Kick Depression's Ass!

[sven]

Powerful post! Wow that has some good stuff in it. You are so right about the entitled part. I see it in kids these days all the time. If they don't have the world handed to them they feel like they are being shitted on.

Thanks! Wow, I've never gotten a gold medal on the internet before!

I think a feeling of entitlement is linked to feeling uniquely and specially talented. In some ways this is probably a normal healthy part of being young, but the problems begin when you are unable to produce any results of your unique and special potential. Some people just can't let go of this idea (REF: Histrionic Personality Disorder). Their lack of accomplishments, peer approval and quality of life leads them into a dead end. They have to delude themselves more and more in order to avoid seeing the glaring truth -- that they are in fact NOT uniquely and specially talented. Some just go into denial mode and jump from one job/subject/activity to another, hoping to be 'discovered' or that their 'speciality' will somehow magically manifest itself if they find the right thing to do. Some seem to swap this for being uniquely and specially fucked up -- so bad in fact that nobody on earth has the insight, nay GENIUS to understand their many psychological ailments and existential pains. They seem to want to become textbook cases that are studied with great reverence for generations to come.

In recent years more and more young interns have begun to appear in the restaurant business that seem to have entitlement issues. I was a little bit full of myself when I started out, in fact. I was sent to the back of the restaurant where I had to spend hours every day on peeling onions, tournéing potatoes, cutting wok vegetables, making mirepoix, filéing tons of fish and other seemingly menial tasks. I felt that my special talents were being wasted, and I was seething with rage on the inside. To add insult to injury, the chef was often not pleased with the results.
One day I had managed to tourné a huge pot of potatoes perfectly. The chef just said 'good' and then turned it all into a mash for the staff meal. I died on the inside. (The mash was delicious, though)
It wasn't until after I understood that my knife skills had improved considerably through all that practice, and that I had learned a few important things about being a cook. There are several basic skills you have to truly master in order to have a place in a real professional kitchen. Also, being a cook means having to do a lot of hard and tiresome work.

We had a young intern recently, he was a typical foodie hipster with chef aspirations. He was full of ideas and poses that seemed to conceal an easily bruised ego. I was tempted to tell him that he had a lot to learn about being a cook. Its not all about making foams of smoked sea-urching roe, longpepper and licorice root, placing candied cilantro leaves on top of stuff with tiny tweezers and placing sauce with rulers. That is in fact a very small part of the job. He was sent to the back and after a couple of days the chef basically said that he lacked a work ethic and that he sucked. (He was in fact pretty cruel, which I feel isn't very constructive)
The intern spazed out and flew into this pathetic defence speech which was about us not understanding what cooking is about, etcetera. He was going to find a place to intern that better suited his needs, and that could appreciate his potential (i.e. bullshit, basically).
This made me a bit sad. Beneath the facade he was basically a nice young man. But he did suck at being a cook, even though the chef could have put it a little less bluntly. In fact, I think he lacked potential as well.
I won't deny its an old-school way of breaking in interns. Some chefs take to the task with sadistic glee, and go into psycho mode. But the thing that has started happening more and more is that some kids just can't handle even the gentler forms ego busting that has to take place in some cases. They just throw in the towel straight away. I don't really understand what all this is about.