Management my way

Before this class, i would watch my managers from each job i had, and think what i would do differently in sticky situations. I used to think, "I could make a better manager then them." Now that I have tapped into the mamangement process throught this class, I've slowly realized, maybe i was wrong. At somepoint, i am sure i could make a great manager, i'm fair, i like being in control, and i love the leadership postion. However, i've also realized, that I don't deal well with people that don't want to do their job, or what their expected to do. I'm a loose canon if you will, i march to the beat of my own drum, and if you dont march with me while we work together, I'm not a happy camper. Managing people the right way, comes with paitence, skill, knowledge, and communication, which i am still slowly learning how to deal with from this school. Knowing more of my skill is in the culinary side of my career, i decided to take path down the long windy road of baking and pastry, because i like to push myself. I like to put myself in situations where i know i will come out strong, or i know it will be 10 times harder, but i will learn new skills. With my personality as of right now, i figure i would not make a good manager,. I'd be fun, i'd get my work done, i'd try to motivate my workers, but my decision making skills rely on my gut opinion, not the clear decisive process of problem solving. Since i started culinary (before i picked up baking)
i've had this goal of being the sous chef in the kitchen, being able to run my line, motivate people to do their job, and try to have fun with my career. However, from this class i've learned i'd make a better boss/manager to myself then others, making me have yet another career goal of being a personal chef. I really enjoyed this class, and what it has taught me, and i believe it's a prime class we need.

This Class

Before I came to this class I hated having to take control, and be in charge of something. I would avoid it and the responsibility to avoid failure. However, after now taking this class I do not think I will be avoiding taking control, and management positions in the future. This class has taught me how to manage people, the do's and dont's in the business world, and how to effectively motivate employees and coworkers. I now think it is important to be a leader in the workplace, even if you do not have the title. I know while I was on externship many people without the actual title to be leader, directed me and helped me along the way. Without these people my extern would have been a disaster, and that is why I now see that leadership and management is so crucial in this business to keep everyone on track, motivated, and in-line.

Management Overall

As we ready ourselves to move on towards the next block, saying goodbye to our professors and taking that last final; some may wonder what is to come next or will happen. Whether it is moving on to our next class here at CIA or going on a different path in life, management will follow us everywhere we go or at least to some extent. Many of us will find ourselves in the position of making hard decisions and governing people in the class room as part of the group leader responsibility while others may simply just be working on interpersonal skills out in the real world at a different job. Here at the Culinary, I believe that there are a couple of say, “bogus” classes or ones that just really do not seem necessary for our advancement into the culinary world. However, I believe the one skill used most next to knife and cooking skills in our industry will be our people skills and management skills. People are always changing, always different then the last one and part in time. I think it is not vitally dire, but rather for the better of the doubt for all of us here at CIA to have somewhat of a grasp on these management skills and people skills before were sent off into the real world. I mean, if we have a hard time governing those skills here at school, how could we ever even plan on working them out in this dog eat dog world? Just a little reason why I thi8nk the Management class was helpful in my eyes.

Oh, L Block

As this lovely block comes to a close, I can only remember the feelings of finishing b block nearly a year ago. I remember being antsy for kitchen classes and beyond excited to start them. It is a similar feeling now, however, a lot has changed. As a b block-er, my nearest future was externship. I stressed and worked hard to find one that I would like. It was all I could think about first year because I knew it determined my happiness for a future five months. For the close of L Block, I am also nervous and excited for kitchen classes. I know that every class increases with intensity and skill. This time around, all I can think about is my future in this career. First year was focused on externship and where I would go to fit in and belong. This year I think about graduation and where I will go beyond that. I hope that I am at a work place that I love to be at. I also hope that I will have a manager that allows my creativity to flow and keeps me happy at the work place. My externship taught me great communication skills with my employer and I know I will always take those skills with me to my future jobs. I can only wish to acquire a job that has an amazing supervisor and where I can learn even more than I have at this school. There was a class on planning and organizing in management. I know that the planning starts here. It progresses with every class I take and every ounce of knowledge I accumulate. My short-term plans are to do the best I possibly can in each and everyone of my classes. My long-term plans, however, get me a little more stumped. Hopefully I will be able to take this lesson on planning and use it to help myself plan out my five-year plan.

more knowledge

in management i have learned and few things such as how to be a good manager, types of manager to be and not to be, and certain thing i can and cant do when hiring and firing. there are certain rules you must fallow when hiring someone as for example you are not allowed to decide ether to hire them based on marriage status. if a woman becomes pregnant you can not fired them. there are managers that run around and do the job instead of finding someone to do it. these are called boomerang managers, this is one of the types of managers not to be. a good manager delegates job to people so he/she can do more management type jobs. managers are your problem solvers of the kitchen, they make sure everything runs smoothly as possible. they keep a watchful eye over everything. if there is a problem you should never go over the manager's head to their boss. all in all this management has some good information but i believe that the class was a little waste of time

Michael 'Scarf' Scarfuto

Crazy Chefs!

