Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / How to be the Most Useful and Loved Person in the Kitchen | Chef's PSA Podcast Ep. 129

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How to be the Most Useful and Loved Person in the Kitchen | Chef's PSA Podcast Ep. 129 · Chef's PSA Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello chefs, this is Chefs KSA Podcast.
• 0:02
  I'm your host Andre Natera. On today's episode, we're going
• 0:05
  to talk about how to be useful in the kitchen and how to make
• 0:08
  sure everyone on your team likes you.
• 0:09
  Stay tuned. This episode of Chefs PSA is
• 0:23
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• 0:25
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  chefs PSA and get free shipping and a free sample box with your
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  first order. Before we get started holidays,
• 1:06
  it's Christmas. Do you want to support this
• 1:08
  show? You know what to do.
• 1:09
  Make sure you leave five stars anywhere you're listening to
• 1:12
  Apple, Spotify. If you're watching on YouTube,
• 1:14
  hit the like and subscribe button.
• 1:16
  Tell everyone share this podcast with a friend.
• 1:19
  This is going to be a good one to share because hopefully we
• 1:23
  could change some of the culture in the kitchen if you start
• 1:26
  implementing some of the things that we're going to talk about.
• 1:28
  If you're not sure what to get people for Christmas and you
• 1:31
  need gift ideas, The perfect gift are books that I wrote.
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  cooks everywhere. I think that's probably the one
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  book that an executive chef will laugh at and a new cook will
• 2:04
  enjoy too. So go get those free gifts for
• 2:07
  you. Go to chefspsa.com.
• 2:09
  There's a bunch of free ebooks as well, including 100 basic
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  recipes, a Culinary Dictionary, Food Cost Mastery Guide,
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  Critical Path to Opening up a Restaurant, and more.
• 2:19
  Go get that. If you want early access to
• 2:22
  episodes, you could get them by becoming a premium subscriber on
• 2:26
  Spotify as well as Sub Stack. So early access to episodes.
• 2:31
  What sparked the idea for this episode?
• 2:34
  The most recent episode I just put up with Chef Harold Villa
• 2:37
  Rosa. He started talking about when he
• 2:40
  was working at Per SE, he would go in and he'd fill up the salt
• 2:43
  containers, get delis for everyone, fill the pepper mills,
• 2:47
  get the towels, etcetera. Something that I used to do in
• 2:50
  kitchens as well as something that I would encourage my team
• 2:52
  members to do. I started having an Instagram
• 2:56
  conversation with Shut Bill Roll and we got into this long
• 2:59
  conversation about how important it is to do these things and how
• 3:02
  a lot of people don't do that if it's something that I do and
• 3:04
  it's something that I recommend people do in the kitchen.
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  So if you want to start to see improvements in the efficiency
• 3:11
  of your kitchen, you want your likeability score to go up, you
• 3:15
  want to be useful, Here's some easy things that everyone can
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  do, Everyone. This has nothing to do with your
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  culinary skill level, but has everything to do with your
• 3:26
  willingness to be a team member, be proactive, have a little bit
• 3:30
  of hustle and common sense in the kitchen.
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  If you want to have a better kitchen culture, then why don't
• 3:36
  you start making the changes that you want to see in the
• 3:37
  kitchen? A lot of people complain and say
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  no, my kitchen culture is not good and they rely on everyone
• 3:43
  else to fix it. Well, you could start making
• 3:45
  those changes today. So here's some things that you
• 3:47
  could do. And by the way, being useful in
• 3:50
  the kitchen goes a long way. You might not be the best skill,
• 3:53
  but if you're useful and you bring value, even if you don't
• 3:56
  have the skills yet to bring value, it's going to open up so
• 4:00
  many doors for you later. I've talked about this before,
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  that sometimes when people like you, they turn the other way and
• 4:07
  overlook some of your shortcomings.
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  So if you're not ready yet to be the best cook in the kitchen,
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  sometimes doing these things can make the team start to really
• 4:15
  like you, on top of being useful and being more efficient and
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  building camaraderie and teamwork.
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  The best part about this is it starts to become infectious on
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  your team. When one person starts doing it,
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  other people start doing it, and they start to see how
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  reciprocity works in action. I'm hoping by the end of this
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  episode you'll figure out ways to be more useful.
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  I'm using this also as a social experiment.
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  So if you do some of these things in your kitchen, I want
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  to know about it. I want to see if you started
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  doing it, how the team reacted to it.
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  And if you're an executive chef or you're leading a kitchen,
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  maybe you start tasking one person in the kitchen daily to
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  start doing this. It could be rotating.
