When is it appropriate to yell in a kitchen? At your employees?

Never, so the overwhelming consensus on this issue, ranging from YumSugar to Ruhlman. YumSugar goes so far to ask the question and then answer it right away:

Blame foodTV. Again. Shows, series, and reports have done such a good job of shining a bright light up the collective backside of kitchens and chefs, diners think they know what they’re dealing with. Like Survivor, Big Brother, the “real housewifes”, or Dog the Bounty Hunter, “we”, the kitchen staff, have become not just curiosities to be watched like ants through the magnifying glass of FoodTV, we have become property.

What all those shows neglect to show, what Bourdain glosses over in his book extolling the wild side of kitchen work, and what actors playing celebrity chefs as well as the cooking schools of this country would want you to rather forget is simple: kitchens aren’t white collar offices.

What is seen as an insult, as demeaning, in cubeville, might be perfectly acceptable for a police officer or dance choreographer. What is standard repertoire of a gardener, mason, or carpenter, might be unacceptable in hospitals or a fire station. And don’t get me started on post offices. I’ve been trying for three weeks now to get an appointment for my son’s passport – with the lady running the local post office passport window either taking the day off, claiming she’s too busy processing, not answering her phone, or worse. Try that kind of customer facing attitude in a kitchen and you’ll be looking for a new job in no time flat.

Yet, the same people who would never waltz into a theatrical production, chastising the director for dressing down his acts, or would never travel from office to office to remove those rude post-It notes you find on whiteboards and in the kitchen, feel completely justified to apply their sensibilities, their idea of how a bully and a victim look, their misguided ideas about the mindset and mental state of chefs, to us. And why? Because everyone is an expert when it comes to restaurants and the food industry. Just like everyone who goes to culinary school is a “chef” and every guy or gal cooking on TV is one. NO!

The real lesson to be learned here, is that kitchens aren’t cubeville. And that some presumptuous douchenozzles will stop at nothing to demean and degrade kitchen staff by telling us how to do our job. How dare they lump us into the same category as those weak-willed, nine-to-five, donut hole sharing, copier paper consumers? This is our kitchen. We’re proud of what we do, how we do it, and under what circumstances we excel.

But to be fair, they’re not alone. Pushed by celebrity fads, foodTV, whitewashed cheftestants and celebrity chef actors, students rush through culinary school, expecting the same atmosphere and tone they’ve been subjected to for the past ten years writing computer code for Douchebag, Inc.

Here’s a newsflash for you, guys. Those line cooks, sous chefs, chefs, prep cooks, dishwashers, and busboys aren’t doing this job for its ample pay, copious free time, excellent benefits, and afternoon tea kumbayah sessions. If they wanted a subdued, politically correct, nine-to-five, they’d be in your offices leaving little passive-aggressive notes on fridges. They’d make four bucks an hour more at McDonalds and get weekends off or paid overtime. They’d lay bricks or nail boards together, making upwards of fifteen dollars more per hour. They’d teach, write code, or drive trucks.

But they aren’t. The people in this industry are here because we like the industry. We love food. We value a quick bollocking in the walk in or at our station over the “errm, Miller, can I see you in my office, please?” We appreciate honesty, raw exchange of knowledge, and that no one is afforded special treatment and slack no matter their GPA or sensibilities. And we’re proud of that. We’d consider gossip to be demeaning, having to come to an office an affront. If someone works my line, I know they got the same way up as everyone else. They were bollocked, they were taken to task, and they’re in it for the challenge, the nerve-busting mise en scene of a busy Saturday night.

Hey, bleeding hearts. On behalf of my staff, the staff of four other restaurants I queried on our street, and every line, Sous, and Chef in this country, here's Dom DeLuise expressing our feelings.

Into this working environment a number of new players are dropped every day. Some adjust, begin to enjoy the freedoms of being in a kitchen. Freedom from behind-the-back gossip (that still happens in the FoH), freedom from nepotist bosses exploiting some and cutting slack for others. Freedom from PC bullcrap and the freedom to work hard, raw, and fast, while making things happen that seem to be easy and simultaneously magically impossible to the final recipient.

Others don’t. Too much heat, too much raw openness. Too much screaming, too little validation. No respect for their personal particularities, either. Those others are faced with a decision – admit defeat and return to cubeville, where one’s special needs make one an extraordinary flower that must be coddled in front and gossiped about in the back, or demand, with all their might, this new environment to change, now, to embrace the newcomers’ wishes and needs.

Good kitchens are machines. Well oiled gadgets and gears, churning out food in time and with pride in perfection. A galley of oarsmen, pulling at the rhythm of a drummer. Individualism is as dangerous as it is needed, strengths and weaknesses are compensated by a team, always vigilant to never allow too many weaknesses go unchecked. No one is expendable. Failure on expo, line, or prep, spells doom for everyone. No one gets a quick jaunt away when all men are on deck. There’s no time for a quick office sitdown to evaluate and empower, there’s only adopt, adapt, improve – at the speed of another plate.

Good cooks know this. They know the values of this system. Spend a year rowing to the same drummer, feel it’s time to move on, and your chef will, themselves, spend their off-hours to call friends and colleagues to get you a new job. There won’t be a cake and funny hats at your farewell party, few will tell you how much they’ll miss you, and no one will hand you a signed card wishing you all the best. But know this, we all called that other chef, telling him what we’ll do with his family jewels if he ever screws you over. The industry is tight knit. The bridge you burned at Angie’s Bistro might very well singe your butt at Bill’s Steakhouse. At the same token, the friends you made at Bill’s will remain forever.

It’s a hard, thankless, 12h-shift, job. It’s low wages, yelling, and crude jokes. No one will respect you for anything but your ability to push out food, make it look and taste good, and work in a team. If you want validation, buy a bus ticket. It’s also the greatest job in the world. You can bet your chef won’t take things personal. Your Sous won’t talk about you behind your back. And no one gives a hoot what you did before, for better or worse, and everyone gives you a chance to show your colors, your excellence, prove yourself, every day anew. Unlike that cubeville job, where that one memo filed in 2007 a few hours late still impedes your chance at promotion thanks to a vindictive twerp on the third floor, you are given a chance every day. But unlike your office job, where the one account you rescued a year back still gives you certain freedoms, yesterday’s victories are forgotten today.

So, next time you get in arms about screaming chefs. Next time your gut tells you, that this chef must be a loser, incapable of motivating and training his team, a small-minded, weak-willed, brute, consider this – maybe the line and the chef have a deal. What happens today will be forgotten tomorrow. Maybe they decided, together, like grown ups, that this is the best way to manage in this environment. And, maybe, they came to that conclusion together. Next time, think. Don’t presume. Don’t demean my staff and me by calling us victims or idiotic, undereducated, bullies. Walk a few miles in my cloqs, and we’ll talk again.