A Day in the Life of a Las Vegas casino cook's helper

[Paul Kierstead]

Damn, Scoop, you made me late for work since I couldn't stop reading this. Luckily we don't get dermits, we just don't get paid.

Most excellent, looking forward to more.

[ScoopKW]

Next installment will compare "strong" and "weak" cooks, and how things go in the kitchen on a bad day. I'm just wiped the [censored] out today, though. I've had maybe six hours sleep in the last 72.

Edited September 28, 2011 by ScoopKW (log)

[Genkinaonna]

Go, sleep! And then write more!

[threestars]

Had a good read... Keep us posted.

[Big Joe the Pro]

Thanks for the stories. I guess Anthony Bourdain would've started posting on the Internet 'back in the day', luckily he had "The New Yorker" (I believe it was) to recognize his talent.

Does anyone else find the phrase 'back in the day' to be an oddly compelling strange twist of words or is it just me? I find it so odd I feel forced to put it in quotation marks. Anyone know who coined it?

Anyway, I have a couple questions if you don't mind. You can ignore them if you prefer, I wouldn't feel slighted. Maybe you could work the answers you'd care to give into future installments? I'll be here.

> What's the average starting pay for a cook's helper?

> I would imagine that the casinos are union shops (which is ok by me)?

> Do you work eight hour shifts and are they consistently at the same time of day (i.e. always mornings)?

> Is OT available and is it strongly suggested you accept it or it is totally optional?

> Are employee meals free and are they buffets and/or all you can eat?

> What's wrong with Imperial Palace? It sounds like a Chinese buffet?

Ok, thanks again.

[jsmeeker]

I love any las vegas related story. And one revolving around food is even better.

Less than two months until my next trip out there.

[ScoopKW]

> What's the average starting pay for a cook's helper?

> I would imagine that the casinos are union shops (which is ok by me)?

> Do you work eight hour shifts and are they consistently at the same time of day (i.e. always mornings)?

> Is OT available and is it strongly suggested you accept it or it is totally optional?

> Are employee meals free and are they buffets and/or all you can eat?

> What's wrong with Imperial Palace? It sounds like a Chinese buffet?

I just got home, and I'm too wiped out to do a big installment. (Who am I kidding? What's the longest I've gone? 500 words? 750?)

So I'll just answer these questions and call it a night.

1) I can't tell you exactly, because that would peg me to my property. Starting pay is more than $15 per hour. I don't know what it might be at other casinos. I imagine the union casinos all pay the same rate, but I don't know for sure. I know it sounds weird, but I'm not in this for the money. I'm sure there's a thousand jobs where I could make more money. But I don't really care about that. I don't spend much, so I don't need to make much.

2) There are SOME non-union casinos. All of the Station Casinos are non-union, and therefore very popular with conservative Las Vegan dittoheads. All the F&B workers on the strip are represented by the Culinary Workers Union, Local 226. We haven't gone on strike in forever, and working in a union shop is a really good gig.

3) I work all over the place, and I never work the same kitchen for the same hours twice. I generally get 40 hours per week, in eight-hour shifts. But who knows where or when they'll be. I'm still very low on the totem pole. And I'm working my way up to better shifts and hours. Two union rules: We can't work more than five shifts in a row. We can't have less than eight hours between shifts. If for some reason everyone calls in sick and they ask me to come in, they'll pay double or triple. (Sixth shift, less than eight hours between shifts would be triple time.) Naturally, they don't want to pay me $50 an hour, so that never happens.

4) Chefs LOATHE overtime. They are questioned each and every time they give a cook overtime. It had better be a damned good reason. So, no, I almost never get overtime. If the kitchens are slammed, we have temp workers who will happily drop everything and come to work on a moment's notice. Times are REALLY hard here in Las Vegas. The temps are just happy to have SOMETHING. I'm happy to have something more or less permanent. And the full-time cooks are really happy.