We have all heard stories of Chefs in classes yelling at kids who didn't have the right mise en place, or kids who screwed up a whole meal and couldn't serve. We have also experienced some of these situations at school, but I have never worked with a crazier Chef then my extern Chef. His way of discipline was to scream at you, throw plates at you, slam things in the dish pit and overall just make unnecessary noise in the kitchen. Now don't get me wrong I in no way hated this Chef, I'm going back next summer to work for him, but I hated his disciplinary actions. Getting treated like an idiot during the middle of a hectic service makes nothing better on both sides of the kitchen. Normal people in society can't deal with getting screamed at and pots and pans flying around kitchens, and I know in this field get used to it. Why though, should I want to be in a position on chaos. I want to work somewhere, where I can enjoy what I'm doing and be creative and have things flow smoothly. Being in a place where workers are always flipping out and your boss tells you "you suck" and "your a worthless employee" a hundred times a day makes nothing better. In some cases it does work when you want to get stuff done in a shift and you don't want any problems coming up, but your employees will start fearing you. They will always be afraid to ask questions or try something new or even put in their feedback on a dish they have to prepare. I personally just don't believe it is a smart management style, you can learn how to take charge of a kitchen but still respect your workers.

Things to Think About!

So…… As I get to the end of L block I start to wonder what’s next, what do I want to be, or might be even better what do I take with me? As I do these blogs I wonder what the point of it is. Is it for me, for the teacher or for others? To be honest the only thing I feel theses blogs do is make me think. They make me think about what to write about and as I think about what to write I think about the class and how it should be applied to the real world. Others write theses blogs about communicating, planning/organizing, or decision making/problem solving and how they relate to their externship. Well I want to relate them to life for example when you don’t communicate well, in life you will never get what you truly want because people 9 out of 10 times if you don’t ask you won’t get. Planning and organizing, well it comes down to this you don’t plan and then organize your plan you will have a much greater risk of failure. Decision making and problem solving, if you don’t make the right decisions not only will you hurt yourself you will most likely hurt the people involved and if you don’t learn to problem solve correctly you will most likely just make the same mistake over and over again. Now why am I saying this is this not obvious? Well most people forget these important essentials. Humans are mostly to make these mistakes when they are under a lot of stress and rush into the thing I just talked about like communicating, planning, decision making, and problem solving. So what’s the point your asking just because we near at the end of L block should not mean we just forget about these things. All those things are not only key to a successful time in the real word it’s also important in these CIA kitchens. It’s going to be important to have wonderful experiences to learn from not negatives one even though we all know those are also key to learning.
My time in Into to Management was great I enjoyed being in class and learning about all the key things to a successful manager. I am going to take a lot out of this class and I hope others will too. One thing I realized about this industry more and more everyday is that if you truly do love this, and by love I mean love the industry and not just the food because lots of people love food but can’t stand working long hours or slaving over a hot stove for hours. But the industry as a hole all these challenges that lie ahead be easier to deal with and all these things you learn in management that seam common sense will just come natural to you.

Things to Think About!

