Can you hack it? Are you strong enough for the 15-hour days on your feet in the kitchen? Can you take the heat? While working as a chef for over two years, I heard countless times that the hospitality industry is not for everyone. Whether you are reading Anthony Bourdain’s books or Chef Sally Abe’s A Woman’s Place is in the Kitchen (which I highly recommend) you can see the brutal behind-the-scenes of everyone’s favourite restaurants. After two years as a Chef De Partie, and in the running for Junior Sous in the same kitchen, I took a break to determine if I wanted to continue working in restaurant kitchens. After I handed in my notice, people said this way of life is “hard” and you “have to be mentally strong” to work here, as if I had not just spent two years successfully working in a kitchen.
As you have probably heard, the industry is taking steps in the right direction. Although, you don’t need me to tell you that the industry has not arrived at its destination. The kitchen I worked in had many clichés. The chefs checked out the restaurant patrons and hit on the front-of-house women, who were around 10 years younger. The chefs would also get irrationally annoyed at the women chatting on the pass with no tickets. The men got special treatment and more leeway than the women. It was frustrating to watch the small disparities.
It hurt me when one of the women told us she had slept with a guy on the first date and regretted it. As she walked away, the sous chef called her a whore and joked that it only took dinner, relating it to him making the staff food. He would not let it go making ‘jokes’ a significant amount of time after this happened. If she talked about stretching he would comment, “Is she telling us she is spreading her legs again.” This was the same sous chef that I would have a falling out with later. Shocking, I know.
It started as any workplace friendship did. The sous chef was kind and genuinely trying to be supportive of my career. He gave me rides to and from work and we got each other Christmas gifts. I have a boyfriend and he has a wife, so I thought I had a layer of ‘protection.’ He was always micro-managing but reassured me that I could do it; he was just trying to help. He even thought I should be paid more than anyone on the junior team, or at least that’s what he said.
Things started to unravel. I couldn’t stand his little digs at everyone on the team, always trying to bring himself up. “I made sure the chef topped up the fridge before he left last night as I knew you would be in,” he said, as if he did me a favour by asking one of the other men to do the easiest part of their job. I snapped back, “Why was it for me? Shouldn’t he be expected to do his job?” I felt a chill for the rest of that morning. When I finally asked what his problem was, he rebutted that I had started it. He expected to be applauded for doing his job as a sous chef. I wanted to find an excuse to leave, I was so infuriated. I pushed through.
Over the next week we were cordial and friends again. However, he replaced his digs with something worse, making several inappropriate comments. I exclaimed, “That’s inappropriate,” most times but it wasn’t enough of a hint. The final straw was when we were driving to work and I told him I got stuck in the rain, “When I got to my friend’s house I was so wet,” I said. He mischievously giggled, “Oh! You meant the rain.” I couldn’t deal with it anymore. I kept getting annoyed at him and things would be awkward in the kitchen. I was in a toxic relationship with my sous chef.
The next day I raised the issue with my head chef and told the sous chef I didn’t need a ride. This sparked suspicion, and the sous chef pulled me aside for a chat. I told him we were spending too much time together and I wanted to take the bus from now on, explaining that his comments made me uncomfortable. He apologised, “Sorry if I crossed a line.” Feeling awkward but thinking we had worked it out, I started to feel better. Little did I know that this would spark snarky remarks and a lack of support from my sous chef. After giving me the cold shoulder, he pulled me for a chat and explained that we were, “All good”. I stuck to what I had said but I was happy to move on while keeping boundaries. I didn’t stick to his script though. The following day I asked, “How was your day off?” “Yeah, really great. I was around adults and not people who get offended so easily,” he snapped back.
We had a sit-down chat with the head chef, who, playing mediator, told the sous chef he had to stop making snarky remarks. However, the sous chef refused to admit to this. My head chef pulled me aside after the chat, “I told him he has to treat you and everyone else on the shift the same. He is just going to act as a supervisor to you, so you’ll have to get used to that. He says you are only upset because he doesn’t let you do whatever you want now.” I went home and sobbed, looking for quick legal advice on how I could get out of this job without having another work visa lined up. It was comical to me. When we were friends I was fantastic at my job, but when I stood up for myself my stock went down. He constantly told me that he was trying to make my life easier since I was one of the only women in the kitchen. I felt patronised and upset that I was letting someone make me question my abilities and work ethic.
It is easy for me to have a chip on my shoulder. My partner is in the same industry and, as equally as I am proud of him for what he has accomplished in the same amount of time, I am jealous. Not only do men make up most of this industry but I also had the added obstacle of trying to obtain another work visa. I already felt like I was running in place, so the undermining comments felt like I was getting knocked back. I kept trying to change but obtaining a work visa is not an easy feat, especially in a junior role. These obstacles have put me off the industry.
My partner had so much positive reinforcement in the same amount of time. To quote Sally Abe, “You can’t be what you can’t see.” I had no positive role models in my job, let alone another woman in a senior position. That’s not to say all the people I worked with were terrible, they had their flaws as we all do but overall I got along with the men I worked with. My head chef was supportive of me and tried his best to mediate the situation. I understand it wasn’t an easy position and I did not get to divulge all the details. The limited positive reinforcement and misogyny steered me further away from the destination I wanted. The bad outweighed the good by a long shot. I only got one pay rise and no promotion within two years. I understand it was a small kitchen so I had to wait for a position to free up, but I was giving a lot of myself and not getting much back.
I’m proud of myself for saying something even though there were many times in my final months that I wished I hadn’t said a word. Working a 14-hour day with a fragile male ego was something I would dread. Counting how many shifts I had with my sous chef a week and trying to hype myself up for them became a routine. Walking into the restaurant in the morning when he was on shift was riddled with anxiety and awkward greetings.
When I put in my notice he asked me, “How much of a percentage are you leaving because of me?” I responded quickly, “.00000000000000001% it’s not about you.” That was probably about 30% true but it did feel good to say. “Damn, then I failed. I’ll try better in another life,” he said. Fingers crossed we never meet again. This man, the sous chef, openly admitted he was trying to push me out.
If only I had a positive mentor I worked closely with, what could have been? Would I have less dread around one of my favourite things to do? Would I be excited to move into a different kitchen? Would I feel more confident in my experience and abilities? Unfortunately, we will never know. I hope that in a couple of years, I will look back and see how this experience has shaped me and made me more resilient, but right now I feel deflated. Maybe working in a kitchen isn’t for me beyond what my experience was but it did not make it any more enticing. The person I thought could be a mentor crossed a line. Refusing to acknowledge my feelings, he let me down, highlighting the absence of a true mentor even more. I spent months feeling uncomfortable while he laughed and made jokes. I cried when my holidays ended because I did not want to go back. I did not quit just because of this, but it was the nail in the coffin.
I have friends in the industry and unfortunately, many women can relate to this, inside and outside of hospitality. I like to think that some industries have better HR programs but the urge to try and just let it roll off your back in fear of the backlash is so valid. Watching your male counterparts rise the ranks faster is something women know all too well. All these obstacles are highly demotivating. It’s like swimming against a strong current. How can we be expected to move forward when the lack of support and the undermining comments keep flowing downstream? Even the comments we try to brush off still have an effect. Misogynistic comments don’t make you feel welcome, and some women have worse stories than me. An accumulation of all these examples makes you feel like you’re drowning. A chef I met once said to me, “So many young people get pushed out of this industry because their first experience is a negative one.” How do we push past the negative to be the positive examples for our future?
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