting a shift starting about 7 p.m., and work until the bar was dead quite or ready to close at 3 a.m. Afterwards, I would take a cab home, nap, and come back to work at 8 a.m.

This hamster wheel kept on turning for about a year and a half. I enjoyed it. I like talking with customers, I especially liked the extra cash, and I was single and living alone with my cat, so I didn't need a good work/life balance. I needed the money and I was, and probably still is, a adrenaline junkie. I was young and able bodied so the industry opened up for me and gave me as much as I thought I could handle.

With age comes wisdom, and aches and pains. I got married at 27 years old and was immediately pregnant with my eldest daughter. At that time, I was working in the social service arena, and that job was rewarding and wonderful, as I could adjust my schedule for the needs of the pregnancy. I had PTO hours and a standard 40 week, so I often worked 10 hour days so that I could have a 3 day weekend often, giving me some needed downtime. The pregnancy changed a lot of my career habits. Being a parent made me make different choices about how, when, and where I worked. I love being a chef but the 80 hour work weeks were too difficult to maintain while parenting small children. I wanted to parent them myself, we didn't have the aid of extended family members, as some do, for childcare. I was the mommy and the wife. I wanted to be these things so I had to make changes in the way I worked to do it.

I think it is sad that I had to find alternative places to work ,and use my skills, so that I could take care of my life and those people in it. So I worked for a homeless shelter, then a church organization, then as a grocery store bakery department manager, a teaching and demonstration chef, a pastry cook at a university, and lake dinner cruise company, all so I could have an adequate family life, and even so I was sacrificing more than mothers that had a standard work week. My career as a chef was diminished, slowed down, and almost derailed. I lost my connections, I had to use differing skills because working in a production kitchen requires too much time and physical endurance. If I hadn't make the choices that I did, I would have kids that I hardly ever spent time with when they needed me the most.

Some male chefs do not put their careers on the back burner like I did, and some would say it is easier for the guys to do this than us ladies. I have never been a guy but it does seem likely. Chefs do often get divorced and are all work and all play. The habit of chefs to unwind after a huge long day is to go to a bar and unwind. There is usually a spot where the whole crew goes and shut down the bar. Heavy drinking, smoking, and some drug abuse are all present in this lifestyle. In order to handle the stress and chaos, in order to keep going for 18 hours or more, in order to get up and do it all again the next day, in order to handle the chauvinism, the racism, the misogyny, the demanding customers, and all the big egos, many of us turn to chemical assistance to get them through it all. Some who do this can find it ruling them instead of them controlling their life.  

I love my career, I love what I do, I love serving my customers, and I love teaching these skills to others. Now that I am a lot older, as my eldest is now in college, and my health is a super bumpy road, I once again found a need to move away from the love of my life, a professional commercial kitchen. When I began I wanted a great big career, and company ownership, but also wanting a family meant something had to be sacrificed because the industry didn't have the ability for me to do both.

The chef life is as complex as some of the finest meals and most people have never seen what is happening on the other side of the kitchen doors. I have had relatives shame me that I couldn't attend this or that event because I was working. I have been accused of lying about my need for their help because there is no way that I needed to work a 18 hour shift. I have had the argument with an upset child about the recital I missed because I didn't get off work until 8 p.m. I now teach kids after school and therefore I don't finish up until 7 p.m.

Think about this: whenever you want to party, whenever you want to eat, whenever you need to celebrate, that's when chefs need to work. We work weekends, holidays, late days and early mornings. We are not the bank teller type of folks and working an 8 hour shift leaves us feeling like we are forgetting to do something more. Work/life balance in our world is a quick way to stunt your career unless you do something other than production work.

I am not the only writer talking about this subject, check out this article: http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/food-dining/2016/02/29/why-working-restaurant-industry-can-hard-your-mental-health/NaqWdSHvKJtZQCoberbLjP/story.html