So…… As I get to the end of L block I start to wonder what’s next, what do I want to be, or might be even better what do I take with me? As I do these blogs I wonder what the point of it is. Is it for me, for the teacher or for others? To be honest the only thing I feel theses blogs do is make me think. They make me think about what to write about and as I think about what to write I think about the class and how it should be applied to the real world. Others write theses blogs about communicating, planning/organizing, or decision making/problem solving and how they relate to their externship. Well I want to relate them to life for example when you don’t communicate well, in life you will never get what you truly want because people 9 out of 10 times if you don’t ask you won’t get. Planning and organizing, well it comes down to this you don’t plan and then organize your plan you will have a much greater risk of failure. Decision making and problem solving, if you don’t make the right decisions not only will you hurt yourself you will most likely hurt the people involved and if you don’t learn to problem solve correctly you will most likely just make the same mistake over and over again. Now why am I saying this is this not obvious? Well most people forget these important essentials. Humans are mostly to make these mistakes when they are under a lot of stress and rush into the thing I just talked about like communicating, planning, decision making, and problem solving. So what’s the point your asking just because we near at the end of L block should not mean we just forget about these things. All those things are not only key to a successful time in the real word it’s also important in these CIA kitchens. It’s going to be important to have wonderful experiences to learn from not negatives one even though we all know those are also key to learning.
My time in Into to Management was great I enjoyed being in class and learning about all the key things to a successful manager. I am going to take a lot out of this class and I hope others will too. One thing I realized about this industry more and more everyday is that if you truly do love this, and by love I mean love the industry and not just the food because lots of people love food but can’t stand working long hours or slaving over a hot stove for hours. But the industry as a hole all these challenges that lie ahead be easier to deal with and all these things you learn in management that seam common sense will just come natural to you.

problem solving

One of the msot important things I learned was problem solving in the restaurants I worked in. At first I thought chefs in general flew by the seat of their pants, and just did what they would on a whim. But I later learned that usually if a chef makes a decision the it is based off of a past expirience. So I figured that if I was going to be able to do this I needed tons of expirience, then I could start making decisions. Untill I met Chef Paul, who has tons of expirience. But he will stop his line completely if he feels that something needs to be changed. You will see him step away from the board and close his eyes for a minute, and think everything out. And even though it feels like forever, it isn't. He has simply taken a minute to figure out what the best course of action is. Sometimes being in the weeds isn't solved by cooking as fast as you can because you loose quality. We one time saw a huge party come in that just wanted drinks and said they wouldn't order food. But they ended up ordering anyway, and if a party of fifteen all orders two or three appetizers a piece then it really hurts the nights mise en place. After a third round of appetizers, Chef took away their menus, and started sending out whatever he wanted to cook to them and just charged what ever he wanted. His reasoning was they already had a good buzz and were hungry so they would eat whatever we sent out to them. If they ate it they had to pay for it, if they didn't eat it then it was on us. Thismay not have been compeltely rational, but his expirience with people gave him the confidence to make stuff up on the fly and sell it, and we made a great profit off of it as well. He is rational as well, if something will not be high quality he will take it off the menu, especially on tough nights, nothing goes out his kitchen without his seal of aproval. People will be upset if a special was taken off, but will still order something and be happy with it. People won't be happy if they order something and it isn't to their expectation. Being rational and using your knowledge is extremely important, and impulsive behavior is never something to fall back on. It is never a bad thing to allow yourself a minute to collect under pressure. You just have to be able to jump right in after you have come to a conclusion, there is no room for error in what we do.

Decision Making

Everything about a kitchen attracts a lot of chaos like when tickets get backed up, orders aren’t fired correctly, or when there is miscommunication with the front of the house. When this chaos comes about there needs to be strong management decision making. In class we talked about the different types of decision-making and how they are all very effective. What I experienced while working at The Greenbrier was how the chef’s all handled situations. The chef I worked for at the steakhouse was very laid back, but if something were to happen he had enough experience to where he could solve a problem very quickly. This is called intuitive decision-making. He also explained to me about turnover rates and how common it was in our industry. Of course I was already aware of this, but he really drilled it into my head. I would always ask him where he would place people when someone was either quitting or being rotated out. His response was always,” I’m just gonna have to see what they give me and go from there.” I was always so baffled by his response because I always look at the more rational outlook especially when I know it’s going to happen. I always felt like he sort of had a plan, but he just didn’t want to let me know about it. He was never indecisive about his decisions either. It was either yes or no and he stood behind his decisions. He was one of the craziest people I have ever met let alone work with and I honestly think he lived his life based on impulse. He is such a go-getter and I hope to work with him in the future. He really helped me in making decisions in the kitchen and I carry that with me every single day.

Communication Breakdown

I finish making my practice meal at an empty table, except for Moon, who is sitting to the right of me. “You’re steak, it’s good, but it tastes too much like…cow” he says between bites. I nodded, but internally puzzled, I try to work out what this could mean. Since working at Nara, I have been able to pick up on Moon’s Moon-isms, but this one I can’t quite get. He tells me everything else is good and to clean the grill and go back into kitchen. Once into the kitchen, Matthew walks up to me and asks how it went. I tell him I’m not sure, grab my dirty dish, and bring it to the dish pit.

