Why should you hire me? I got fired from the kitchen at least 6 times!
Out there life can be tough, and so is the kitchen inside here. When you first step in from the backdoor, nobody knows who you are, nor do they care. People breathe, shout and hustle their way across kitchen sections and there you are, looking uncertain with a knife in one hand and a carrot in another. As you finally chop the carrot into ten uneven pieces, the head chef looks over and gives you a high-pitched barrage. Before long, you unceremoniously bid farewell to the kitchen.
How do you feel? Hurt? Dejected? Worthless even? Now multiply all these by six and you will understand what I have been through.
Yet, these serial kitchen failures have taught me the first important lesson for my career and my life: The world will bruise your self-esteem and hurdle obstacles at you again and again. But if you persevere, victory will be on your side. On one of these unforgettable occasions, the boss let me go on the spot: “Let’s stop here, you can leave now”. The abruptness of the message, the pity from the looks of others and the thought of all my expended efforts nearly drove me to tears. As moments of dejection passed, however, what happened that day hardened my will and spurred me back on track. It was not the first rejection and for sure would not be the last, so why bother? I sought new positions, went for trials and worked with the most positive attitude. One of those trials lasted for one, two and then three weeks, and before I knew it, I was spending the following nine months improving my knife skills while learning invaluable lessons that can still be applied beyond the kitchen premises.
One of the lessons I have gained as a kitchen hand is how to manage time and handle stress. Stress and time pressure are present in anything we do, but in a kitchen they can be particularly confronting. Imagine yourselves there during busy hours: The people who shout and scurry about, the non-stop incoming dockets, the intense heat from boilers, the clattering of plates and pans and the hungry customers clamoring for their food. Kitchen staff have to be quick with their hands, memorize orders, make each dish with all necessary ingredients in standard minutes. A moment of panic and confusion can mean a cut finger, burned skin, delayed orders and even negative customer reviews. Every day before work, I visualized myself wielding the knife, cutting the bread and mentally ticking off toppings one by one. I then anticipated the busiest time possible and turned up early, both of which helped me tune in faster with the hectic pace in the kitchen and kept my mind in sync with my body. Gradually, this morning ritual has become the key to managing my time, keeping my head cool and achieving set objectives, day by day.
Another noteworthy lesson I have acquired from hours of sweating in the kitchen is the importance of teamwork. Cooks are like soldiers and amusing a comparison though it may seem, a busy kitchen is no less stressful than a battlefield. The cooks count on one another to withstand the constant docket assaults, repulse and finally turn them into delicious dishes to win customers over. During those months that I worked in the restaurant- a family business, the father had me rotate among different roles in the kitchen so that when his section, or his wife’s or his son’s came under fire, I could always provide cover for them and vice versa. When someone got sick, each of us tried to fill the gap, baking breads in one corner, preparing salads in another and bringing them out to the front for customers. In retrospect, these busy moments were not just indicators of hard work or the restaurant’s popularity. They revealed something deeper: mutual trust. Had we not had enough trust in each other’s ability to perform our own tasks unsupervised, let alone to help others, the kitchen would not have survived the stress and neither I the kitchen.
The day I resigned from the job, an uplifting feeling overwhelmed me. I am now prepared to take on the new challenges ahead in my path.
So with my proven perseverance, endurance of pressure and the ability to work well in a team, should you hire me now?
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Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.