For whom the bell tolls.

Well, it seems my time has come at the Japanese restaurant.

I was informed today, whilst in the midst of my lunch I might add, that my employer no longer desires my services for the dinner shift, leaving only the now ever so brief morning period (currently a whopping two hours on average), and thus cutting my hours to roughly enough to buy me a hell of a lot of ramen.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to culture difference. Put simply, the kind of kitchen culture and attitude which comes naturally to me is one that more resembles Gordon Ramsay's behavior or what Anthony Bourdain describes when he speaks of life in the professional kitchen, while what they are expecting is apparently some coddled little whelp who takes a heap of shit and asks politely for more. These are the kind of people who probably watch Ramsay on Hell's Kitchen and think "What an awful man", whereas I am the type of person who would be sitting in the audience and probably beating him to the punch.

I admit, unwaveringly, that I am an ill-tempered bastard when the chips are down. I swear like a fucking sailor, I'm constantly in a near or outright rage, and I quite simply have no patience nor do I possess any capacity to put up with much shit. I swear at myself, I swear about the customers, about the orders, about the prep, about fucking everything. As Bourdain put it in an interview at the Google campus, the kitchen becomes a world of hyperbolic black and white, only in my case, things have a far greater tendency to be evil horrible bastards than great saviors, with the sole exception of my sous chef, whom I now realize I will not be working with again.

The engine of my rage however, had become downright turbocharged over the last several months however. Stuck, alone, fighting a seemingly constantly losing battle just to keep my head above water, working my ass harder and harder everyday it seemed, for less and less reward. Even on the two glorious nights out of my workweek when I actually had a second cook to assist, more often than not, he'd be stolen away to the sushi bar, leaving me alone trying to battle through a dinner rush, running what is essentially three or four stations at once. I had at least one episode which could be best described as a near nervous breakdown, complete with alternating bouts of violent destruction and near tears, and pushed through only by the sheer motivating power that is the call of "Order up!"

But for all that, I must say that in, say, Yoko's, my alma mater, the kind of furious temper that si known to overcome me in the heat of a hard rush or a massive prep crunch, never seemed out of place to anyone, never did anyone bat an eye. Certainly there were more than a few confrontations, with waitstaff, with fellow cooks, even the occasional one with the boss whom I otherwise got on quite well with. There were definite shouting matches, and in a few occasion, even threats of violence. But it's a high stress environment, and at the end of the day, everyone seemed to somehow accept that this was simply part of the job, the curse of the kitchen. The same son of a bitch who threatened to beat the shit out of me in the middle of the kitchen, and whose face I was sorely tempted to slam into the the hot grill, would wind up giving me a ride home a few weeks later. Honestly, I seemed to be the one who had the most problems with taking that shit home with me.

And for better or for worse, that's just the kind of environment I expect in a kitchen, and I know I'm not alone in this, or Bourdain wouldn't sell out so many damn book signings. It's liberating in a sense, and in some ways helps keep the blood flowing. The kitchen is a warzone, and you absolutely cannot let those bastards keep you down. The orders are the enemy, the tools of the trade your weapons, and the food your ammunition. It is nothing short of a battle for your own survival, but when you constantly find yourself outgunned, outmanned, ill-equipped, and poorly supplied, after a while the most battle-hardened soldier is gonna find his morale seriously tested.

The bastards nearly killed me this time, and for my service, I get bucked out. But this ronin doesn't know anything left but fighting the good fight, and that means it's time to find a new banner to fight for, and a more rough and tumble troop to serve with.

And I'm seriously thinking it might be time for some more advanced training.