Tastes too much like cow? What does that mean? Was it too raw? No, it was almost well done. These thoughts won’t stop coming while washing my tools in the sink. Moon walks around the corner and smiles at me. “You’re doing a good job; you will be ready to cook real tables soon.” He says and walks back to the office to finish paperwork. I’m relieved he thinks I’m getting better, but it is so hard to judge sometimes. One minute he can look so stern and angry, and the next he’ll be singing some pop song he heard on Z104. He is so hard to read; it must be the culture difference. The frustrating thing is, if things went a little differently I would have stayed in Korea, and it would have been my culture.

Participative Decision-Making

The Banquets Kitchen at my extern site followed a rigorous planning process. Every Saturday we would get the Banquet Event Orders (BEOs) for the following week. This allowed the Executive Chef to schedule everyone in depending on how busy the week was going to be. It also meant that he could place new produce and meat orders sufficiently in advance. In my opinion, making sure that everyone got a sufficient number of hours during a slow week was the most challenging part of his job. Thankfully there were a number of outlets that he oversaw and was able to fit everyone in. While this meant that people had reduced hours they felt that it was fair since no one was singled out for a large reduction in hours. As a part of his decision-making process he went around and asked various staff members about their preferences and whether they would be willing to work at the pool or even as a night cleaner. It gave the staff a sense that their concerns were addressed. He even asked me whether I wanted to work in Pastry or at the pool. Since I had no prior experience in Pastry and wanted to learn more I chose that. It was a great experience for me – I learnt how to make cookies, macaroons and jam.

Decisions, Decisions

I’ll be the first to admit that making decisions is a process that I trip over on a frequent basis. I lay out my options, weigh the pros and cons of each choice and proceed to worry and deliberate over the decision for a few days. I’ll discuss it with family and friends and add their opinions to my knowledge bank for each option. Eventually, I’ll make a decision. Sometimes I make the right decision, and sometimes I look back and realize that I should have listened to myself instead of taking everyone else’s opinions into consideration when I chose. Although this is the way that I typically make decisions, I have also been challenged to make quick, on the fly decisions during my few years working in the industry.

The two years that I spent working at Sherwood Oaks was the time that I first started to learn how to make quick decisions. I often worked as a host, assigning residents to tables as they came in. One of the first things you learn when you are training to be a host is the residents that you don’t want to sit together, for whatever reason. It’s fairly easy to know who not to sit together, but it’s another matter altogether to act upon that knowledge. This is especially true when you have room open at a table and you really can’t afford to give any other server another table at the current time because they are all far too busy. Well, following cardinal rule number one of hosting, you’ve got to find another place to put the residents because you know sitting them at your only table with an opening will be problematic. There’s no one solution for every time this situation occurs. I learned to figure out my options, weigh them, and choose what I thought would work best for both the residents and the servers, all in about five seconds, while the residents in question were standing there waiting for their table assignment. I had to learn to make decisions such as the aforementioned because there was no other option. I couldn’t just stand there and hope that one of my supervisors would come and tell me what to do. It wasn’t always easy and there were times that my decisions caused a chain reaction of other events through the dining room. But practice makes perfect and before I left that job, I was confident in my quick decision making abilities.

I also worked as a supervisor at Sherwood Oaks for about a year. In the beginning, I wasn’t asked to make many decisions. I simply followed the procedures laid out for me in training and there was always another supervisor there with me during dinner service to guide me if I had a question or needed to help solve a server dilemma. As time progressed, I began to work service hours by myself so that the other supervisors could have more time off. It was quite a change for me when this happened. I now had to make decisions on my own instead of going to someone else. If one of the residents had a problem with their meal, I was the one who had to decide how to fix it. If one of the servers came to me with an issue, I had to have a solution. Now, it’s not as if I was completely unprepared for any of these situations. I was trained well and was given a chance to observe others doing my job before I was left to my own devices. Typically the solutions to the problems were simple and obvious but every once in a while a challenge would come along. These situations further tested and improved my decision making abilities from what I had already polished by hosting.

Working at Sherwood Oaks was incredibly rewarding for me. I learned an incredible amount in my two years there and I grew as a person, both individually and in the industry. I learned the importance of communication, teamwork, delegation, and as previously discussed, decision making. My experiences there made me a stronger person and gave me a solid decision making base as I launched into my college career.

