On a trip to Gran Canaria, as usual, I was checking books in one of the shops at the airport. One of the best places to buy good books? Airports. “Surrounded by Idiots”. After checking a few pages, I realised it was about “personality colours”, a concept I heard off a few years ago. Full title read “Surrounded by Idiots: The Four Types of Human Behaviour”, by Thomas Erikson. A best seller. I do recommend you the read. To me it’s very well written and a good laugh.
In a nano nutshell:
- Red: Dominant
- Blue: Analytical
- Yellow: Social
- Green: Relaxed
Laughing was just my conscious reaction to relate myself to the stories I skimmed read before buying it.
Good laugh? Good book!
Back in the time I was having fun as a chef and we were having quite a funny week. Christmas time is the high season in the sector. That night we had 3 groups. Numbers are messy, but let’s say something around 120 people in total. Not that it matters because what keeps crystal clear in my damaged memory is going home knackered. And, in the same way I can tell you I’m a slow learner, I do have some capacity to endure hard work – “fun”, and once I click on it, I can deliver good standards at speed.
But yeap. High season, busy time, embrace it and accept you are gonna be in hell for a bit.
Lunch shift was good, as we got extra people doing prep. On the other side, we started at around 08:00 ish and worked non-stop till easily 23.00h.
Agreed plan for the night was something like:
- First group 3 dishes then just drinks + all good.
- Second group 2 dishes
- Third group 4 dishes + then drinks no more food all good.
- Second group another 4 dishes… and then we were meant to just give them drinks (no kitchen fun), they’ll be happy, small break for us then clean and clock off.
That was the plan we agreed on and it all was according to plan… but last group asked for some “extra food”.
Manager happy, head chef happy… I wasn’t. We didn’t agree on that. I was slightly over minimum wage. So in the most optimistic scenario I could do an extra 15 quid doing 60 hours Tuesday – Friday?… No. I wasn’t happy. But as they say in Britain, I carried on.
There’s a particular shout tango in the kitchen: normal standard work shouting, extra shouting and compliments. You get shouted at and remain silent repeating yourself on autopilot all steps you’ve learnt to deliver automated quality very fast. Once you get there you kind of like it.
When the team was about to get ready with cleaning came the extra shouting:
Shouting: “Extra 3 colour hummus with pita bread!”
Me, silent: heat bread, Beetroot, red pepper, normal, cut bread. Ready. Serves 10-15.
Shouting: Extra crumbed prawns!
Me, silent: run, be careful, fryer, rocket leaves bed, sweet chilli sauce, serves 10.
Shouting: extra sausage roll!
Me, silent: ran out. Spread. Make it nice. Serves 7. Make it look like 10.
We reached a point where the only thing we got left was french fries.
Split what we had left in 2 fryers. They’d be served within 4 mins.
My head chef (HC) came back to sing-shout for more whatever and I didn’t take it:
- Me: We’ve ran out of food sir.
- HC: Go downstairs and bring…
- Me: We brought it all upstairs for service if you remem…
Then we went from just normal shouting to proper compliments in a few different languages -funnily enough I could follow his multilingual swearing very well.
Conversation went something in the line of what you are about to read. It was quite short. And as we are encouraged to “stay professional”, I’m sorry but what you are about to read is a vanillesque dramatisation between the head chef (hc) and me as co-star. And capitals. Because we all know CAPITALS IS HOW YOU SHOUT IN WRITTEN:
- HC: WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU TODAY! FOR FUN’S STAKE!
- Me: I’M FUNNING DONE WITH THIS SHUGAR.
- HC: WHAT YOU MEAN?
- Me: WE DID AGREE ON …
- HC: WHAT YOU TALKING?!?! GO HOME! YOU CAN’T TAKE IT?
- Me: I DO SIR. AND I DID FUNNING TOOK IT LAST WEEK ON MY OWN. I THINK WE’VE DONE WELL AND WE ALSO RAN OUT OF FOOD!
- HC: GO HOM…”
- Me: NO SIR!. I’M GONNA SERVE THOSE FRIES AND THEN I’LL GO HOME.
Another Christmas day in paradise. Conversations sometimes get a bit heated. It wasn’t personal, it was about communication, expectations, different ways of approaching how we both saw something. Overtime. Fatigue. Life.
Next day I came by, said hi and we carried on. I wouldn’t say as if nothing happened but. We had loads to do and we cracked on. A few days later, on a quiet Monday, I was doing prep and my head chef was talking with the owner about how business and the team did during Christmas bookings. Head chef was in the kitchen and talked to the owner via the kitchen window. The owner was on the other side. I got to listen but never got asked nor I was expected to participate. It was a very valuable way to get to know how people I worked for understand the business. It seems they weren’t very happy with one of the waiters. Funnily enough my head chef used me as a good performance example (?).
“We’ve had our ding dongs but, hey, we work well with each other”.
I laughed. We both did. It was true.
I just didn’t know my head chef was a very good red. His career was astonishing, his passion and determination was inspiring. Best food I ever cooked was under him and because of him. I learned loads, he gave me the opportunity and also the time to fail and get up to where I was. Me? With time I brought results and levelled up to take the post during his absence. I have no clue of what colour I was, maybe I was quite blue due to the circumstances -this joke makes sense if you’ve read the book. Maybe, as I’ve been told recently, I am also red with a good portion of self awareness. But at that time I was colourblind. I just couldn’t process, I couldn’t take more. It’s a bit of “based on true events” with “push yourself to the limits”. I had left Comfort Zoneland years ago.
I did reply and answer back. Performance was optimal but sometimes you just need to put facts into words in case they haven’t been taken into account. And yes, *I did love the swearing bit as well! But that wasn’t the most important lesson learnt and it can definitely close some doors for you.
I did not turn the argument.
Have you heard that “make or break” situation?
Well, when you are overexposed to pressure you risk being the one that breaks or you can also make the decision to stand for what you believe in. And, to be honest I did it without much thinking, I levelled up my voice to share some feedback impro freestyling with my boss.
They say there’s nothing scarier than someone that has nothing to lose, well… it takes guts to confront your boss when you do have much to lose but you can’t just betray what you believe in. I needed that job badly but couldn’t just shut the fun up.
I managed to answer back every time. Firstly bringing results, then freestyle feedback.
*I hope that by now, you do understand that I would never recommend you using me as an example on the matter, but potentially learnt from what I’ve gone through. One of the many positives I took from these stories years ago was to find time and rethink the scenario or situations I’ve gone through to be better prepared for the next time. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. With time I did also learn to get to know the people I work with, and no one is just one colour (!). Good teams are a balanced polichromatic palette.
With big challenges also comes pressure and stress. Sometimes conversations get a bit out of hand. It’s fine. Just take a break. Deliver. And when the time is right try your best to find the best constructive way to share feedback, and you’ll carry on. You’ll make mistakes, learn from them. Share them with your team so you all can learn from them as well. You’ll hit it right as well. Share it so you help others and add some extra quality flour and yeast to the spirit of your team. No need for swearing, blaming or wasting energy losing focus.
That’s what true idiots do.
About communication and an interesting approach to it there’s another book, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, but that’s a story for another day.