Chefs Versus Customers

I hate customers. A strange comment indeed from a person who has built a career from serving them, but I'm sure you've guessed by now that I'm going to tell you why :)

This thing we are doing now, this site, started for me about 1 year ago. I was working on an island resort off the coast of Brisbane. It is an amazing venue with no expense spared on guest facilities. The luxury rooms are stunning, the location is paradise, the bar and beer garden have one of the best views in the world, but please ,for fucks sake, don't eat there.

I knew the place was in trouble before I went there, but I thought that I would be able to contribute in turning the place around and getting it back on it's feet. How wrong I was! It turns out that the kitchen was an emergency design. The original plans had been for an area twice the size, but due to concerns from environmentalists, it had to be scaled down, and as a result the only real problem was the kitchen.

Now, imagine, you have weddings Friday and Saturday night, both for 120 pax, one buffet, one plated. You've just done 200 for breakfast, 300 for lunch and you're expecting anywhere from 200 to 400 for dinner. You've had 2 staff cook breakfast, 4 cook lunch, 2 on the wedding and 2 prepping. You're all working back to back AFD's (All Fucking Days) well, the ones on hourly as the salary staff refuse to do it. I've had management moan at me all day because their breakfast was cold and lunch times are to long and the banquet chef is half pissed, FUCK! All this prepped from 1 combi oven, 1 shite gas oven and one solid top. The line consisted of a 6 burner, only 3 of which worked, slow gas oven, chargrill, 2 double basket friers, a half size flat top and a really crappy electric oven. The banquet kitchen had no equipment apart from an alto-sham and benches! LOL I'm laughing just thinking about it now.

So, it's 5.30pm, I'm up and down the line, amping all the staff up, up the stairs to check the banquet chef is still serving, and standing! Back down stairs, now the front are moaning because they're hungry, well they can all fuck right off, I'll get some pizzas ready for them. The customers re starting to queue at the doors, WTF? Queue? At the doors? This is insane! Fuck it, get the doors open now and let's go, 100 pax walks into the restaurant, and the 200 in the beer garden start queueing to make their orders, take their buzzer, and wait in the beer garden to get their meals.

The place is going off its fucking tits, it's just not possible to do an 'a la carte' menu for this many people at once. The front of house has gone to shit, staff have walked out, one is crying and the manager is supping a whisky and coke and telling me not to shout so loud as they can hear me in the restaurant! The kitchen has gone to shit too, they're crapping their pants now, and it's an awful feeling, to be in that predicament. They haven't a fucking clue what's going where and who's doing what. Really, I just want to walk out and go and get pissed! It's a disaster, but I'm staying put.

It's getting worse, it's an hour before we can even LOOK at a docket, and then an hour or more until you get your meals. Tables have walked, money refunded. The one guy walks up to me and says "If I don't get my meals in 10 minutes, there's going to be trouble. How the fuck can you call yourself a Chef, this is the worst place I've ever been to." I try to explain the circumstances to him whilst apologising profusely, but it's still not enough for him. He continues, "Who the fuck do you think you are? What's your fucking name? You wanna take this outside, I'll fuck you up!"

The urge to fucking smack this guy in the face was strong LOL, so, I turned my back on him, hoping the low life pond scum and his dirty face kids would crawl back to wherever they came from.

What the fuck is going on here? This was the first of many of these incidents with customers at this particular resort, including some very colourful letters and emails. I got to the point where I was abusing customers back, which I'm not proud of. We had one guy complain, who said he was going to start a group on Facebook against us, to name and shame us. So I started a small group to vent my frustrations at the customer.

So who the fuck is the customer, to tell me I can't call myself a Chef"? Over the years I've heard the same stories, and witnessed similar events in other restaurants. Why is it, that some obnoxious wankers feel the need to harass the waitstaff, to whistle or click fingers at them, excuse me, isn't that for dogs and other animals? It's not funny to reduce waitress cryalot to tears, well it is, but you're ruining the night for other guests ok, we're a staff member down now you dickhead, because she had to go sit down for a while.

Guess what? You can't cook better than me, it might impress the brainless tart you're sitting beside, but by now the word's gone round, and all the staff know that you're a wanker, and the Chefs are talking about the things they would like to do with your girlfriend! What qualifies you, to tell me, The Almighty Chef God, that I can't cook? You know fuck all mate, do you see me coming round and telling you how to plumb your fucking toilet in? If you go to a doctors surgery, if after 40mins or so, do you start to rant and rave telling the reception staff how bad they are and how you'll never come back again? Yes it's supposed to run to a schedule, tight and efficient, but some days just don't work out like that. Better still, while you are speaking with the doctor, do you swear at them, telling them you could do a better job? No? I didn't think so.

So why is it, and it seems to be in the hospitality sector mainly, do we have to put up with this? Well the answer is we don't. If you are a waiter serving a rude table, refuse to serve them, I'll back you up. If you are a chef receiving abuse, give the same back. You don't have to take this shit from customers over a $25 steak, hoping that maybe he'll pay a return visit, Fuck them, tell them to get fucked and never come back, their type is not welcome anymore.

Fucking customers! Watch out for Hellraiser!