…Service Specialist, Part I

Argumentative

One of the reasons I like sports so much is the overwhelming urge that comes over fans to discuss its happenings on an everyday basis. Yesterday part of our duty section was watching Pardon the Interruption on ESPN on the mess deck. The junior member of our group, no doubt disgusted with the argumentative nature of a subject that was pointless in her mind, asked us how we can stand to watch a show like that. The question struck me as funny because the show was covering basketball at the time, and even though I don’t ever watch basketball I was glued to the bantering.

The reason shows like PTI and Around the Horn are successful is the same reason that news shows are so successful: displaying opposing viewpoints on a topic allows people to jump on a side and feel passionate about the topic. Sports provides an even more charged atmosphere as you add in the good-guy/bad-guy mentality that naturally comes from having a favorite team or player. The innate counterpart of a favorite is something disliked or even hated. Pile on to this a rabid excitement that usually accompanies “life-long” fans and you have a recipe for great conversations into the night about SEC football vs. Big Ten football – or, Yankees: Dynasty or Best Money Can Buy – or, should Ryan Leaf have been drafted before Payton Manning. Okay maybe the last subject would never come up. You know what I am getting at.

The fact is that any amount of logical argument or debate over a subject will make the participants, at the most, more knowledgeable of the details. At the least, it makes them more aware of the topic itself. It is the same reason that 6 of my last 9 weeks of SQL and RDBM class dealt with planning and not coding. Planning also makes its contributors more intimate with details and aware of the situation.

I was asked once why I became a cook. This question comes up quite a bit, actually. The response is usually a well rehearsed “Well, I did the whole Mac & Cheese and Top Ramen thing pretty well… and I used to serve people hot chocolate in college…”. This particular time was different. This time it was with the inference that I am above this job – that I am smart enough to be anything, so why this? Let me break it down for you:

At its core, and in its generally perceived state, a Food Service Specialist has a very simple job: put out decent quality food on time, clean up, and go home. I can’t put it any more mundanely simple than that. Now let me tell you what I do.

I come in to work early – it’s not always as early as the horror stories claim either. There’s a rough sketch of a plan when I get there. A finite amount of meals need to be prepped and served before the day is up. Recipes may be needed for these meals. There is a certain amount of food that may (or may not) need to be procured. Cleaning needs to get done. Paperwork that tracks all of this will need to be updated. From the moment I wake up, and sometimes from the previous day, I am working through all of these details, trying to picture how I will pick through these various tasks. Mind you, this is not a dwelling on the details, but merely a constant ambient thought of things that must be done.

Early in my cooking days when paperwork and procurement were not a part of my daily routine, most of my planning and thought came from recipes. I have to get this item in the oven by this time, which means I need to start prepping it at this time, which means I have to stop watching the Cubs game at 3:30. My focus on planning in my recent career springs from two places. First, I have a need for survival. Once the day starts there is a pending list of quandaries that will be encountered. Whether it be from missing brown sugar, a dropped bottle of cooking wine, or 8-12 foot seas, there is always something that comes up requiring me to know what to do next. By planning ahead – or rather, by knowing the details as a result of planning ahead, I can use my built in problem-solving, crisis-management machine to work things out.

Second, somewhere along the line, (and I blame this on FS1 Faria, a handful of non-rates, and a spackling of Boatswains Mates) I developed a sense of ownership over my work. At what point this took over for my laziness as the controlling factor in my work ethic, I’m not exactly sure. The fact is, I can’t stand to have my food suck. I need to have it be great. People say you can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time. Bullshit. That’s like saying I can’t get a 100 on a medical inspection. Maybe they should reword that to be a little more half-full. You can’t please all the people all the time, but you damn sure better be trying if you’re their cook.