So, after getting kicked out of NewOrleans from the bitch Katrina I found myself in Tulsa Oklahoma.A little no nothing town where nobody knows how to eat,with 5 kids in tow ,and a wife ,I had to decide to move on or stay.
Within a couple of weeks I was offered an Exec position for a private buisness club,where they know how to eat....Good schools ,decent pay,3 restaraunts to play with,quiet and clean town,yeah I'm stayen.
Now forward 6 months ,my books are all messed up,I cant get acurate costs from the G.M.The banquette manager is dropping BEOs on my desk the day of the party,and I'm starting to get the feeling that A lot of the mangment are very dirty.With the G.M. retiring in 6 months I didnt want a new G.M. comming in and finding missing revenue without an answer.
I started logging everything,having captains give me copies of thier sales,every invoice I'd have copies,and in general investigating all of the money aspects I could think of.
What I discovered was that everyone of the upper managment were on the take,to a tune of somewhere aroand 150,000-200,000.
I panacked,I called my old chef in NO for advise and he told me to drop it otherwise I'd find a case of steaks in the car.Well it was to late ,within a month I was let go.This after seeing my salary go up 15,000 in 6 months.
Oklahoma is a hire at will state which means, somebody can fire you for whatever reason they want, they legaly dont have to give you a reason....That means no law suit for fucking me over, I'm screwed.
So now i'm stuck, Kids are in school and after the trauma of the huricane( we lost everything) no way am I moving them again. So I've got to put food on the table I started looking for anything.
since then i've picked up small gigs here and there but for the most part Tulsa is void of smart owners.Most look at my resum'e and say "youve never been to school how can you be a Chef".Never mind that i've trained under a French master and a French master pastrie,forget about the 15 years expierience,don't look at the 2 succesfull restaraunts that iv'e run, or the others that I pulled from the brink.Any way thats what i'm dealing with.
I'm now doing a consulting job that is killing my name.
I took this job just before the holidays,The owner had heard about me and called me in.In his words his chef was a little inexpierinced and was stubbing his toe alot,and he needed me to come in and show the chef how to run it,because he just didn't have time.A little is an understatement the kid was bairely out of a tech culinary program when he was hired for the pantry.he was promoted to the position out of neccesity.(the entire kitchen including the chef walked)I agreed to 40,000 to do it.I figured could be a 6 month job enough time to find something eles.
Instantly I was well recieved,the G.M. loved me and kept remarking how good it was to finaly have someone in the kitchen who knew what they were doing.Banquette sales were happy that they could have someone to give them direction,blah,blah
After the holidays everything changed,The owner got into an accident and was no longer aroand and left everything to the chef( the kid had been through alot with the owner and the only one that he trusted).Within weeks the G.M. was fired, the banquette sales demoted ,people that I had brought in terminated,everything was going to hell.Now it has been made clear that i am not anytype of manager and that i'm just there for when it gets busy,meanwhile my menue items(All of the waitstaff push my stuff over the old items)are being done wrong,ticket times are back to being horrible,nothing is being prepped and I spend my entire day putting out fires with no help from the guy who is suppost to be in charge.At this point i'm just riding the wave till something better comes along,but it kills me knowing that all the waistaff talk me up to the clientel and the line crew is sending out dog shit that has my name on it!
I know the reasoning for all this and as soon as the owner got into the accident I should have started looking, but that cant be helped now and now i'm in a pickle.
Within a couple of weeks I was offered an Exec position for a private buisness club,where they know how to eat....Good schools ,decent pay,3 restaraunts to play with,quiet and clean town,yeah I'm stayen.
Now forward 6 months ,my books are all messed up,I cant get acurate costs from the G.M.The banquette manager is dropping BEOs on my desk the day of the party,and I'm starting to get the feeling that A lot of the mangment are very dirty.With the G.M. retiring in 6 months I didnt want a new G.M. comming in and finding missing revenue without an answer.
I started logging everything,having captains give me copies of thier sales,every invoice I'd have copies,and in general investigating all of the money aspects I could think of.
What I discovered was that everyone of the upper managment were on the take,to a tune of somewhere aroand 150,000-200,000.
I panacked,I called my old chef in NO for advise and he told me to drop it otherwise I'd find a case of steaks in the car.Well it was to late ,within a month I was let go.This after seeing my salary go up 15,000 in 6 months.
Oklahoma is a hire at will state which means, somebody can fire you for whatever reason they want, they legaly dont have to give you a reason....That means no law suit for fucking me over, I'm screwed.
So now i'm stuck, Kids are in school and after the trauma of the huricane( we lost everything) no way am I moving them again. So I've got to put food on the table I started looking for anything.
since then i've picked up small gigs here and there but for the most part Tulsa is void of smart owners.Most look at my resum'e and say "youve never been to school how can you be a Chef".Never mind that i've trained under a French master and a French master pastrie,forget about the 15 years expierience,don't look at the 2 succesfull restaraunts that iv'e run, or the others that I pulled from the brink.Any way thats what i'm dealing with.
I'm now doing a consulting job that is killing my name.
I took this job just before the holidays,The owner had heard about me and called me in.In his words his chef was a little inexpierinced and was stubbing his toe alot,and he needed me to come in and show the chef how to run it,because he just didn't have time.A little is an understatement the kid was bairely out of a tech culinary program when he was hired for the pantry.he was promoted to the position out of neccesity.(the entire kitchen including the chef walked)I agreed to 40,000 to do it.I figured could be a 6 month job enough time to find something eles.
Instantly I was well recieved,the G.M. loved me and kept remarking how good it was to finaly have someone in the kitchen who knew what they were doing.Banquette sales were happy that they could have someone to give them direction,blah,blah
After the holidays everything changed,The owner got into an accident and was no longer aroand and left everything to the chef( the kid had been through alot with the owner and the only one that he trusted).Within weeks the G.M. was fired, the banquette sales demoted ,people that I had brought in terminated,everything was going to hell.Now it has been made clear that i am not anytype of manager and that i'm just there for when it gets busy,meanwhile my menue items(All of the waitstaff push my stuff over the old items)are being done wrong,ticket times are back to being horrible,nothing is being prepped and I spend my entire day putting out fires with no help from the guy who is suppost to be in charge.At this point i'm just riding the wave till something better comes along,but it kills me knowing that all the waistaff talk me up to the clientel and the line crew is sending out dog shit that has my name on it!
I know the reasoning for all this and as soon as the owner got into the accident I should have started looking, but that cant be helped now and now i'm in a pickle.
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