What starting as a dishwasher taught me about the restaurant business and about being a chef.
How humble beginnings in the kitchen taught me invaluable lessons about work, dignity, and interconnection that shaped my career.
What Working in the Dish Pit Taught Me That No Job Description Ever Could
What working in the dish pit taught me that no job description ever could is that there really is no bottom in the restaurant business. The whole room is connected, from the kitchen line to the bar to the diner's experience at the table. Everyone is a moving part in the same machine.
I didn't always know how to manage daily dining and bar operations. At the beginning, I was standing in front of three deep sinks, squeezing green soap from a bottle of Kirkland dish detergent into blazing-hot water at a local favorite pub-and-grub-type establishment.
Culinary school is a great investment in your skills, your ability to network, and your ability to land amazing jobs. I'm still considering it myself, so by no means is this story meant to persuade anyone not to go to culinary school. Please invest in your education early and often.
That said, I had just graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, and I hadn't landed a dream job-or any job. So, I took to Craigslist and found a position working as a line cook in a local dive.
Why does everyone want to start at the top when starting at the bottom offers such rich business lessons?
My very first job as a line cook taught me that if I didn't wash the dinner dishes, they weren't going to wash themselves.
If you have the resources and patience to start with low pay and backbreaking work, here's what the dish pit can teach you: It's okay to have pride in your work, even if you think the work is menial and you feel undervalued.
That's right. It's okay to have pride, even if all you do is wash a giant mountain of dishes every minute during the hour-long dinner rush.
Remember when I said that the whole room is connected?
Chefs aren't the only superstars.
And dishwashers aren't the only ones in the kitchen who wash dishes. Sometimes, line cooks step in, too. They run the machines that clean all the silverware, plates, bowls, mugs, and glassware. They wash, dry, and organize everything with the same speed and precision that chefs use when they plate their amazing steaks, pasta, salmon, or smash burgers.
My journey from dishwasher to line cook taught me that food safety is just as important as clean dishes when it comes to the diner's experience.
Sure, I've made mistakes, as everyone does. But the biggest mistake I never made was belittling staff who washed dishes, mopped floors, or cleaned toilets-because, reader, that person was me.
Although I might like to go back in time and change parts of my job experience, I can't. What all those mistakes-and all those less-than-desirable kitchens-taught me was to approach every job with an open mind and to never forget the importance of starting at the bottom.
Sometimes, the lessons we need most are found in the places we never expected to be.
