[cowboykim]

Wow, okay, I never thought I would be talking about this here, specially since I didnt love it, but I was a line cook for a while at Denny's. I am a Manager now, so I still do a fair amount of cooking. But I was good enough that they gave me a 2 dollar raise and OT just about every week after only 4 months there. Then they promoted me.

Anyways, here is what to expect: If you are cooking, you will be hurting yourself. Not hurting yourself really bad, just a lot. Everything is fucking hot and you just burn yourself, whether its flipping eggs and some butter splashes, dropping stuff in a fryer and oil splashes, or whatever.

You will sweat a lot. Even in the winter, most cook's lines are like a demon's armpit in the hottest parts of hell.

To be a cook at a restaurant, you have to be a little bit of a dick at least, When you have nine servers yelling at you for shit they never put on a ticket, itsa frustrating.

Good thing, is if you get good at it, you will become a multitasking BEAST. You can do a ton of shit at once and not think anything about it.

As for tips for getting better, take a menu home, and break stuff down into what goes into each meal and what you need to do to cook each part. Always ask questions. Always remember how long stuff takes to cook, because you have to cook stuff in order...make sure to put down the well done Tbone before you cook the toast. Otherwise, you will need to recook something. On the subject of recooking, if you wouldnt eat it, dont sell it, you will probably end up cooking it again anyways, and have people pissed off at you.

Cool thing about this is that if you do well at it, you will always be able to get a job somewhere. Restaurants are ALWAYS looking for cooks with experience who werent fired from their last job. You can also end up making some decent money doing it. I started training at 9 an hour, got 10 an hour after training, and then got a bump to 12 an hour after a few months. I had no previous cooking experience. So I think it boils down to showing up, having a good attitude and then being a cooking maniac. Good luck!

[cowboykim]