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  Mondays it's this person, Tuesdays it's a different
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  person, and so on. You get the point.
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  Why is it important to be useful?
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  Well, it boosts morale. Learning how to work with a team
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  is one of the most important things that you do in a kitchen
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  because it is a team. Yes, you have your individual
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  station, but you're working with multiple cooks and sous chefs,
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  dishwashers, porters. It's all interconnected and if
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  you learn how to work together, you become exponentially more
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  efficient. Why else?
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  Being proactive gets you noticed.
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  It gives you opportunities for mentorship.
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  The person who's proactive most likely is getting noticed by the
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  person who's making the promotion decisions.
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  Take this example. You have two people that are
• 5:36
  both interested in becoming the chef departee or the sous chef
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  in the kitchen. Culinary skills being equal, 1
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  is more useful, likable, and proactive.
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  The other one is not. Who gets the promotion.
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  All things being equal, the person that's more useful and
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  proactive. Thus, like, it's not a big
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  secret, it's just common sense. You like someone more, they're
• 5:57
  getting the job. It's not always based on who's
• 6:00
  been there the longest or I've been here for five years, they
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  just started. Well, maybe, but they have a
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  better attitude. They're more useful to the team,
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  they're more proactive, they get the job.
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  That's the reality of the situation.
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  There's also the factor of respect and likability.
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  Your team will start to respect you.
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  They'll start to appreciate you. And honestly, who doesn't want
• 6:20
  to be appreciated more, right? I honestly don't think we
• 6:23
  appreciate chefs enough or cooks, right?
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  So anyway, I don't know what we're talking.
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  We digress. You want more appreciation in
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  the kitchen. Do things to get you appreciated
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  more. So let's talk about what some of
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  those things are. Let's say you're an efficient
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  cook. I'm assuming if you work in a
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  kitchen, everyone needs salt on their station.
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  Everyone needs pepper most likely.
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  Everyone is probably cooking so they need some sort of oil.
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  Depending on the type of kitchen you are, you might have a bunch
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  of deli containers or quark containers floating around to
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  keep your mesum plots in. Or you have 9th pans and hotel
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  pans and things like that when you get there and you awry when
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  you pull out that box of Diamond Crystal or Morton's kosher salt
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  till everyone's container. All right, Don't just fill
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  yours. It's very easy to pull out 10
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  deli containers who fill up 10 containers of salt and just hand
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  them out to everybody. It's easy enough to grind pepper
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  for everybody in the spice briner or tell everyone I'm
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  going to fill pepper mills. Give me your pepper mill and
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  just take them to the back and fill everyone up with
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  peppercorns. Very easy.
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  If you're going to fill one oil bottle, it's only a few seconds
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  extra to fill 5 oil bottles, wipe them down, give everyone
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  their oil. If you're going to go to the
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  dish station and pick up a bunch of containers, bring containers
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  for everybody. You need your delis, They need
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  their delis. It's more efficient to have one
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  person go and bring delis for the entire team, Then all five
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  people go and bring back delis where it's waste of time, it's
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  wasted space, it's wasted steps in the kitchens.
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  You have to be practical and efficient in your movements.
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  So in a lot of places, the Komi, first thing that they do, if
• 8:03
  you're doing the job, a lot of places, first thing they'll do
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  is they'll tell you, OK, you're going to come in a few minutes
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  early. By the way, I'm not saying
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  people coming off the clock, so I don't even want to get into
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  that conversation. Let's assume everything we're
• 8:14
  talking about is paid. You come in, the first thing you
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  do is you grab salt for everyone, grab pepper.
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  You fill everyone's boiled bottles.
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  You bring sanitation buckets for everybody.
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  You fold the big bag of towels that just came in.
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  You distribute towels to everybody.
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  You bring deli containers, you turn on the ovens.
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  Maybe you're a place where you have boiling water that you need
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  set up. You get the water on, you season
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  it and make sure it's salted. How do you know if the water is
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  salted enough? You taste it right?
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  So I don't know why people don't know that you got to taste your
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  water. If you're going to cook that,
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  you should taste it right? So anyway, you get everything
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  set up for everyone. And those little gestures.
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  Now imagine you're a cook coming in a few minutes later.
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  Your salt is there, your pepper's full, your sanitation
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  buckets are already there, your towels are folded.
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  It's just a good feeling. Those are just little steps that
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  take everyone 10 or 15 minutes, and that's 10 or 15 minutes for
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  everybody, but it's also maybe 25 minutes for one person,
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  depending on how fast you work and how big your kitchen is.
