Many apprentices start washing dishes so they realize how hard it is to clean a scorched pan and are don’t scorch them when they get on the saute line.

I worked with a chef would often chop mushrooms while talking to someone, he didn’t need look at his hands, which is hard for something small like mushrooms.

Let’s not forget that when your buddies are celebrating new year’s you’re working. Or on Friday and Saturday night when everyone else is off..you’re working.

I didn’t mind the hard work and drudgery as much as I minded the schedule. I always seemed to be on when everyone else was off and vice versa.

I learned to play the piano 54 years ago. I can no longer do so; it’s a bit too hard on my wrists. (Lighter keys and no need to come down harder for volume.) However, I took up the organ about seven years ago, and I’ve taught myself the pedals.

After all these years when I tackle a new piece, I do it the same way I used from grade school through college: play each part (right hand, left hand, and these days feet) separately first, then together. For harder pieces on the organ, I also play different combinations (left hand and feet, for example).

A tricky phrase, sometimes even a tricky measure, gets repeated, over and over and over, twenty, fifty, howevermany times, until the muscle memory is there, waiting to be triggered at the sight of those notes on the page.

Deliberate practice. It’s more ATTITUDE than anything else, and nothing else can replace it.

“Oh yeah, I started out mopping the floor just like you guys. Then I moved up to washing lettuce. Now, I’m working the fat fryer. Pretty soon I’ll make assistant manager and that’s when the big bucks start rolling in.”

Look at the chefs and other places you will work up to as you go on. Look at what they do. Find out how long they have been doing it. Are you that willing to stick with it?

Maybe what you are experiencing is similar to someone who wants to break off an engagement, but doesn’t, thinking their spouse will magically “change” or “get better”. Ultimately, the divorce is messy, since kids are involved, plus a house and a lot of hurt feelings, because the spouse kept on being the same person after marriage and eventually the relationship fails.

I like the suggestion to host more dinner parties and look for a different way to pay the bills. If you hate the drudgery now, how are you going to feel after you’ve prepared your 1000th chicken cordon bleu at the banquet hall? Celebrity anything (be it chef, athlete, musician or dotcom billionaire) is likely the result of not only hours of drudgery and hard work, but also some amount of innate talent, desire and love for the work.

Good luck!

I just read a book about writing that addresses this. It says that the way to become a good writer is to write – write about mundane stuff; take a word, rewrite, write backwards – just write. The author good writers to good chefs. The best chefs are the fastest as the mundane tasks of chopping and food prep.

Your advice is superb! I hope this helps Samuel get an “attitude adjustment” for his own good.

And I also watch Julie and Julia – VERY INSPIRATIONAL FOR WANNABE CHEFS!!!

One day he looked around and noticed that the other people doing the same work had PhDs. They’d been post-docs for years and were paying their dues before becoming professors, living on post-doc salaries.

So he dropped out of biology and decided to get an economics PhD instead. The amount of time doing drudgery was not worth it, no matter what the payoff, and another ~6 years of school in a totally different field was worth the switch, so long as it meant he didn’t have to poke flatworm noses for 9 years.

I waited nine years to take a higher position in my work (a unionized environment). By that time, in the lower-position job, I was able to hold my weekends off, work the shifts that I wanted, have access to better expenses while on shifts etc.
With the new position, I went to the bottom of the new seniority list, had to work weekends again, be on call etc. The money was actually worse during that year. The money had the potential to be better, as did the schedule, but I had to evaluate how long I was willing to stay until that happened.

In the end, I stayed in the position for one year, before going back to my previous job (still having retained my relative seniority). I didn’t see the potential for a workable schedule with more money coming for at least 5-8 years. I made the decision that was too long.

Do I regret the loss of money during the year and the crappy schedule? No. What I took away from that experience were the new skills that I had acquired managing people, trying something I had REALLY wanted to do (i.e. I will not have gone through my life saying what if I had taken that position. I took it and tried it). But in the end, I had to look at the quality of life I was currently experiencing and when it would change. The payoff was too great for me. However, it was not until I actually tried it, that I was able to really make an informed decision. Perhaps I am just a slow learner:)

Good luck with your decision!

Now admittedly, most chefs won’t have anything like Bourdain’s career or encounter the same challenges–think of Bourdain as playing lead guitar in the first heavy metal band, while the other cooks are playing rhythm guitar–but it’s still a must-read for anyone contemplating being a chef. There are some home truths there.

On another note, cooking is like any other profession: there’s a lot of mindless, repetitive slog work required to lead up to the real work you enjoy. (I work as an editor… much the same here.) The trick is to become so good at the sloggery that you can do it in a kind of zen state, without paying much notice. That lets you reserve your mind and your passion for the parts of the work you enjoy.