My Pallet

It seems like at least once or twice a year I am forced to resort to Craigslist for potential kitchen fodder. My present dilemma is no exception. A few days ago I posted an ad seeking line cooks and I suppose it is a sign of the times that my inbox began to fill up with resumes almost immediately. I have never had much success with Craigslist candidates, but at least the process does provide some small amount of amusement.



If the majority of the resumes I receive are any indication the restaurant industry is in serious need of instruction in the field of grammar and rhetoric, not to mention a refresher course on how to follow basic instructions that most infants would be capable of. I'm not expecting to unearth a John Updike in chef's whites but for godsakes is it too much to ask that someone might bother to use that handy spell check option on their Word toolbar?! Maybe I am crazy but if I see grammar errors or spelling errors I drag that sucker straight into the ole trash barrel. I tend to make some exceptions for our spanish speaking brethern but of course that means I am profiling (Juan Diaz misuses an adverbial phrase I might live with, but if Ward Brown missteps...he gone) and I wouldn't want to be accused of doing anything that might smack of racial biasing.

That being said, if your name is something like Shaniqua Jefferson rest assured you won't be getting a call back. Oh yeah, and I never hire asians. Or American Indians. Or Italians for that matter. Also gays and women are out as well. If you're white and you listen to hip-hop there's no fucking chance for you. Why? Because: asians don't get the al dente concept of pasta, everything comes out tasting like chop suey; American Indians are just a dangerous breed of folk prone to drinking and violence and they tend to do peyote at work and let's face it, a tomahawk is not a chef's knife under any circumstance; Italians always stink of cheap colonge and they are usually cokehead assholes; gays, I'm sorry I am not going to deal with a person wearing rainbow chef pants kevetching about their same sex marriage or lack thereof at eight o'clock in the morning; women, the sexual tension is just too much and they usually end up falling in love with me and then I have to do them in the walk-in; and hip-hop white guys are just plain stupid.

But back to the point at hand. My CL posts are usually short and concise and I always make note that potential candidates should paste their resumes into the body of their response. I make a point of stating that responses with attached files are not opened and go immediately to garbage. I do this because I don't want to open a tainted file but also just to see how many dumbasses will still send an email with an attachment. The answer is lots. And they can enjoy each other's company in my trash barrel sitting pretty there on my desktop with just loads of rubbish spilling forth.

Resumes come in all shapes and sizes. Question. What would possess you to have a picture of yourself on your resume? Unless you are a model, a stripper,or a porn star? I find it incredibly disturbing and narcissistic and I without hesitation click and drag your ass into the aforementioned trash barrel. It's getting crowded in there.


Resumes come in all shapes and sizes. Please don't tell me that you have passion. It makes me think of that soap opera Passions, the one that had the conniving midget and the ghosts. And once I am on to that my day is pretty much ruined with deep existential questioning and staggering ennui. If you are in this business it goes without saying that you probably are passionate about the industry. Bravo! Otherwise you would have come to your senses years ago and got the fuck out while the getting was good. Into anything, collecting garbage even....cleaning the shit out of dead people's asses...anything.....drinking piss for five cents a cup....popping crack whore's cankers with your teeth...wading through a vat of fire ants with your pants off just to fetch a pea...anything, I mean it...

Resumes come in all shapes and sizes. People are downright scary. I once read a statistic somewhere, maybe Harper's Index, that something like ninety percent of the prison population in the United States lists Cook as a former occupation. I am probably not going to hire you if in the body of your resume you periodically reference your knives, your deep profound love of your knives, the degree of sharpness of your knives, or anything above and beyond a simple "good knife skills". I don't want to know if you broke down a deer on the side of the highway in a snowstorm. Guys who show up in the kitchen with a knife kit that looks like a suitcase will be shown the door.

Resumes come in all shapes and sizes. Why the fuck are you wasting my time applying for this job? Line Cook. There is not a lot of room for interpretation there. Without fail I will find clogging my hole several resumes that have not a single line in them that has anything to do with professional cooking experience. Telling me that although you have never in your life worked in a kitchen but that you love to make Italian food for your friends and family only makes me want to go to your address and firebomb your next festive gathering. Firebomb it to hell and then when the survivors come running out mow them down with a machine gun and then wait and go to each and every victim's funeral and kill everyone there as well. So just don't. I see here that you worked at the Choc-O-Nut kiosk at the mall. Wonderful. You sold cookies and scones and now you want me to stick you on my line, give you a saute pan, and let you have at it. This would be like taking that fat guy in the security guard uniform outside of Borders and making him a squad leader of an army patrol in the Helmand Province in the shit in the 'Stan. No friggin way.

Resumes, resumes, resumes. In this most recent batch I came across a young man who states his objective as being to further develop his pallet....um...okay. I don't know if you are planning on driving a fork lift into the kitchen on your first day, the only pallets down here have cases of tomatoes stacked on them. Frankly, I have no palate for egregious misspelling. Get it asshole? Pallet. Palate. I almost want to hire you just so I can protect you from the big bad world because you are in deep my friend. But I am almost positive you are a complete jerk. For instance, a guy came into the kitchen to stage once and he had the big bag of knives and he talked all kinds of smack up and down the line, this guy was James Beard Jr. But when he went to julienne a nine pan of basil, he cut the leaf with his serrated bread knife!!?? What the fuck?! That would be like a heart surgeon opening you up with a claymore. The basil turned black in about a minute. Don't call us, we'll call you. Pallet. Jesus.

And so the search continues.....