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  Make plate wipes for everyone. You have some downtime, make
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  some plate wipes. Everyone makes plate wipes
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  differently. Maybe you're using linen likes
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  or Torque or chick towels, whatever.
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  Maybe you're cutting up sponges. Maybe you're using just regular
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  towels, maybe you're just using NAFTA.
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  It doesn't matter. Just have plate wipes.
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  Ray, are you soaking in a vodka? Are you soaking them in a
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  vinegar solution? Whatever.
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  But if you know what the standard is where you work, make
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  plate wipes. Make plate wipes for everybody.
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  When you're prepping, there's certain items on prep that
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  everyone uses. Let's say you're cutting chives
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  and everybody uses chives on their station, then cut chives
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  for everybody, right? There's no sense in 10 people
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  cutting chives. One person can say, hey, I'm
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  going to cut chives for everyone.
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  Hopefully your chives are the best one because then everyone's
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  going to have trash chives on their station when there's
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  downtime. Wipe the line, keep a damp
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  towel, wipe the piano. There's a little bit of time to
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  get the broom. The broom doesn't know who used
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  it. Someone said that to me the day
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  I said I'm stealing that. So the broom doesn't know who
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  used it. Get the broom, sweep up, you're
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  caught up. Ask people if they need help.
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  It goes a long way. Like that's something that I, it
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  drives me nuts in kitchens, one person is all set on their
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  station and they're just standing there with their extra
• 10:28
  time looking at their phone. Meanwhile, 2 cooks down.
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  That person's in the shit and they need help, but they're
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  afraid to ask and you know they need help.
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  All you have to do is say, hey, can I help you with something,
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  right? Be useful.
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  Time to clean up. It's time to break down.
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  You're finished. First help your partner and see
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  if they need a little help, right?
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  Maybe while they're scrubbing you could wipe down with a
• 10:50
  towel. Maybe they just need you to take
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  something to the walk in. Be useful if you're taking
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  things to the dish station, right?
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  Take everyone's pants. Don't just take your bus tub
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  stacked. Everything nice.
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  And for the dishwasher, we move the tape from the containers
• 11:05
  before it goes to dish. What are some other things that
• 11:07
  are universally appreciated? Coffee, right?
• 11:11
  I put up a post on Chef's PSA the other day.
• 11:13
  It says it's like a riff on Mike Tyson's quote of everyone has a
• 11:16
  plan, so they get punched in the mouth.
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  It's like every chef has a plan until they run out of coffee.
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  Like bring them coffee. Kitchens are fueled off coffee
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  and energy drinks. But let's just use coffee as the
• 11:28
  example. It's hot.
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  Bring everyone some water, right?
• 11:32
  There used to be this guy that I would work with and he would, no
• 11:35
  offense, but he wasn't the greatest cook.
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  He was the one that would always make the States if service was
• 11:40
  going down. It usually had to do with this
• 11:42
  one person. But after the bad service, when
• 11:46
  everyone was getting ready to go off on him, you would show up
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  with water and coffee or a drink and he'd be like, hey, I got you
• 11:54
  some cold water or hey, I made this for you.
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  It's like all was forgiven. So we kept him around because
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  like, you know what? He always brought us something
• 12:03
  to drink. And we all liked him.
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  Like he was the mascot of the team.
• 12:06
  Everyone loved this guy. But who doesn't appreciate cold
• 12:08
  water during a busy service, right?
• 12:10
  If you're a server and you're listening to this, bring the
• 12:13
  Cook's water, right? Cold water, universally
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  appreciated. Coffee, most likely also
• 12:19
  universally appreciated. You're stopping at the gas
• 12:21
  station. Maybe you want to be nice and
• 12:24
  buy your whole team an energy drink.
• 12:25
  I don't know. Then there's also people on your
• 12:28
  team that really like doing things.
• 12:30
  Like I worked with this one guy. He had the crispiest aprons.
• 12:33
  He would take them all, We'd wash them, he'd iron them, he'd
• 12:36
  roll them really neat. And his aprons were always
• 12:38
  looking better than everyone else's aprons.
• 12:41
  And he had a thing for washing aprons.
• 12:42
  So we just said, hey, why don't you wash everyone's aprons once
• 12:46
  a week? We'll all pitch in for your
• 12:47
  laundry soap. And so everyone would give this
• 12:50
  guy 5 bucks and he would do everyone's aprons and they'd all
• 12:54
  come in nice and hung up on a, on a hanger, starched up,
• 12:58
  looking crisp. And it's like he liked to do
• 13:01
  that. Anyway, he made a little money
• 13:03
  on the side, right? So he made, I don't know, an
• 13:05
  extra 50 bucks a week, but everyone always had a nice clean
• 13:09
  apron. There was another guy that
• 13:10
  really enjoyed sharpening knives.
