Friday, 8/6/10 – Level 5 Day 7 (Saucier)

Ok, so I don't go to the French Culinary Institute to learn how to fry French fries all night. Just kidding, I'm not that big of a brat, but seriously…I made French fries all night. I also cooked about 40 steaks to order during the Friday night dinner service…and survived! It was a ridiculously busy night, and it didn't help that I was still not feeling fantastic, but getting a pat on the back from chef at the end of the night made it all worthwhile.

Before class, I had some time to kill so I stopped off at the Starbucks on the corner to grab a cold drink. A friend from class happened to be in line in front of me, and her first words were, 'Oh my God you're back." "Dude, it was a sore throat. Of course I'm back." "Well…let's just say things weren't incredibly smooth without you." Uh oh, what the heck happened on Wednesday night? It turns out my group completely fell apart at the seams and spent all night trying to get themselves out of the massive hole they had dug. They weren't communicating, they weren't organized, and there was apparently a lot of yelling and screaming, both from chef and my group members. I could hardly believe the story she was telling me until another classmate, who we saw on the street, confirmed the disastrous night my poor group had had.

I'm not going to say things went to sh*t because I wasn't there, but I can't imagine they would have had the problems they did with my OCD organization and frequent bossiness making sure things were running smoothly. As I entered class, I didn't let on to them that I was aware of the complete pandemonium that was Wednesday night, but I could definitely tell that they were a little wearier and slightly bruised. I made the conscious decision that Friday night wasn't going to get out of control, not on my watch, so my first stop was the metal prep table where I pulled out my dry erase marker and made a detailed list of everything we needed to get done before service started at 8pm. Disclaimer: I am well aware that my authoritative attitude can sometimes be perceived negatively, but we are only as strong as our weakest link (!) and I'd rather make sure the overall process is ok than worry about what a handful of people think. I assigned names to each task, and we all got to work. After taking attendance, chef came to our station to no doubt find reasons to be angry and, upon seeing all four of us quietly working to complete items on our To Do list, turned away to yell at another group.

While I don't consider myself to be outgoing, I'm not necessarily shy either. It's often assumed that I'm quiet, meek and a pushover (until I open my mouth), yet I couldn't be more opposite. In life, I have been placed in countless situations where people are milling about, not quite sure what to do with themselves and getting absolutely nothing accomplished. Stuff like that drives me crazy, so I am inevitably the one to stand up, organize and lead. I've been told it's a good quality to have, but you can't be in charge without drawing some criticism and scrutiny. I almost always find myself in the leadership position of groups, because I'm usually the only one to step up and pledge to organize the chaos. So that is exactly what happened at school on Friday night, and I was grateful we were successful.

It's my theory that if more people stepped up and vowed to organize and lead, we'd all probably get a lot more done and be a heck of a lot happier. Unfortunately, there's a lot of fear of being the outspoken and decided one…but life's too short to not take charge.