“Wow…it’s fucking hot in that kitchen! There’s no way a chick could handle it.” Pause, as he reconsiders. “Well, maybe if she was a dyke.”
–a new cook named Pete, a career changer in his 30’s
Pete announced his opinion after working his first busy lunch shift at the three-star French restaurant where I worked as a pastry cook. He made no attempt to hide his chauvinism. On the contrary, he seemed to direct it at me as if to say, no wonder you do pastry, a sentiment that I’d heard before. I didn’t bother defending myself by telling him of my own experience as a line cook with a kitchen full of women, or by listing the difficulties of working pastry. Instead, I dealt with him the same way I dealt with all the other unsavory and often asinine men I have worked with: I ignored him. I got my own satisfaction soon enough–he quit just weeks later because the job was just too hard.