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  He was the best knife sharpener in the kitchen.
• 13:14
  So everyone would give them their knives.
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  He would take them home and sharpen them and again, everyone
• 13:18
  knew like hey, give that guy your knives.
• 13:20
  So sharpen them 5 bucks. It's only 5 bucks, but the trade
• 13:24
  was good because again, he's making fifty to 100 bucks a week
• 13:27
  extra by sharpen everyone's knives.
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  Everyone is benefiting from it because they're saving time, not
• 13:33
  sharpening their knives because they don't have time to do it.
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  Everyone's knives are sharp. The chives are more swanier to
• 13:40
  no brainer. You got a whole bunch of
• 13:42
  sharpies in your car in your kitchen drawer?
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  Bring them, give them away. Just say hey I brought presents
• 13:47
  for everyone. I have 1000 sharpies in my
• 13:49
  drawer here. Everyone have at it right?
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  By starting to do this, you'll start to develop an eye for
• 13:54
  things and attention to detail. You'll notice what these need
• 13:57
  organizing. You'll notice more when people
• 14:00
  need help. You'll also learn how to be more
• 14:03
  efficient overall in the kitchen and other people will take cues.
• 14:07
  Like I said, you're building camaraderie and your team is the
• 14:10
  most important thing in any kitchen.
• 14:12
  Soon you'll know what people need even before they ask,
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  right? You'll be bringing them fresh
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  towels, cold water, beautiful chives, oil bottle is filled up.
• 14:22
  There's a certain cadence that a chef and a sous chef have when
• 14:25
  they've worked together for a long time.
• 14:27
  I talked about this in an upcoming episode with Dan
• 14:30
  Kennedy where we talked about the usefulness of working with
• 14:34
  someone for a long time. They know exactly when to hand
• 14:36
  you the offset spatula or the spoon for the sauce.
• 14:40
  They know your next move. If you need to season something,
• 14:43
  they're already handing you the salt before you need it.
• 14:45
  When you're plating up, right, They're passing you a deli
• 14:48
  container, but they've already removed the lid because it's
• 14:51
  just one less thing that you got to do, right?
• 14:53
  Understanding how to work with your team and being very useful
• 14:57
  goes a very long way. You breathe value that way.
• 14:59
  Here's some bonus items. Organize the dry storage.
• 15:02
  Organize the walk in. Make labels for everyone.
• 15:05
  Sometimes if you're labeling with tape and you have some
• 15:07
  downtime, you just put a big strip, cut it up, sharpie out.
• 15:12
  Hey everyone, I'm making labels for everyone.
• 15:14
  Goes a long way, right? You're making labels anyway.
• 15:17
  What's it going to take you to do an extra 5 labels?
• 15:20
  And as a leader, the person that does this, I'm looking at them
• 15:23
  as having leadership potential. If I'm the chef and I see the
• 15:27
  one person does this and no one else does, I'm already
• 15:29
  recognizing that they are the future leader of the kitchen.
• 15:32
  I know that as a chef, the person who's willing to put
• 15:35
  others before them, that's a leader.
• 15:37
  You're going to have more opportunities to grow in your
• 15:39
  career. Your likability is going to go
• 15:42
  up. T morale goes up.
• 15:44
  It causes a ripple effect in the kitchen and everyone starts to
• 15:48
  benefit from it. So here's some homework.
• 15:51
  Do this. Start doing it even if you're
• 15:54
  not being told. Do this in your kitchen and see
• 15:56
  how it affects the rest of the team.
• 15:58
  See how it helps you and your day-to-day.
• 16:01
  See if anyone starts to take the lead with you.
• 16:03
  Share this episode with people. Let me help you convince them.
• 16:06
  I also want to know what I missed.
• 16:08
  Make sure you leave a comment. You can comment on YouTube and
• 16:10
  Spotify. Let me know if there's other
• 16:12
  useful tips that you have in the kitchen.
• 16:14
  On the next episode, we're doing a chef's PSA Sucio Talks episode
• 16:19
  with David Sucio. Don't miss that.
• 16:21
  If you want to support the show, hit the like and subscribe
• 16:24
  button on YouTube. Make sure you leave five stars,
• 16:27
  nothing less than five stars. Go to chefspsa.com, get yourself
• 16:31
  a Christmas gift. We'll see you next week.
• 16:34
  Hit the porno music.