One year of school aught to be enough for anybody....

The manuals that have been making me lose sleep are completed, my inventory system is nearly done, just waiting on some things from a technical guy to get it going, and I'm on "vacation". I say that with quotes because I should be out of town right now, but the address on my license isn't up to date so the car I was supposed to rent to get out of here with is a no go. And no way in hell I'm taking the bus. But screw it, I'm making the best of it, catching up on sleep, being generally lazy.

I keep trying to think of interesting stories and anecdotes from cooking school, but I can't seem to recall anything that was THAT interesting. I was actually kind of a bad student, come to think of it. I mean, I was good when I was there, and the marks on all my tests were good, and all my cooking was good and I was faster than most of the chumps there. Thing was, I didn't really go as much as I was supposed to, so I was usually in trouble with the program head. It wasn't all my fault, really, I mean, I had bills to pay. I'd be up around 6 am for school, get out around 3 or 4, be at work for five, get off around 2, and then do it all over again the next day. Eventually it caught up with me, and I'd end up missing some school, resulting in a talk from the head. I will refer to him as Pino. Pino was a short little Indian guy that, in reflection, reminds me a lot of the chef from ratatouille, except he didn't really have the balls or the wherewithal to be a bully to anybody. Not that being a bully just because you're a chef is necessarily a good thing, but sometimes you gotta kick a little ass. Anyway, he'd never really kick my ass, which might have got me to do something about my situation and change my work schedule or something, he'd just sit me down and say, "Teeem, dyou are not leeving up to dyour potential, you know?" The talk never really changed, and never did anything to make me to want to change. So eventually, even though I was a good student and a good cook, and was capable of getting good marks, they chopped my marks down for missing classes here and there and I failed out. It didn't matter that I'd stay up all night making puff pastry that the rest of the students had been making for the past two days and that mine turned out better, it didn't matter that I could beat second year students and third year apprentices in cooking competitions, that I had more practical knowledge and knife skills, or that cooking was an all-consuming passion that ate up my entire life. No, to them, all that mattered was that I put an ass in a chair when and where they wanted me to. Bullshit.

So after failing out, I kind of never looked back. I've thought about doing my apprenticeship and maybe starting out as a third year and getting it all finished, but that's bunk. I've always paid a high respect to the older ways of learning in this trade. Nobody should have to be sat down and taught, it's not fucking rocket science. If you can't pick up on a few essential skills that will open doors for you and make you able to work successfully in any kitchen all over the world, you shouldn't be in this business. It's that simple.

As for me and getting my papers? I think I'm going to wait a year or so, and see what kind of credentials I can get by challenging their ridiculously easy standardized tests. If I don't end up getting a red seal in the end, I don't think it's any big loss. I never really gave much credit to papers, anyway.