Hello everyone, I've just started my potentially future cooking career, and I'm seeking some insight into people's experiences when they started up. My situation is the following: I've been taken under the wing of a respectable chef that owns his restaurant in the city of Montpellier (Southern France). He was looking for an apprentice, a complete beginner even, to help him in his kitchen. I happened to fill that candidature as I have never been in a kitchen previous to this and my cooking knowledge is quite limited. The kitchen has the Chef himself, a sous-chef and me. The Chef cooks the "important" plates, so to speak, while the sous-chef does all the other preparations and minor plates. I do a bit of everything. Cut, peel, prepare sauces and just recently (after 2 weeks of working) I've been assigned to the desserts section so I can become self-automated (is that a word?). So I get to see a lot, also a lot of hands-on experience, but, it's also an incredible amount of hours. We start at 9am and stop at 3.30pm (at least, some days we might close later due to customers asking for one last desert), then we begin again at 6pm and close at 11.30pm, usually. So I work at least 11 hours a day, Tuesday to Friday. Saturday we only work in the evening and Sunday noon. So it comes to at least 55 hours per week. Every time we close the kitchen we have to clean it, sous-chef and me, which means clean the cooking spaces, the plates / grills / "plaques", and the floors. Cleaning takes about 10 minutes when you know what you're doing, but it's quite intensive. So, on a double shift day, I get home around midnight or later, and I'm pretty beat, but I have to go to sleep right away because next day I wake up at 7.30. As I said, I work at least 55 hours a week, but, in France, you only get paid 39. The rest are supplementary and not paid for. I understand starting to cook as an apprentice is a lot of hard work, but it ticks me off a bit that throughout my career I will only be getting paid up to 39, no matter how many hours I work a week. Is this the same system in the US or other countries? Secondly, the schooling. After the first week the Chef said that I needed schooling simply because I need some general ground bases. So he looked for a school and found one which I only go to once a week. So 1 day school, 4 days work. School starts in late September, so I don't know how that will go, but does it work similarly for culinary schools in the US? So, have people had similar experiences? Lots and lots of work at the beginning, but later as you gain more skill and experience, it becomes easier and you work less (because you are more valuable) or do you keep working the same hours? My sous-chef has the same age as me (24) and he could basically do all the cooking himself plus everything I do (he was doing it before I was there). He however, still only gets paid 39 hours. Higher rate, but still, 16 hours or more that you work for free? I know it's not all about the money but still, you need some economical motivation and you need to pay rent as well... If you're going to spend that much time working, there should be a reward to balance it, in my opinion. My sous-chef, in his free time parties like mad and I'm almost certain he takes some drug (more than just weed, ecstasy perhaps, amphetamines...). He goes to sleep real late, only gets like 4 to 5 hours of rest and works like crazy in the kitchen. I know some people just function like that and there's nothing wrong with it, but I don't want to end up the same way and I'm wondering if it's been that tough for everyone else. So it is just me that I've happened to have started up cooking differently, by working experience first and then schooling? Can you just "study" cooking for a few years and then try get a job? Do they always go hand-in-hand, studying and cooking? Am I getting a bit exploited due to the unpaid hours, or is it normal? I realize it's a lot of questions, and I appreciate everyone's input. Just understand that for me, it's a completely new situation, a completely different method of work (I have a BSc in Electrical Engineering and my previous jobs have been more office-work-oriented) and I have no clue how the "system" works so any views would be good Thank you in advance for the people that have taken the time to come this far in my lenghty post.
