So come home from vacation find out my job has been eliminated, whatever I\’ll deal. The only true advantage to working in culinary is that people will always eat so you generally don\’t lack for work. So after my mom left, I started looking for a new job. I had 2 contacts from my prior job one of which I utilized and the other one actually had a ad up so I replied to that. I hate going to interviews overall they just suck in general. So I go on the first one in the plateau and the guy was a bit of a dick head and he kept staring at my chest the entire time. I don\’t care if that\’s what guys do, horribly unprofessional and a total turn off. He just kept saying mmmmmmm the kitchen is really small back there, while staring at my tits. Gee are you trying to tell me something here?

I have to pay rent but this place was a turn off from the get go. Onto job interview #2. Yeah that place was beneath my skill in too many ways. Yeah I know that sounds snotty but its true. I have skills dammit and I will not waste them on some hole in the wall place making clubs, screw that! Went to job interview 3 was nice, I liked it, had a good feeling about this place. Reminded me of my former job I liked that idea. Was told that he (the head Chef) wanted to talk to the owner and what not before committing to hiring me. However I was somewhat left with the impression that I wouldn\’t start until late August/beginning of September and that would have left me screwed for rent. Whatever I figured I would deal because I just had a good feeling about this place you know!

So onto job interview number 4, didn\’t feel right, I blew it off figured I was getting my panties in a knot over nothing. Nice place LOOKED classy in the dining room was a good position (executive Chef) money was decent and the like. Got hired on the spot but I still had this bad feeling that stayed with me. I had a few days to ponder this, still had a few interviews to go on. The others are uneventful and not worth mentioning really. I was getting burnt out and I thought screw it, I got hired anyway. I thought YAY I\’m going to run a kitchen and it\’s going to be awesome, my opportunity to shine and be creative blah blah blah…

Yeah I was wrong… SO very WRONG!

This pretty much summed up my first day:

I come in, the owner didn\’t even remember my name for one thing. That was a little disturbing but I let it go. Then he became a a tad bit of a condescending bastard, again I let it go new jobs are generally like that in *some* kitchens, at least for me. Then he got a little up close and personal while I was trying to work DO NOT WANT! Yeah I know I\’m not a size two, don\’t have a flat butt and yeah my chest enters the room before I do. I accept that for what it is. I get bumped and elbowed all the time, it happens, I\’m used to it and doesn\’t bother me unless it\’s intentional. I have never had my ass accidentally on purpose fondled so many times during one shift, that\’s where I draw the line.

Don\’t get me wrong I\’m not a prude but if I wanted to get groped by pervy old guys I would have become a prostitute, the money is better. I just don\’t feel that\’s appropriate for work. That\’s OK though because he was feeling up one of the servers and \”SHE\” turned out to be a \”HE\” with a boob job. This makes me laugh to no end. Wonder what he would say if he knew that he was feeling up some girl with a penis.

Thankfully I also got hired at the 3rd place I went to so I told the Chef there that *if* the position hadn\’t been filled within a few days and he still needed someone then I was all his. I was and am still OK with being a Sous Chef and I had a better feeling about this new place but I committed to starting a new job so I felt obligated to follow through. Thankfully the job was still mine so I gave it a go on Wed, MUCH better. There was several other things about that place that rubbed me the wrong way but I\’m not even going to get into those. All I have to say is this: Just because it looks high end and classy in the dining room, doesn\’t mean that the kitchen where your expensive food comes from has the same appeal. Put it this way *I* didn\’t feel safe eating there. I\’ll just let you come to your own conclusions about that.

I will not lower my standards or sell myself short, because I\’m good at what I do and I know it. I had one last shift on Tuesday, because I DO need to pay rent. If he touched me again, I would have broken his arm, then maybe he\’ll learn the meaning of DO NOT WANT! I am NOT going to be some-one\’s squeeze toy. I\’m not sorry I left, they didn\’t deserve any notice, and I had another job lined up so I wasn\’t worried. New place very much reminds me of my old job except here I have to work lol. I like it though, the staff is really cool. I\’ll likely never see my pay from that place, that\’s fine the labor board will love to hear about his escapades I\’m sure. I\’m thinking I should also get in touch with kitchen nightmares, Ramsey would have a field day in that place. The menu itself isn\’t bad but the environment it\’s made in is a whole other story!

This happened on Saturday but the events of the day were just too outrageous not to post. I scored the weekend off so I went to visit a friend in the west island. Stopped off at Arahova\’s for some food before I ran over to her place so we could have lunch together.

Since she\’s moving out, I figured I\’ll stop off at the dep near her house and pick up something to drink, that turned out to be a HUGE mistake. Generally it\’s not that busy when I go in there but this was the first time I had ventured in there on a Sat…

The door flew open and a ton of kids came flying out and some of them felt compelled to stand in the door and scream to their little friends and in turn blocking my path. Keep in mind that I have take out in my hands since there were no plastic bags to be had at the restaurant. I was tempted to drop it on their heads but I wasn\’t about to waste it on them. The line up was a mile long and I thought well with the monsoon of kids, that was somewhat to be expected.
They all finally cleared out until this older woman walked up to the cash and held the line up for an additional 15 minutes on top of the time I wasted waiting for the little irritating children to leave. Turns out she didn\’t have enough money in her wallet. She even went as far to empty out her change purse on the counter all the while holding onto her dog so she was doing this one handed so that of course takes even longer. After figuring out that she didn\’t have enough money, she wanted to pay debit so the girl scans her card and the lady just looks at the debit machine and has no clue what her pin number is! So then on comes the search for credit cards and the like, she finally paid and dropped her cards, her check book and her dog almost took off in the process… I mean seriously, who beings their dog into a store? Let alone buys more stuff then they have money for. Seriously, that makes me even more glad that I don\’t work with the public anymore!

So Carly and I go out for dinner( hours later)… On the way back we made the mistake of going back into the same store to grab a few things. Once again another hold up… This one was different though, the poor woman was new and poorly trained. Fair enough, I can be sympathetic to that. There was a few people in line in front of us including a fake tanned frat boy along with a gaggle of his friends buying a case of beer for his limo ride. So poor woman at the cash is trying to fix a void, and has someone behind the counter trying to help her so she\’s not paying attention to the people in line and frat boy takes off with said case of beer. A customer points this out to the cashier and she takes off and starts screaming at frat boy to give her the case of beer back. Meanwhile this arrogant, wanna be a thug sucks his teeth and calls the other guy a snitch. Customer looks at him and says excuse me? You don\’t steal and has this little thug bastard cowering into the chip rack. He should have hit the little bastard for being so ignorant but he didn\’t and the cashier raced back into the store, case of beer in tow. I twas pretty entertaining overall. Finally someone who knew what they were doing showed up and we finally got served. I\’ll miss her when she moves, but not that damn dep!

Although in happier news, I started a new job yet again but I have a better feeling about this one. My most favorite thing from my last job was convincing someone who is not familiar with French acronyms that SVP (which is please in case you didn\’t know) didn\’t stand for Si Vous plait ( or however that\’s spelled), but SUPER VAGINA POWER ha ha