Esprit de Corp in the Kitchen - And, How Not To BE A RAT FINK TO THE BOSS

Years ago…

…I worked in an extremely competitive kitchen. That happens at jobs, as people are set against each other to demonstrate their value to the bosses, hopeful to ensure a better position, better pay, or for a guy like me who was always seeking approval, a father figure proxy to tell me how proud he was of me (oh papá! tell me you’re proud of me papá!).

We competed on how sharp our knives were, on how quick we could get our prep done, how clean we could work, and how many hours we could work for the same pay. All of this cleverly orchestrated by the dastardly management, specifically our terrible Chef de Cuisine NIGEL (fake name) and his Executive Sous Chef TUNA (fake name, also).

Nigel and Tuna would get us to squabble against each other, and push the pressure to the point that sometimes we’d end up rolling around on the kitchen floor fighting.

I remember one such night when I was training with a pastry cook to learn the bread shift. I figure why have any sort of time off or life when I could come in to work every single waking hour and do every fucking thing! Now I’m going to do bread, too! Ha ha…Well, the pastry cook was a bit of a piece of shit and we had a healthy, heated competition. I mean, I hated the guy. Like, really hated him.

(A side story on the pastry cook: one night before we hated each other, we went out drinking together til quite late. I had to work brunch the next day, so he suggested I stay at his apartment in Harlem. Going uptown sounded a lot better than taking the PATH back to Jersey City at 2am, so away we went. When we got to his place, he immediately started cranking Dire Straits way too loud for the early morning hours. I mean deafeningly loud. There was no way I was going to be able to sleep. Suddenly, a mystery roommate he hadn’t mentioned comes flying out of his room screaming at this guy to shut the music off and that he had enough of him. My man laughed and turned the music off. “Go ahead and settle in, here on the couch,” he said. “Ohhhhhhkaaaaayyyyy!” I said incredulously. I settle in with the crappy pillow and blanket he provided before he sat in an office chair which he rolled just about a foot away from me. “Goodnight,” he smiled while staring down at me, mere inches from my face. Yeah, this wasn’t going to work with this creepy weirdo watching me fall asleep. Then he stuck a crack rock in the end of his cigarette and lit it up. “Ok, gotta go! See you at work tomorow!”)

ANYWAY, I was doing the bread shift with him and he was doing everything in his power to make it hard for me. He had zero interest in making it easy. And when he was flying around and knocked over an enormous cast iron based dough divider on the ground, I had enough. I went into the locker room and changed. I went to the pastry sous chef and told him I wasn’t learning anything and I had to go. The pastry cook saw me leaving and went into a rage, literally pulling his shirt off to fight me in the kitchen. We tossled around a bit before being broken up by Chef Nigel, who had also taken his chef jacket off. I was facing two bare chested men in the kitchen, one steaming mad and one laughing his ass off. I left for the night.

This was not a demonstration of Esprit de Corp.

What the Heck is Esprit de Corp?

Simply put, Esprit de Corp is that magical feeling of a group of folks who work together, pushing each other positively forward, supporting each other and working together harmoniously towards a common end. In a kitchen, that end is the success of the restaurant, working in concert with the front of the house and all other aspects of said restaurant.

From left to right: Jose, Sebastian, and Kai. They are all relatively new working together and are learning how to work as a team right this minute.

But to have that wonderful Esprit de Corp, the older, hopefully wiser folks who are running the place need to foster an environment of COOPERATION not COMPETITION.

I am not sure what other kitchens are doing these days, but back in the day it was difficult to find any sort of harmony. There was the appearance of harmony, but the type of harmony you witness watching a group of soldiers march in time barking out Jody calls. Militaristic, a multileveled hierarchy, and incentive to step on the neck of your coworker to gain status or position. I’ve run such kitchens too, and regret it. Not a fan.

I do think there needs to be a central voice to guide the vision, but that person has a responsibility to foster Esprit de Corp among the group. They need to be charged to work together on projects and congratulate the team more than individuals. There is one major aspect of fostering a sense of Esprit de Corp among your coworkers I’d like to focus on: Don’t be a Rat Fink.

Don’t be a Rat Fink.

Look, if someone is doing something wildly insane, reckless, dangerous, or illegal in the restaurant, you’ve got to say something. If someone is sexually harassing a teammate, using racist language, or basically being a piece of shit, you’ve got to say something. But otherwise, if it’s just about fuck ups, shut your mouth and don’t go running to the chef.

I can tell you that a sure way to lose the respect of me, is constantly throwing your coworkers under the bus. If I came to one of Chefs de Partie and asked them why the…I dunno…consomme is slightly cloudier than normal, they should just take responsibility for it and tell me it’s going to be fixed, or they don’t know, or they will find out. Anything other than ratting out their coworker. At least in my kitchen.

If we really are a team, then the team needs to work together and trust each other. They need not talk down to each other. They do need to make sure they find solutions together and work it out. But don’t rat out your coworker.

I promise you that if a cook says “we’ll get it fixed” it will evaporate from my worry bank immediately and I’ll move on to the next struggle. If I hear a lot of bullshit, then we have an issue brewing.

I remember when I was helping David Burke do a photo shoot for Art Culinaire back in 2000. He asked me to hand him something from next to a collection of delicate mignardise petit fours lined in rows atop crisp parchment on a sparkling sheet tray. I nudged the tray and a service-worth of migs fell all over the ground. The pastry sous chef Fred looked at me blankly and said, “hide.”

I hid in the walk-in for about thirty minutes while I heard the pastry chef, Richard Leach, screaming and freaking out. Not one guy sold me out or ratted on me. That was the finest example of Esprit de Corp I ever experienced. Unfortunatley I only had it with the pastry department, and I was the saucier.

Allons-y!

I love using French in the kitchen because it’s nostalgic for me . PLUS I feel way more sophisticated when I do. I think we need to all emphasize some of these awesome words like Esprit de Corp and Allons-y! (let’s go!). That’d be so soigne (I’m bringing soigne back I don’t care what you say, Saxon)!

But yeah, let’s work together. Cooperation, not competition, folks! Don’t rat to the boss, work with your team, and push everybody forward, together. It’s a hell of a lot more wholesome and good feeling than being a total bastard. Trust me, I’ve done both.