G Nicholas Phillips

E books are really good to work with At work I use an Android based Tablet wrapped in a ziplock baggie. Every station in our kitchen is being set up for using tablets instead of paper/ white boards/ cookbooks. It seems a very easy way to send recipes to a CDP ( as well as prep lists) We are setting up a kitchen Cloud drive so all the cooks can access what ever they need. At home I prefer paper to read, unless I am looking for a very specific recipe.

I work BOH in France, but lived and worked in the USA for 20 years, all BOH. Servers here are paid the same rate as cooks, ( at least where I work) their pay is relevant to the responsibilities they have, the amount of time with the organization, and the position they hold. Customers do tip small amounts, but over a month it adds up. All tips go to the house and at the end of the month the house doles out the tips evenly to all staff who are non management. I t has been a few years since I was in the USA so I do not know the pay rates any more, but here ( fine dining) a CDP earns about 20-28k euros a year (as an FYI rents around here for a 2 bed house are 3-450 a month) so not too shabby, a server makes the same amount. What I have seen is that Staff tend to stay longer, as they have more security in their work. We run a Brigade system both BOH and FOH and that also helps. The American system works well for America, but IMHO does lead to more short term thinking on both the employer and employees behalf. We can plan staff education in the fairly sure knowledge that they will be here 6 months from now. All of this is of course helped by the French employment legislation which requires a written contract of employment, and makes it very difficult ,if not impossible to fire staff.,

Been doing this food thang for a long long time- coming on for 40 years..... there is no life work balance, just like any other professional artist/ craftsperson my art is a large part of who I am. , and may indeed define who I am. For me, I do not think about "work life" or "home life", it is all one and the same. It does help that my marriage is to an artist who has been known to stay up for 24 hours to get a minor detail correct in one of her pieces I consider my self lucky that I am able to forge a decent living from my art, something which a lot cannot do, and if I ever start to think of it as work I will stop. I do understand that a goodly proportion of my brigade do not have the same attitude, and, as much as I can, require only a 40 hour week from them ( This is France where overtime is not well regarded), and everyone gets at least one full weekend off a month, no one works split shifts.