Exit Stage Left, Part Two

From my most excellent stage in the Rockies, I headed for the San Francisco area to visit with my brother and sister in law and stage for a couple days at a Big Deal Silicon Valley company that has won raves and awards for its employee food service program. The executive chef I had interviewed with at school was very upbeat and talked up all the cool things the program offered, including organic and seasonal menus, restaurant-style rather than a cafeteria, everything from scratch, yadda yah. He also talked about hiring me for a baking position doing pretty interesting breads and pastries.

Yeah, whatever.

The whole thing was a nightmare from the start. After a nice visit with my fams in the Central Valley, I drove to Silicon Valley, got lost despite having downloaded directions (Curse you, Mapquest!), and arrived nearly half an hour late. The pastry chef to whom I had been told to report was okay about that, mostly because I think he was so out of his wits stressed already. Without any introduction or the briefest of kitchen tours (as in, "this is the walk-in, here’s the oven") he told me to slice and bake-off several dozen cookies. I did, and was immediately handed a crate of pears to peel, core, quarter and saute.

Then he disappeared. I later learned that he had barricaded himself in the walk-in (literally... in order to clear a place to sit he had to move racks around so no one else could get in) to scoop ice cream for lunch service. I also learned he was not the pastry chef, but the sous chef, who was stuck doing pastry because the people hired for the position "didn’t work out" or "couldn’t be trusted."

Hmm.

Meanwhile, looking around myself as I sauteed a cauldron of pears, I saw that everyone else there was there because it was a job, nothing more, that the food itself had no interest to them, and that they might as well have been slinging hash at whatever places around there still slung hash for all it mattered to them. It was an employee cafeteria. Yeah, the food was fresh and a step up from some places, but it was still cafeteria food.

The chef, by the way (not the exec chef I had talked to), was a jerk, mocking customers within their earshot, making smartass, frat boy comments as if anyone gave a crap what he thought and generally puffing out his chest like some dimwit jock who thinks being captain of his JV football squad puts him on the same plane of Importance as Ghandi.

When he deigned to speak to me, it was to say, no lie, "Anyquestionsaboutworkinghereno?good!" and continue walking past, pleased with himself that he had made such a witty comment.

Things were not going well.

I knew within five minutes of walking in the door that this was not for me, but I stayed in hopes of asking the sous chef about the position I thought I was being considered for, which was not this. After he disappeared, I decided to finish the pears instead of leaving them on the flame, which would have been unprofessional.

When the pears were done and I had finally found him, I asked him about the baking position the exec chef had been talking up.

"If they put you there instead of here where you’re needed, I’ll be pissed. I’ll raise hell," he snapped.

Oh.

Okay, so, where do you see me being in two or three years if I were to take this job?

"Well, uh... the woman who used to do this works in HR now."

Ah. I see.

How much does this pay, anyway?

When he said $14 or $15 an hour, I smiled and told him not only no, but hell no, thank you and good-bye. Okay, I am a professional, so I didn’t say that exactly. I mentioned other offers (true) and the desire not to waste his time (or, more importantly, my time), and did thank him.

I did not graduate first in my damn class for a crappy, low-paying job working for muttonheaded jackasses in an expensive, congested area of the country that is seismically active, thank you very f’in much.

"So, you’re not coming in tomorrow, are you?" he replied glumly.

"No."

He called the HR chick who came down as I was changing and said, rather snippily, "Well, I guess you have to do what’s best for you."

Why yes, yes I do.

Once I was back in street clothes, I stopped by the kitchen one more time to say to the sous chef, who seemed like a decent guy, however overworked and underappreciated, "hey, if nothing else I hope I made your day a little easier."

The chef was standing next to him as I said this and made a point of turning his back with ridiculous "you are dead to me" melodrama. As I was walking out, I heard him say something to my back. I couldn’t hear what it was, but I heard the snotty, dickhead tone of it.

"Asshole," I said, loudly enough that I’m pretty sure he heard, and kept walking.

I won’t be invited back, I’m sure. No loss.

I consider the visit an absolute success. Going out to Cali to stage makes the trip tax-deductible (job hunt-related expense!), I got to spend quality time with my brother and sister in law and see their cool house and sweet cat, I also had a great visit with a former professor of mine and his wife, and I got to eat at Citizen Cake in San Francisco, which was, er, interesting (thyme and agar ravioli with quince and manchego cheese ice cream? The thyme-infused pastry cream gave me good ideas, but agar is not an appropriate substitute for pasta and the ice cream was way the hell over-churned. Oh, and their bread sucked). Far better than Citizen Cake was a little Austrian konditorei near my bro that did a most awesome green apple mousse cake and tasty whole wheat danish with quark, a German cheese that’s one of my favorite things.

And the awful time at Big Deal Company made making my decision about where to go that much easier... stay tuned for more on that.

Instead of staging that second day, by the way, I went to Napa, where I’d never been, with my brother. We stopped at a couple wineries and checked out the bakery at Thomas Keller’s empire (my lamination is better...), but I think the highlight was, on a tip from my professor and his wife, the Castello di Amorosa. We thought it might be a little touristy, but they did a pretty good job of building a fairly authentic Italian castle in the middle of Napa just ‘cuz they could. I tried to post a couple pix, but Blogger is being uncooperative, so it will have to wait till next time...

And until next time...