Moving Around to Help

Delegation was a huge part in my externship kitchen. The station I worked on I was with another girl, Amber. She was the head of the station but told me that I was her partner not her helper. She knew that if I wasn’t there on busy days she would not be able to get all of the food out at the correct time with all of the correct sides. But during prep she basically told me what needed to be done for the day and then let me go and do everything that was on my list. Sometimes, even when I was not on soups, she would even ask me if I would make her soup and she would do all of the prep for the station. Another time that delegation took place is when another stations prep was so large that the two people on the station could not handle it. So, usually I was placed on the other station to help them prep all of their stuff out. I feel that this was mainly because they knew that if they told me that they needed something done I would use the correct product and I would do it as fast as I could.

Another thing in why I got all of the random work and I was switched all around of the kitchen was because I was the extern. I was at the bottom of the chain of command. Not only that Amber was full time cook, she was also a tournaunt. This just meant that she was just one step below our Jr. Sous Chef. So, I had to do everything that everyone wanted me to do, but before I left I had people below me because I was in the kitchen longer then they were. So I even had a chance to delegate some of my tasks to other people, including the Sous Chef.

Communication is Key

Communication is one of the most important things in the kitchen. Without communication nothing would ever get done. To give an example of communication, when on externship we had a little book where we could comment in. Whenever you shift ended you were suppose to write what happened during it. What went wrong, what you weren’t able to finish, things you felt were important to tell everyone else, etc…. You also didn’t always have to write negative things, you could also say that you loved the way a product turned out, so just simply compliment a fell coworker. Communication is key to getting things done. If the am crew didn’t make buttercream and never told anyone, then the pm crew would be in the weeds. Without buttercream, the macaroons won’t be filled, and if they’re not filled then the dessert case won’t be filled in the morning for customers. You want to make sure that everyone knows what’s going on just in case something doesn’t get made, so the person needing the product doesn’t find out when it’s too late.
Another reason communication is a good tool, is so we can get our needs across. If you’re showing the new person how to do something, but you just rush through the demo; that person will be lost. So giving directions clearly is very important, because if the newbie messes it up, the product will then be wasted. If you would have spent a little more time communicating what you wanted the product to look like, no of that would have happened.
So to sum it up communication is an important part of the kitchen, and I’d say one of the main reasons places don’t make it, is because of communication or at least it’s involved somehow.

Communication ...drink it slow... it always goes down smooth

Communication is a key skill to have especially when working in a diverse environment like a kitchen. You have Latinos, Africans, Arabs, Indians, candle stick makers, and bakers all speaking different languages and performing different tasks. Thus finding a common ground in which you can communicate is key. I personally have my own strategy. Learns all the swear words of that particular language. By learning those swear words you can easily identify if a co worker is in distress and might require assistance. You can also use these words to make jokes with your coworkers which always makes a workday go by smoother. By cursing in another language you can quickly convey your message to other coworkers to let them know that you need help or that your in great distress and require a hug. Plus cursing is fun its one of my favorite things to to do in a kitchen. And if you can appreciate the way another culture curses it will enrich your life and give you the appearance of a well traveled individual. So go ahead classmates curse and curse in many languages your making the kitchen a beautiful and richer place.

Remember when you were a little kid and your parents would track your growth on a door frame with a marker? Each mark was titled with your age, date, or some other significant event in your life. Every three weeks on this campus, I find myself making another mark. Returning from externship, it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to look back at a block and observed my growth. With each block, each cuisine, and each chef, I’ve redeveloped some part of my perspective.

To be honest, I’ve been anxiously anticipating the completion of L block since about the second week. Most individuals in the culinary field are not built well to sit in a classroom. I am most definitely in this class of individuals. However, I greatly value everything that I have been exposed to during L block, as it has generated my intense excitement for my future. But I also believe I would have taken even more away from the past six weeks of academic classes if I was allowed to stand up in a pair of checks for the entire duration of the class. Regardless, once again I am gathering and reflecting upon the lessons I have learned in each of my classes.

Initially I found Intro to Management to be a very hard class to relate to. I hadn’t and still do not expect to manage people for quite some time. However, I have since learned that the class is also very much about leading and inspiring people, which can become a role of mine at any given time. I have also come to realize that this is a class that is intended to be revisited at appropriate moments in my career. Much of the material appears obvious, but this is because I am currently the person being inspirited, lead, and managed. As a person who manages, I will have to remind myself to have patience, teach kindly, and inspire whenever possible. The guidelines which I have learned in Management will develop with me as I do in my own career.