Learning a new kitchen's ways

Oh, dear, lol; I was blessed with the first kitchen I ever worked in; was hired as a prep cook with zilch experience other than assisting at celeb chef cooking classes. My first day, I was 'promoted' to pantry as I walked in the door. Chef was wonderful, took his time teaching me, made sure I wasn't hassled, and really helped me develop to the point where the sous chef, a CIA grad, was asking me for advice,lol.

Second kitchen; 'gourmet' to go type place; interesting mix of 'chiefs'; mom and dad who had the $$ but were very um, hands on and knew nothing; son who ran the place, was a foodie with no food experience,and a retired woman who really had some chops in very, very classical French cuisine. Learned the most from her; the son was a first class jerk; the things I did one day were completely wrong the next day, etc. Gave me a lecture on not cutting the plastic around the deli meat with my 'good knives'; then watched him as he grabbed MY knife one day to do the same!

On to the third kitchen; couple owned; both CIA grads. Can you say OCD? Onion bin had to be right -there - move it one inch, and you got belittled and screamed at. Tongs were for 'pizza chefs'; we don't use tongs. Towels and wipes - nonexistent. There were 2 potholders in the whole place which had to be put on top of the convection oven when you were done with them. :rolleyes:

Fourth place, another 'gourmet to go' place. Was given responsibility and made to feel like I was a part of the team from day one.

Last place was a tiny catering job; she had been mainly doing corporate lunches, etc by herself, and was wanting to take on parties and weddings. Hired me as chef, and I truly had a blast planning menus myself.

I think the 'no tongs' place was the one I still shake my head at,lol!

for me it's not so much the kitchen but the chef. I've been through 3 here so far.

We went from roasting our own turkeys for sandwich meat and producing stock to buying precooked turkey meat and chicken base. We buy sooooo much more pre-done items now it's really sad and the thing is we have the man power and dollars to do it right. It's just the latest chefs style or lack of. I realize as sous I need to do whatever I can do to make him and the kitchen as a whole sucsessful but it's really tuff after you do thing from scratch to doing thing from sysco.