5) Employee meals are free in the employee dining room. Everyone calls it the EDR. Every casino has an EDR. And we're encouraged to eat before our shift, during our break, and even after our shift. Nobody need be hungry at a casino. Meals are served cafeteria style, and we can eat as much as we want. BUT -- the casino doesn't spend a whole lot on food. (EDIT -- They don't spend a lot on food in the EDR. It's the only money-losing kitchen on property. Every other kitchen turns a profit.) It's no different most days than dorm food in college. However, sometimes banquets or garde mange has extra sandwiches or platters, and that's usually quite good. In addition, as per union rules, our breaks are one hour, and they're paid. Mostly, I like to do "last hour" break -- work seven, then go to the EDR and have a salad and watch ESPN for an hour. Sometimes it doesn't work out like that. Chefs call the breaks. Usually, they'll give you what you want. But they can send you any time. Even as soon as you arrive. "We've got nothing to do until nine, go to break." "But chef, I just got here a couple hours ago. I'm not even hungry." "Sorry, but you still gotta go." It's happened to me ONCE.

6) There are a few "ultra budget" casinos out there for the "ultra budget" visitor (aka, tightwads). Imperial Palace, Circus Circus, and to a lesser extent the Flamingo and the Riviera. I wouldn't eat at our buffet. (Nothing unwholesome about it. Just that it's boring food.) Imagine what's going on at the buffets that are spending less than half of on food cost compared to us.

Edited September 29, 2011 by ScoopKW (log)

[Big Joe the Pro]

Cool, thanks for addressing my enquiries. Now, about the meaning of life...?

Seriously though, it sounds like a great gig. I've been doing my present job (for about fifteen years, not related to cooking) because I enjoy it. Money isn't the most important thing. It's good you don't have to work OT. One of the most striking facts in the chefs books I've been reading lately is the amount of hours they put it. Doesn't seem healthy to me.

It reminds me of a gig I had (a long time ago) in a hotel State-side. Nowhere near as large a scale as a Casino on the Vegas strip but a good organization and a union shop. It's nice to have the union to keep the managers from walking all over you in my opinion. The only think they care about is their share price it seems.

I miss working in the food industry sometimes and that's surely why stories like yours resonate with me and so many others. Nearly half of the US population had some sort of food-related job in their misspent youth? I don't miss coming home wiped and smelling like maple though!

Ok, I for one am waiting for more. Throw in some gratuitous sex out back by the dumpsters, gun running in the toliets, the fork-in-the-road taken while on a vodka bender and/or excessive drug use in forgotten broom closets and your audience will increase exponentially w/o a doubt, ha ha!

Edited September 29, 2011 by Big Joe the Pro (log)

[ScoopKW]

Big news from the cook's helper front. But I just finished a double. (Hell, it was basically a triple.)

Let's just say, we're going to have to remove the word "helper" from the title. Woo hoo!

[Mjx]

Big news from the cook's helper front. But I just finished a double. (Hell, it was basically a triple.)

Let's just say, we're going to have to remove the word "helper" from the title. Woo hoo!

Congratulations! Does this come with improved access to sleep?

[ScoopKW]

Big news from the cook's helper front. But I just finished a double. (Hell, it was basically a triple.)

Let's just say, we're going to have to remove the word "helper" from the title. Woo hoo!

Congratulations! Does this come with improved access to sleep?

Sadly, no. But the chef outlined his vision for my career path. Hopefully I can trade in my check pants for black within a couple years. I'm beat to crap, but I can't sleep. Too much caffeine still in my system. I'll have another beer or two, then take a couple Tylenol PMs (are they habit forming? I hope to hell not.) And try to get some sleep.

[Kouign Aman]

Congratulations, that's excellent news!

[annabelle]

Congratulations!

[Genkinaonna]

Awesome news! Congrats!

[Okanagancook]

Tylenol and alcohol are not good partners, especially for your liver so best give up one or try coated aspirin.

[gfweb]

For sleep try benedryl. Tylenol in a drinker is not great.

[annabelle]

Not if you like your liver. I agree on the benedryl.

[catdaddy]

How easy is it to get a union card in Vegas? I've never worked in a union house but am intrigued by your schedule. The more I get paid the crappier the hours.

Do you get bennies too?

[ScoopKW]

How easy is it to get a union card in Vegas? I've never worked in a union house but am intrigued by your schedule. The more I get paid the crappier the hours.

Do you get bennies too?

If you get a job at a union property, everything gets taken care of by the casino. There's a 45 minute orientation at the culinary union office where they explain the benefits. (And the benefits are pretty good.)

[judiu]

Scoop, congratulations! Advil also makes a Nightime pain releiver, and it's easier on the liver. A slug of Bourbon is my usual "sleeping pill"... A hot soak for your feet may help, too.

