“I’ve worked my way up and I am now an Executive Chef. I do everything I can to spare my staff the suffering, stress and pain both physical and emotional I went through. But I also have to put in 60++ hour weeks or suffer threats from my boss and constantly hear ‘that’s the job’ from the higher ups after I’ve put in more hours in front of the stoves than I had available to sleep month after month.
No one can keep up this pace but when I show signs of cracking mentally and physically, instead of support I get chewed out. I don’t drink or do drugs, but I can definitely understand the need to not have to be in this world by whatever means for whatever time you can.”
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Reminds me of my current restaurant. We opened three months ago and everyone’s burning out. You can tell the head chef is too.
Its been rough trying to keep or bring people in because of either the chaotic environment or the 12+ hour days.
Despite the hardships I’ve experienced so far, I’ve learned to appreciate my past jobs more and to remember we have our rights to protect ourselves. No one speaks up about not having breaks (maybe because even a five minute one will get you behind), the random 14-16 hour shift and you go home for 3-4 hours of sleep and get out of bed to do the same thing again.
At least it was an experience. I doubt I’ll ever do these kinds of hours again or do those hours in a more systematic place.