Year 2007, I have a job as a cook in a nursing home. How did I got this job will be another whole story to tell. Anyways. I really enjoy cooking to start the story. It's my wife Shirley who got me into the cooking job when Shirley was working in a care home with the family run care business . She was doing an NVQ course on caring for elderly and she was scheduled to do the cooking on that day because they resident cook was on leave. Shirley liked the job but she's thinking of giving the job to me because she knows I'm already tired of doing waiting jobs and she knows that I like cooking a lot and maybe she liked the idea that we will be working together in one place. I really liked that idea too, but that means she would go back to the job she hates, taking the elderly to the toilet and washing them. That's how generous Shirley is to me, She is generous generally to almost everyone.
The care home was run by a family , they were nice to me, but it seems like to the other employees they seem to be really rude and always very arrogant to their staffs and that goes to Shirley too. For some reason these 2 brothers hated the girl employees. The job was easy, it was a huge kitchen though. There were 2 dishes I have learned to cook 2 , well, the 2 brothers thought me. That was roasting a leg of lamb and shepherds pie, and while cooking I would play Coldplay in the kitchen and the brothers loved it. One day 1 of them suggested that, what if I go to a school to do a course. He said that I can make good money with this job. Shirley left the job and so did I. I don't know if I have listened to their advice because eventually I found myself in a NVQ course in cookery in Westminster Kingsway in Victoria. I managed to get myself in a Level 2 course while doing a job in a bigger Nursing home in Vauxhall. Then I enrolled in level 3 with the same group I was with in Level 2. I have learned some stuff, and met different kinds of people. Some of them I really hate, some of them of them people that I admired as a chef. Most of them are just people that always wants to show off. I was the odd balls, the guy that is always quite in one corner. I got through it.
Then, I finally decided to apply for a real chef job, and got a call from the Exec. Sous chef in Marriott hotels in St. Pancrass in Kings Cross for a trial shift. I remember how nervous I am. The chef made me cook a tray of rice. I didn't do well, that was expected. I was used to cook rice in a rice cooker. In a professional kitchen, they would make you cook rice in a gastronomic tray in a combi oven. That was all new to me. But I was applying for a Commis chef position so, they are not expecting that much from me anyway. I got the job, but have been assigned to do breakfast service in ala carte menu with other younger chefs. You have to get up very early, around 4:30 am and make your way to catch the night bus. I am scheduled to start at 6 am. I didn't like most of the people I worked with in that place, it's either they are arrogant or just plain rude people. I guess it's always like that if you are new and specially if you don't know that much and considered a new fish. I proved myself and gained respect from my colleagues and became friends with some of them in the long run. I stayed in that job for more than 2 years. Then decided to leave St. Pancrass and took another job in Marriott Hotels and gained more experience as I went on. I even joined agency jobs and have gained a lot of experience from the jobs I did. Being an agency chef is something different. They send you in different places and different kitchens. I saw a lot of things and learned from it. But the drawback is, you tend to be get stuck with it and have been since a part time chef sort of. I noticed that I can't hold a job after that, I was always asking and demanding for better deals with it comes to jobs I was becoming a bit picky. Always not happy to where I was working. I became a bit almost like broke in a way, doing some jobs here and there but not in a full time job. Now, I'm trying to get into a new full time job that will sustain me...I hope I will find that place soon.. Shirley is always there to support me. She's always patient with me. And I loved her more for that. And they journey continues.
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