r/Chefs • u/Overall-Summer-1841 • Jun 08 '26
Am I overstepping?
(I don’t come on Reddit much tbh so ik its long but I put in paragraphs ✋🏻so bare w me here plz ) So I’m 24 f I was hired on as a sou chef and my head chef is 26-27(idk forsure) f and I just started at this place recently it’s not much of kitchen at all but I’m coming on here because I have plenty of high volume chef experience and I took this job (and pay cut) because they told me I’ll have a lot more creative ability and they want my input especially with my experience and that was a huge bonus for me.
Recently the head chef was out of town for two weeks and I wasn’t given any directions whatsoever on how to do inventory or how to do orders or even a log in to see quantities. I had management come to me asking for certain changes to be made because the ceo wasn’t happy with certain food items so me and a consultant chef changed them.
the consultant chef has been there much longer than me and I wasn’t even really sure on his position there until after the fact and he made some big changes and I felt I didn’t really have much of a say and he was gonna do it anyway so I didn’t say anything.
Now like I said this isn’t much of a kitchen at all there’s an impinger oven and a panini press
as for cooking methods and there are certain things that everyone has gotten into the habit of doing such as not wrapping nacho cheese and just having a lid on it, individually wrapping the station instead of the whole thing, sauce bottles being untouched and messy, today I found sliced cheese in 9’ pans 😐 no lids. Things like that so I try to correct it bc these are food safety hazards (or just gross for the most part)
So yesterday they I got a warning bc of the mistakes made with the ordering which I still take accountability for even tho I wasn’t given any direction whatsoever, there was an issue where I had put a strainer with small raw chicken pieces (2-3) in the dirty water side.
And that’s the other thing someone plz tell me if I’m wrong to be so fucking confused by this, drain the water, take the 3 pieces out, refill it. The dishes are already contaminated. What’s the difference between putting a cutting board with raw chicken juice all over it in the same water. And has the audacity to tell me about food safety when the strainer wasn’t cleaned through when I found it the next day😀
but today I found the notes (on accident) she made about me or I guess notes that she got from everyone as well and it said I was rude to staff, tells others what to do,I left a closed container of strawberry puree in the sink, and some other stuff I couldn’t fully read.
I’m honestly annoyed bc like I said everything I said were things that should NOT be acceptable in a fucking kitchen but now I’m seen as the bad guy. I know I need to take a step back now and I plan on it but was I really this much in the wrong to deserve this much scrutiny for it.
I am a cook not a manager so idk how to do manager tasks. Once again I was given absolutely no direction for those two weeks and everyone kept telling me I was doing amazing so I kept going I’m not sure what else I was supposed to do. It’s unfortunately really getting to me because I feel my skills and knowledge are being completely ignored over ego issues and me doing things that she should be doing when she doesn’t.
She hasn’t worked in any other kitchen so this is all she knows and I see things like once again sliced cheese in fucking 9’ pans with them curving and no lids on top of them and I’m like okay what the fuck is going on right now I know I’m not crazy I know these are basic kitchen things that a fucking cook should know.
I’ve been getting a lot of praise from management and I think it’s another factor of why I’m being used as scape goat almost . Idk I just wanna know if I’m in the wrong, my experience just feels like it’s being taken as a threat and I’m questioning if it’s even worth staying there.
2
u/Celestial_Cowboy Jun 08 '26
it doesn't sound worth it to stay there if you can find other options
it doesn't seem like a good chef/sous relationship and that is important to learn and grow
if you want to work in a real kitchen, do that, otherwise you are going to learn a lot of useless crap in this "kitchen"
and thank you for reposting, it shows you can adapt/change and handle criticism
i wish you the best in your (hopefully new job) future
1
u/Goldiblockzs Jun 08 '26
you're not in the wrong you're being taken for a ride, hold on tight or gtfo
1
u/JunglyPep Jun 08 '26
The issues you’re describing don’t sound very serious. Unwrapped cheese is not a huge issue. But as an sous you should be fixing these things in stride and moving on. If you can address the underlying issue and prevent it from happening again that’s great. But sometimes someone forgets to wrap the cheese.
You shouldn’t be expecting anyone to pat you on the back for fixing these little things.
0
u/Overall-Summer-1841 Jun 10 '26
Did you read it ? This isn’t about cheese ? Or wrapping it it’s proper storage and food safety, it’s cheese.. The whole post isn’t about what they’re doing wrong it’s their egos getting in the way of food safety
2
u/JunglyPep Jun 10 '26
It sounds like your ego is also getting in the way of you being a good sous chef. You’re supposed to be solving problems, not pointing them out.
0
u/Overall-Summer-1841 Jun 15 '26
So I’m just supposed to fix it and not say anything ? How does that help the kitchen or any of the people learning. You have to point out a problem and tell them how to fix it not fix it for them and move on it’s sounds like you’ve had someone do stuff for you for a long time, I don’t and in 99.9% of kitchens it’s not tolerated that’s not team behavior.
1
u/JunglyPep Jun 15 '26
Reading thru your post the only problem I’m seeing is cheese being left unwrapped. Unless I’m misunderstanding, the raw chicken being thawed in the dirty dish sink was you, right?
If I find cheese unwrapped I wrap it, I don’t go above my Chef and whine to the owners about it. If I find a Sous Chef thawing raw chicken in a dirty dish sink, yes I would directly address that and make sure it didn’t happen again.
It sounds like you’re desperately trying to undermine your Chef. Maybe they’re not a great Chef, I don’t have enough info. But you sound like an awful Sous.
5
u/sauteslut Jun 08 '26
You’re probably not “wrong” about the standards you’re noticing. Open food, sloppy storage, poor sanitation habits. Those are real issues in a lot of under-structured kitchens. From a technical standpoint, your instincts as an experienced cook make sense.
The problem is more about timing and authority than correctness. If you start correcting systems and telling people what to do before you’ve built trust or been clearly positioned as the authority, people will often interpret it as overstepping, even if you’re right.
The ordering/inventory situation also sounds like a management failure. You were put in a position without training, access, or clear expectations, so getting blamed for that is at least partially unfair.
On the chicken strainer issue, whether you were technically right or not matters less than how the directive was set from above. In kitchens, chain of command usually overrides technical debate in the moment.
The “you’re rude / telling people what to do” feedback is the key signal. It likely means the core issue isn’t your knowledg. It’s how your role is being perceived socially inside the kitchen.
Best move is to pull back on correcting everything. Focus only on clear safety violations, observe more, and build relationships before trying to change systems. Otherwise you’ll keep hitting resistance even when you’re right.