I had an old roommate who worked at La Pomme de Terre as a waiter, and he said he'd get me an interview with Tim [the head chef].
(Personal interview, La Pomme de Terre)
One lady was a waitress at Primos…. She was getting new furniture, and I was moving at the time, and she said, “Do you want some chairs?” and I said, “Sure.” I went over and picked up the chairs, and she said, “Well, what are you going to do for a living now,” and I said, “I don't know. I haven't decided yet. I think I'll take a little vacation.” She said, “Well, I know somebody who's looking for a cook,” and so she called up the guy, and he came over with a twelve-pack of beer, and we sat there and got drunk, and he said he'd hire me.
(Personal interview, Blakemore Hotel)
These network connections occur at each stage of the career and are as valuable for head chefs as for those entering the occupation.
Promotions within Restaurants. Restaurants differ in the likelihood of internal job mobility. In all kitchens employees are promoted within their occupation line, but at better restaurants little opportunity exists for promotion across work lines—for instance, for dishwashers to become cooks.11 This promotion was most common at Stan's and other lower-status restaurants:
| JON: | I started when I was thirteen at Country Kitchen right across the street. I was a dishwasher and busboy. Then started to be fry cook. |
| GAF: | How did you move from being a dishwasher to a fry cook? |
| JON: | Promoted and some people quit. I was always there, and I was always watching, and I showed interest, so I knew I could move up. I didn't want to stay a dishwasher all my life. I also knew that if I showed interest, I would move up the ladder. It is better pay.(Personal interview, Owl's Nest) |
I never really decided to become [a cook], I don't think. I think that decision came as simply as I was washing dishes one night, and [my boss] came up to me, and he said, “Tim, you're pretty responsible. How would you like to become a cook? I'll give you a twenty-cent raise.”
(Personal interview, La Pomme de Terre)
I started as a dishwasher [at Stan's], Then I became a swing cook, and now I'm up to a cook.…I didn't really decide to be a cook. I was just looking for a job, and he had an opening for a dishwasher, and he gave me that job, and a couple of cooks quit, so I got pushed up.
(Personal interview, Stan's)
If workers are perceived as interchangeable and training derives from observing kitchen happenings, job transfer is readily arranged. Frequently financial concerns motivate the switch although those who remain in the kitchen must find the work somewhat appealing.
Chance Connections. It is rare for adolescents to make definite choices early; often they fall into their work by chance and through unplanned opportunity. Book publishing is a good example of such an “accidental profession” (Coser, Kadushin, and Powell 1982, pp. 99-101). Few publishing careers are planned; so it is with kitchen work. Editors and cooks who see their work as relatively permanent are “hooked” by the work and have set aside plans to leave.
Some cooks who enter the occupation through trade school made their program selection by happenstance without careful consideration:
| GAF: | Why did you decide on the cooking program [at trade school]? |
| DENVER: | I didn't cook that much at home, but when I did I enjoyed it. When we were down there, they were really working' doing wedding cakes, and I was really impressed by that. It was just kind of a whim. I thought that would be fun, and so I just went into it.(Personal interview, Blakemore Hotel) |
When I figured out I was wasting my time [in college], I went to vocational school and took the test to see what field I should be in, hoping that they'd tell me, and they said I could do anything I wanted to with the aptitudes that I had. The first three choices that I picked they vetoed. One because I didn't like to read, one because I didn't have any art classes, and one because I couldn't spell. We had an interview session, and I told them I had some interest in cooking but thought I was only [interested in cooking] because my best friend had gone through the program a year prior. They told me to try it, and I liked it.
(Personal interview, Blakemore Hotel)
Some cooks find themselves in the right place at the right time, even though they lack culinary background: “It was an accident. It was completely by accident. I didn't choose it. I was working for Macalester College at the time, and I was a custodian, and I was going to train and get my boiler's license, and I was working on a Saturday morning, and a couple of cooks didn't show up, and since I got along well with the manager of the kitchen, and they asked me if I could fry up some french fries and some other things, and I said, T don't know nothing about that.' He said, That's OK. We just need the help.' That's how it started” (Personal interview, Blakemore Hotel). This cook entered the occupation because he was a warm body. When the pay, conditions, and satisfactions proved adequate, he continued and made the work his career.
Cooking lacks a routine career trajectory; the career depends on unpredictable contingencies. To have contacts, to move up from low-status jobs, or to be where one is needed opens the door. Whether one will enter and stay is a personal choice, hard to predict in advance. Work choices depend on the satisfactions that emerge from one's personal experiences and one's incorporation into the community. In a long-term career a series of contingencies and opportunities affects one's ultimate position in the occupation and one's decision to leave, resign, or retire. Some depend on conscious choices and hiring decisions—how jobs are supposed to be allocated—while others occur by chance.
SOCIALIZATION TO THE KITCHEN
A key indicator that a novice has become a competent cook is the development of a professional stance: a set of public behaviors and attitudes that validates that one shares the abilities and values of one's fellows. The techniques by which one presents oneself as a professional reveals the presence of socialization. Professionalism is a strategy for the display of self, and socialization involves proper display (Manning and Hearn 1969), even if that display blinds one to the economic-instrumental aspects of the occupation (Dickinson and Erben 1984). One cook explained: “There are only four things that are important in this industry to be professional, and that's determination, drive, and common sense, and attitudes and heart. Your heart's your work” (Personal interview, Blakemore Hotel). These concepts are symbolic representations of what must be revealed in practice. When individuals do not demonstrate these components of community and competence, they must be separated from their position, preferably by being “cooled out.” Just as careers are constructed, so are terminations (Faulkner 1974). For example, the cook fired during my observation was defined as lacking “professionalism.” She explained: “The way that Tim explained it, he thought that my work was good, and I was really meticulous. [Food was] very pretty when I got done with it, but that I never did pick up the speed…. They really didn't give me any feeling that this was coming, but I understood it, and I know that that's his way too. I had never been in this kind of position in that kind of restaurant, and I was afraid of disturbing him by asking too many questions…. Tim told me he thought I was really cut out to be a hobby cook, not a professional” (Personal interview, La Pomme de Terre). Even though this young cook had talent, she was unable to convince others (or herself) that she was a professional, and so she had to be terminated. She had not learned subcultural techniques through the three standard methods: watching, formal education, or being trained on the job.
Learning by Watching. Entering a kitchen, one encounters a booming, buzzing confusion. Everything happens simultaneously; nothing makes sense. If one has attended a cooking school or has a mentor, entrance is easier, but even with these advantages one must imitate others' actions. One is expected to acquire rapidly the unstated rules in the kitchen. It becomes painfully obvious when these