[ScoopKW]

OK... time for a new installment.

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of "funny" to report. Funny usually happens when I'm working with Jimmy "I'm doing nothing chef" and Jackie "Can you hand me a broom." I worked worked with Jackie last week, but it was just the two of us on a long graveyard shift. We talked about what we did prior to moving to Las Vegas. Jackie is another cook with an advanced degree. There are a LOT of people like that working in Las Vegas kitchens. Cooks make close to $20 per hour, and where else is a guy with a doctorate in philosophy going to see that kind of money?

I started at the property quite recently. And cooks helpers generally work similar shifts based on when they joined the company. So I've got five people that I see all the time. One of the five, Johnny, is my age. He was a cook forever, but jump-shifted to a new property as a helper because it's easy money. (As I've mentioned before, there is a significant workload increase from helper to cook.) Another guy, Joey, is half my age and came to the property for a shot of making it into the fine-dining kitchen on site. The others (I'm running out of generic J names) are just trying to make a living in Las Vegas.

A little exposition:

Every casino has many kitchens. If they have open space that is accessible to the guest, the casino WILL put either a bar, a diner, a coffee shop or a baccarat table there. Every square inch of the casino is jammed full of money making venues.

Every casino has a main kitchen, which primarily takes care of the buffet. Then they have garde manger, which takes care of salads, sandwiches and slices deli meat for the other kitchens. There's the bakeshop, which does everything from wedding cakes to brioche for the French Toast. There's roughly 10 smaller kitchens for the property's various on-site restaurants. We have the banquet kitchen which serves the conventions. Of course there's the EDR. And then we have the fine-dining kitchens -- like Robuchon's restaurants over at the MGM. The fine-dining kitchens are very much connected to the property, but operate very much like Vatican City. They're their own little island in the casino. But they have to follow the casino's rules, and the union's rules. So while they're more-or-less self-governing, I still see their cooks and helpers eating in the EDR.

Let's say we have a wedding reception in the Elvis Room for 200. The bakeshop will do the cake, the petite fours and the dinner rolls. Garde manger takes care of the salad, crudité and other hors d'oeuvres. Main kitchen will do the soup course. Banquets is in charge of the entrees and sides. They'll also provide the carvers, because the entree is almost always a prime rib or steamship. The beverage department takes care of the bar. One of the largest work forces at the casino is the servers and busers, the set-up guys and the tear-down guys. They can set up a room for farm machinery salesmen, take care of them, then break it down and put a wedding reception in the same room. All in a day's work.

Each kitchen bills the event and gets paid. Every roll, cake, crudité and entree has a price. Then the event bills the guest. Everything is done by the book, because a casino faces regular audits. Also, each kitchen (except EDR) has to turn a profit. I'm always astounded how much people will pay for a Hors d'oeuvre.

As far as the kitchen totem pole is concerned, lets compare it to the military:

At the bottom you have me, the helper. We're the grunt infantry of the kitchens, doing the dog work that nobody really wants to do.

Next up are the cooks. They're like the gunnery sergeants of the kitchen.

Then the master cooks. They're the NCO's.

After that, it's black pants. The chefs aren't in the union, they're salary, and many of them work 100-hour weeks. They'll be the first to tell you, "Stay a cook. I was never happier than when I was a cook." And they have their own hierarchy. From the executive chef (General) down to Sous Chef (Lieutenant).

I promised earlier, I'd talk about strong and weak cooks. Well, I have something to report on that. I saw a weak cook get fired recently.

For the most part, the cooks and helpers move quick. They walk quickly from place to place. There's work to be done. Compare that to the stewards, who clean everything. They have one speed -- snail on quaaludes. They're getting paid by the hour. Their job sucks. And it's almost impossible to fire them. So while they do their job. There is a considerable amount of hour-stretching going on.

The chefs can't order them around. And although you can see it drives them nuts, they let the stewards languidly go about their business.

Not so the cooks. We've got deadlines. And we almost always make deadline. If a kitchen is falling behind, the chef can pick up a phone, tell an executive chef "911" and get as many bodies as necessary in a matter of moments. If time is critical, they'll pull cooks and helpers from other kitchens. Jackie (the broom guy) holds the record of being sent to five different kitchens in a day. If there's time (but realize they're not going to make deadline without help), they'll call in an army of temps who will drop everything and head to the casino for a chance to work. Most of the temps are green, but earnest. But occasionally, we get a real slack-ass temp.

