A recent history of my time in the trenches...

I need a new home. I'm well trained, dependable, and eager to be part of a new team. I'm hoping to find a warm, welcoming kitchen, looking for a kitchen mercenary who is only moderately insane. Corporate entities and amateurs need not respond. I'm only interested in working for reasonably intelligent private owners. Please call soon. I'm getting really tired...

The last eight months of my employment have seemingly lasted for a miserable lifetime. Bouncing around from one nightmare to another. Hope fading slowly with every sunrise. Something has to give...

I don't need much. I'm not asking for anything great. Hell, I'm not even asking for a lot of money. I'm more than happy to work hard for average compensation. I just want a job where I don't find myself wanting to smash my car into a bridge embankment on my drive to work.

I've worked the line at a giant corporate restaurant chain. I'd describe the job as simultaneously stressful and boring. Stacking onion rings and wrapping assorted microwaved nonsense in tortillas as fast as possible, worrying about time, cursing at high-pitched fryer alarms, and watching life pass me by. This would be an adequate job description.

I worked as a grill cook at a giant corporate cafeteria. I'd cook breakfast and lunch for company workers at a large flat-top, taking the orders face to face and handing off plates. At the same time, I had to manage and fill a small breakfast bar type set up. It was a load of crap. Corporate, micro-managed crap. No one could seem to understand my lack of enthusiasm about making specials out of two-day-old reheated hash browns and ancient turkey sausage. Plus, about 20% of the customers I had to wait on were horrible assholes. Spoiled, passive aggressive, white-collar cowards. And there was a worker there.... Ah.... The bastard. Perhaps the most irritating person I ever worked with. Five feet tall. An ass-kisser. He'd smile to your face and talk shit behind your back moments later. The type of guy who often describes himself as a "team player", yet constantly tries to make himself look better by throwing the rest of his co workers under the proverbial bus. If I ever see that guy on the street, I'd honestly consider tossing him through a plate glass window.

I spent a few days working for a small Italian style restaurant that's been open for 40 years. My first day there, during my first hour, I saw the kitchen manager drop a piece of fully cooked and sauced protein on the floor. Without blinking, he picked it up and placed it directly on the plate. Besides not throwing it away, he didn't even bother to visually check it, or briefly re fire it, or rinse it off. Nothing. Just straight to the table. Another cook looked at me, shook his head, and said "Well, welcome to *name of restaurant*." I should add that this was the dirtiest kitchen I've ever seen. They didn't even own a mop. At the end of my first shift, I asked what I should clean before I left. They told me that they didn't really clean. Just wrap up the food and leave. That kitchen was so dirty that even the roaches complained.

I worked for a first time restaurant owner for a bit. The place that I was working went through an ownership change, and I stayed on. I knew this could be trouble, but the girl seemed enthusiastic, and I gave her the benefit of the doubt. I tried to remain optimistic. Soon, I'd realize that I was on a sinking ship. Bad ideas. Unrealistic demands. Complete ignorance. Zero experience. Total inability to manage people. An endless stream of idiocracy, incompetence, and righteous indignation. On my day off, she called me seven times to ask what type of plastic souffle cups she should purchase. The next day, she created a total shit storm (which I had endlessly warned her was about to occur), blamed me for it, and my time there was done. I packed up my knives and hit the road at 7:15 on a Friday night. The entire staff ended up quitting within about a 30 day time period. So it goes...

I'm not even going to mention the wild array of interviews and nonsense I've suffered through at this point...

Before that new owner took over, things weren't all that bad for me. It certainly wasn't the type of place I'd have worked the rest of my life, but in retrospect, I'd be happy to rewind time and do it again. I actually liked and respected the owners then. The woman who called the shots was a bit of a loose cannon, but so am I. In addition, she knew what she was doing, and once she became convinced that I did also, I was pretty much cut loose. All communications were honest if nothing else, and most all of my transgressions were forgiven on the basis of competency and my honest approach. And I genuinely did enjoy the company of everyone I worked with there. It really was fun sometimes. Hell, these days, I'm not even sure who owns the places I've been working. I don't even know when the last time I had fun was...

Please, please, give me something! This is my plea to the culinary Gods. Decent food, decent wage, decent boss. That's all I ask for. Can't someone provide a home to this humble orphan in a chef's coat?