What has been your proudest career accomplishment within the last year?
Having only been in my current position for 3 months before the pandemic hit, adapting from pre-COVID operation needs to a “work from home” environment while also building and maintaining vendor relationships has been challenging. I have grown so much since then and I am very proud of how far I have come.
What's the one thing you wish you could change about the industry?
I wish more people knew how much time and effort and thought goes into serving the public. You see videos online nowadays of a customer being so angry and aggressive towards kitchen staff for something that is usually beyond their control and they don’t realize that the staff is truly trying their best to serve the customer and make them happy.
What’s been your funniest on-the-job disaster?
One of the projects I’d worked on this past year was to consolidate the inventories of each closed location into one. For one consolidation trip, I had a coworker help me pull some items from dry storage. One of these being a bottle of sesame oil, which I didn’t realize had been opened and not fully closed. ...
Upon arriving, we opened the back door to find that the sesame oil had toppled over and spilled all over the back seat. After we finished laughing, we quickly cleaned it up and carried on. To this day, the car still smells a little like sesame oil, and it always makes me chuckle (and double-check bottle lids).
What’s your favorite kitchen hack?
Freezing things! It is such a simple thing but, prior to working directly with chefs, I had no idea just how many foods you could freeze and save. I have saved more food and money (looking at you, avocados) just by learning little tricks to properly store food in the freezer.