And Junior was one such slack ass. First of all, we're in a busy kitchen. The chefs are stressed because it's their ass if they don't make deadline. And we've got Junior staring at the clock with his hands in his pockets. Chef asks what Junior's doing. "I'm waiting for the turkey to get sliced."

"Well don't just stand around, ask me for something to do."

"Can I go to the bathroom?"

Chef can't refuse a bathroom break. And Junior takes four of them over the course of four hours. After four hours of standing around, watching everyone else bust their butts, Chef could take it no more.

"What's your name!"

"Junior."

"Junior, get out of my kitchen. You are not coming back."

And just like that, Junior's name goes on a list of "do not hire" at the property. At the bigger places, getting fired means the slacker should basically just leave town. Or find a new career. Junior reminds me of some students I see in culinary school (I take one class a semester, mostly for fun.) I don't know where people like Junior end up. But they aren't working in Las Vegas casinos. Not for more than one shift, at least.

[JTravel]

This is fascinating! I love learning about "what it's like" wherever someone is. And this is a world away from my everyday home cooking, with a bit of travel and foreign foods from time to time. Great stuff.

[ScoopKW]

Oh, a couple random addendums.

Junior also made the mistake of talking back to Chef. Chef in question does not have the same sense of humor as the others. He's OK, but kind of a hard ass. He's the one Chef on property you do NOT want to talk back to. That probably was the final nail in the coffin.

The other day, I was driving home at 6:15 a.m., and I saw two drop-dead gorgeous Geishas walking down the street. Both of them were absolute "10s" and dressed in real Maiko outfits. An absolute joy to behold, if you're into that sort of thing. I wonder what they were doing? (I don't assume they were working girls. We have plenty of those, but these two didn't look the part.)

[Country]

Junior also made the mistake of talking back to Chef. Chef in question does not have the same sense of humor as the others. He's OK, but kind of a hard ass. He's the one Chef on property you do NOT want to talk back to. That probably was the final nail in the coffin.

That reminds me of when I was in the Navy. After boot camp, in 1960, I went to Memphis NAS for aviation school and got assigned to commissary for a month or so while waiting for the next class to start. The commissary supplied all the mess halls, feeding thousands of people three meals a day, so there was plenty to do. (Pulling the giblets from hundreds of still half frozen chickens kind of numbs the hand, and cleaning the bandsaw is a bit messy after processing hundreds of pounds of frozen beef liver into slices - but it sure beat working in a mess hall scullery...)

Anyhow, we ended up with our version of Scoop's Junior... He wasn't worth a pisshole in the snow. He was lazy and he'd complain. The commissary boss, a career NCO, wasn't really a hard ass, but he had his limits and one day during a break our version of Junior made the mistake talking back to the boss. That was the final straw and one punch from the boss decked Junior hard enough to knock him out. The boss looked at the rest of us and said, "Anyone see that?" Everyone shook their head no, and that was the last we saw of Junior.

[catdaddy]

Junior also made the mistake of talking back to Chef. Chef in question does not have the same sense of humor as the others. He's OK, but kind of a hard ass. He's the one Chef on property you do NOT want to talk back to. That probably was the final nail in the coffin.

That reminds me of when I was in the Navy. After boot camp, in 1960, I went to Memphis NAS for aviation school and got assigned to commissary for a month or so while waiting for the next class to start. The commissary supplied all the mess halls, feeding thousands of people three meals a day, so there was plenty to do. (Pulling the giblets from hundreds of still half frozen chickens kind of numbs the hand, and cleaning the bandsaw is a bit messy after processing hundreds of pounds of frozen beef liver into slices - but it sure beat working in a mess hall scullery...)

Anyhow, we ended up with our version of Scoop's Junior... He wasn't worth a pisshole in the snow. He was lazy and he'd complain. The commissary boss, a career NCO, wasn't really a hard ass, but he had his limits and one day during a break our version of Junior made the mistake talking back to the boss. That was the final straw and one punch from the boss decked Junior hard enough to knock him out. The boss looked at the rest of us and said, "Anyone see that?" Everyone shook their head no, and that was the last we saw of Junior.

I love the military. It's the great equalizer in our country.