Never mind that little escapade. I am now completely, totally, 100% sure that I do not want to be a chef "when I grow up." Maybe I can work a little with food if it falls under the categories of: creative and free (as in, I get to decide what I'm making), healthy, small-scale, vegan/vegetarian/organic, café style food. Maybe I could be a baker for a while, maybe I could do catering for very special orders or occasions, maybe I could write my own cook book, but I am not in any way interested in working as a chef, in following other people's recipes down to the gram of lemon zest, in listening to the brutal authority of chef-cockiness and answering only, "Yes Chef," "Thank you chef," "Sorry Chef!" (it's like the fucking military) and in seeing no outcome but a paycheck at the end of the month. No thank you. I prefer to have my quiet, peaceful life, "lagom mycket" money and time for my plants and my boyfriend and my gym.
So I quit. I quit those 12 hour training days. Quit my dickhead boss. Quit yet another thing I didn't fully support with my heart and soul.
Every day during this training I've been coming home in the worst of moods. The first day I cried all the way home, from the moment I got on the train to the moment I crossed the threshold of our apartment, where I collapsed in a teary, snotty mess onto Johannes' shoulders and proceeded to sob for another half-hour at least. The following day I was furious. Our schedules got messed up and I asked everyone for clarification but no proper answers ensued. After being told to calm down and shut up I got really pissed and yelled to my head chef for an answer. He got so angry and started screaming at me. After that day of work I stormed home, fire coursing through my veins, wishing the evilest thoughts I could muster up. My hand clenched in a fist, I imagined kicking him in the stomach, breaking his nose with a good punch and then shoving him somewhere awful. I hoped that his wife would deny him sex and push him out of her bed until he fell into a crumpled pathetic heap on the floor and broke down. Yup. I have such thoughts. Clearly this job was bringing out the worst in me. I considered kicking something, but all that lay in my vicinity were a few beautiful maple trees trees and I couldn't bring myself to kick a beautiful, life-giving, innocent tree. Johannes offered to spar with me when I ranted my rage, but no way would I ever take my anger out on anything that I hold dear. That's when you crack open your herbal medicine cabinet, find the kava, the arctic root, the St. John's work, have a spliff and try to breathe in calm, cool air and have your boyfriend give you a massage until you fall asleep.
Yesterday the operations chef asked me why I wasn't smiling, 3 times. Twice I came up with good excuses and the third round I just admitted that I don't really feel like this anymore, and that I don't belong here and I really don't have any passion for it. That's just the truth. She redirected me to my head chef who'd been eavesdropping, and who furiously strolled me through the building to our lunch room where he yelled at me until I began to cry and then continued yelling at me through my tears. He asked me to explain why I'd been so upset the previous day and interrupted me mid-sentence. I asked him, "May I finish?" and he replied, "NO you may not!" and continued his interruption. Basically he gave me the option of quitting or faking passion and enthusiasm. I don't fake shit, so I quit. He followed me down to the changing rooms and I gladly handed over my pile of crisp chefs' clothes, my steel-toed, ugly-ass work shoes and my access key. With every step I took out of that building I felt more and more relieved. No more dungeons of that hotel or slaving away for somebody else's glory. Trees, raindrops, human faces, fresh air, I'm feeling so much better already.
I bought myself a coffee and pack of cigarettes, smoked one and gave the rest to Johannes and breathed away all the stress and hard feelings that that job had created for me, shook it off and went home like nothing ever happened. Cleaned up the apartment, watered my slightly-neglected plants, made dinner and did all those things that I love that I had no time for these past weeks.
Today I slept until 13:30, a well needed sleep after having an average of 3.5 hours a night. Woke up, made myself some tea, watered my plants, put on music and headed to the gym. Renewed my membership and burnt off all the steam from this week. Now I'm feeling wholesome and wonderful again. It's so nice that I can just end things that I don't like. There's no need to endure hell. I'm being much better about putting myself first. And no full-time contract will come in between me and my values and my loved ones. So I am going to figure out other work that doesn't devour my life, but supports it and enriches it. Like being a nanny again. That was an awesome job. The benefits weren't necessary monetarily applaudable (but not awful either) but my soul swelled with joy, and my office walls are donned in cute drawings that kids have given me. We'll see how this continues. I can resume my Swedish course, thankfully, and figure out my life step by step, but no kitchen treacheries. It might be a great job for some, but it's just not for me.
I am taking this experience as a good marker for my will. I quit med school because being a doctor wasn't for me. I quit this job because being a chef isn't for me either, but I'm not going to stop. I will try and try and try out stuff until I find just the right thing, or the thing that is at least close enough. I know that nothing is perfect, and it would be ridiculous to strive for that, but something that doesn't make me wish evil upon my bosses and leaves me feeling okay afterwards, and where I feel like I'm somehow positively contributing to the community is all I'm looking for. I'll find out some day. For now I'm just so happy to be out of their and have my peaceful lagom life back.
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