Training

So, you've made the decision to hire someone.  Whether you hired them based on an excellent resume, a favor for a friend, or a brand new person with no work experience there will be some training involved.  Now, hopefully you've done a thorough job of interviewing this person and have an idea of what you can expect of them.  If their resume says line cook, or sous chef  it would be reasonable to expect that the only training you have to give them is how thing operate at this restaurant, it is reasonable to expect that they have knife skills, know how to work any part of the line with some level of confidence.  However, if the resume is blank, you have your work cut out for you.  You have to train yourself to be patient and understand that the kitchen common sense we all operate with is not common to the fng, so explain everything in great detail, and slowly.  Tell the new guy what you expect of them, and most importantly make sure they know to have a thick skin.  It's not personal its business, kitchen life is face paced, hectic, has a beautiful, stressful rhythm about it, insults fly left and right and if you take them all personally, don't learn from your mistakes or the mistakes of others you will never make it.  So be patient, give the new guy tasks and time frames, give him feedback and direction.  Because, lets be honest the new guy is going to get sent on wild goose chases for the entertainment of us old time kitchen folk... finding the bucket of steam... asking everyone where the salmon stretcher is, getting sent back with the question of "left handed or right handed" and "how soon do they need it?"... and so on and so on.  I'm not saying not to give the fng shit for being new... i'm saying make sure that when you are doing actual training that there are boundaries, expectations and a specified outcome.... the rest of the time is fair game!