When I had first arrived, it was right before my shift, but the other shift hadn't ended yet. The first round of staff on staff was running extremely late, so it didn't end until about five thirty. My coworkers and I got a good look of how the kitchen is run from our lovely sous chefs, Alicen and April. This was their first time working full service in Catch, so we got to see everything fresh and new. Isabel, our "grandma" sous chef (she's from the first Catch, and is one of the executive pastry chefs, I think?) ran as expeditor. They made some mistakes, like lack of communication and just the standard confusion of some orders. That was mostly in the beginning. They started working more like a well oiled machine afterward. We got to see it all first hand and got to learn from it.
Well, for the second set of staff on staff, it was my coworker and I's turn. I was prepared and honestly, I knew that if I messed up now, it was going to be okay. This was considered a mock full service, and that Isabel or Alicen would just in the second that we needed them to. But we didn't need them to jump in at all. Literally, we had a couple errors, but we got every order out in a timely manner, and it was amazing. I didn't learn how to do line work in school, but I picked it up fast, and it showed well today. Our grandma sous chef was extremely happy with us, and to be honest, I was damn near ready to cry at the end. I had so many emotions that I was just not sure what to do. I kind of just had this elated nervous chuckle and did as I needed to afterward (while nomming on some well deserved cookies because I was crashing from the energy drink that I'd had a couple of hours before).
Even after working a damn near forty four hour week, I'm ready to keep this going. I survived the first full service which was much less staggered than the actual service will be. Needless to say, I'm excited for what this job is going to teach me.
