Three weeks ago I began a new job as a pastry cook. The sous chef has finally stopped calling me “New Girl” and now calls me “Miranda.” It’s not my real name, but it’s an improvement. I haven’t yet carved out a defined role in this kitchen, so for now Miranda will do. Earning trust and a place in a kitchen takes both time and effort.
When you enter a new kitchen you step into a tightly held environment. Colleagues size you up from toque to knife. Much like when your sister brings a new boyfriend home, the staff greets newcomers with a mix of skepticism, curiosity and polite indifference until they prove they can last a few months.
The prep cooks glance up from their cutting boards and the heat of their stares follows you as you move through the space. You walk the line trying to show the dishwashers and cooks that you belong. It feels a little like approaching an unfamiliar dog—don’t stare, offer a calm hand, let them get used to you first and then let the relationship develop.
A kitchen isn’t an office where an assistant quietly points you to your workstation and the rest is handled. After a brisk orientation—an overwhelming crash course in tools, stations and expectations—you’re expected to use kitchen common sense. Need more salt? Know where dry storage is and how to dig through it. Can’t find the right pan? Head to the back and ask the dishwasher or check the racks yourself.
Once you demonstrate you’re not completely hopeless, the rewarding part begins as you gradually find your place among a cast of vivid personalities. The best kitchens run like gloriously dysfunctional families. There are peacemakers and caretakers, jokesters and rebels. They test your patience constantly, yet when trouble hits they come together as a formidable team.
Chefs, line cooks and dishwashers often spend more hours at work than with their actual families, so the people you hire should be those you wouldn’t want to strangle after a thirty-hour holiday stretch. Ideally, they’re the coworkers you can share a quiet beer with after a twelve-hour shift in the weeds.
After these first three weeks I’ve felt like the new kid at school. But after a few memorable episodes—assembling a wedding cake on the fly, staying overnight at work during a hurricane, and holding my own on dinner service—I’m slowly defining myself among this ragtag crew. Yesterday the sous chef popped into the bakeshop and said, “Don’t screw anything up, okay? I’m actually starting to like you.” That felt like a small victory. Maybe I’ve found my place.