My sous chef turned out to be a back stabbing asshole. A sous chef is supposed to be like a Capo's Consigliere. The chef should be able to trust him with anything. I chose to trust my sous chef with some concerns I had about one of our supervisors.
Here's the jist of it.
The hierarchy at my restaurant is as follows. General Manager, then me. I've had an issue with one of my General Manager's relationships since day 1. He's living with one of my kitchen supervisors, and from the get go has been gently prodding me to get rid of my (originally 2) sous chefs, and promote his room mate.
One of the sous chefs was a complete boob, and realizing this he stepped down from the role. The other, was a good worker, could outcook anyone on the line, absorbed information, grasped concepts, often seemed able to read my mind. All of these things are crucial factors of being a sous chef. The only factor I was never sure on was whether or not I could trust him. And the only way to find that out was to trust him.
I told him that I had suspicions our jobs were in jeopardy from this line supervisor. This supervisor walked out on the company years ago when he was a KM, and has since returned. Having walked out however, he can't take on a big management role again, unless promoted into it. I told my sous it seemed that the GM was trying to knock us off one by one until he was left with no choice but to promote the super to chef.
Anyway, I told the sous chef that as long as were both united, our jobs would be safe. I wouldn't let them fire him, as long as he didn't try to pull a coup on me.
Within weeks he'd made the coup attempt, telling the boss everything I'd told him, claiming that I was unstable and was likely to kill someone. (hehehe)
The boss knows that I'm unstable and likely to kill someone. If you're not ready to kill someone over an improperly prepared sandwich, you really shouldn't be a chef.
Long story short the GM and my sous chef agreed that the sous chef should go, and now my boss's roommate is my interim second in command.
This is a situation I'm deeply uncomfortable with. I really want to believe that everything is okay, that my GM doesn't have a plan to drive me out and make his roomie the chef. But I also know that in situations such as this, people want to believe everything is okay, when it's quite obvious that it isn't. I'll keep you posted. I need to do regular paranoia checks with myself, and this is probably the best place for it.
Showing posts with label restaurant politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label restaurant politics. Show all posts
Sunday, February 15, 2009
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