Thoughts

Well, it's super late in the morning (I have to be at work at eight) for my last day of working at Grainfields. I learned a lot by working at a restaurant. The first and most important thing I learnt is there is a huge difference between kitchens you see on tv, and what people deal with every day at popular places. Secondly, because of that, I realized I didn't want to work in the restaurant business...I had been thinking about going to school for some training as a chef or baker, but I found out that after a while, I didn't like being an automaton in a food factory, especially at a restaurant aimed at a clientiele which mostly can't taste their food anymore and prefers everything well done. (ie. people over the age of 65) I did learn to sort of overcome my fear of really hot things *by necessity of the craziness of the job* and I have learned how to cook a heck of a lot faster, and just randomly come up with a meal plan in like, a minute, which is super and amazing. I can also now cut vegetable at the speed of light, and food prep is nearly something I can do without thinking too hard about it, which I really like. So all and all, I picked up some pretty great skills. (At the cost of a lot of sleep and my sanity, pretty much)

I also found that a restaurant is great place to overcome a fear of failure...you have about a minute to prepare a dish, and if crap is a dish best served warm, well, make sure it's warm. I still can't wrap a wrap to save my life (this is a defect since birth), but in the end the result doesn't always matter; most people blame the problems of the end product on the user, not the creator (Which really works in my favour because of the type of clientele, frankly). Secondly, if you screw up, you fix it, and you fix it fast. This was actually really good therapy from the academic mindset, which says, "You screwed up, you can never fix it, obsess, rinse and obsess again, and then repeat, and obsess about screwing up your ability to scrutinize yourself and the ability to obsess over trivial things that will make you obsessive." In other words, the restaurant biz, for a bit, was probably the best place for me.

Would I work there for longer than a month or so? NO WAY. I am ready to KILL.