Restaurant fires apprentice chef who owns all their recipes, cripples their kitchen: 'The manager clearly began to panic'

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Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Jan 15, 2024 7:00 AM EST

Even if your work, knowledge, and contributions make you irreplaceable in your organization, your employer is never going to admit it. For one thing, they probably aren't even going to be aware of it until long after you're gone. They probably think that there are dozens of people out there who can do exactly what you do. For another, if they did admit how valuable you were, they know that you'd likely want to be paid fairly for that fact—and that's just never going to happen. No, it's better to keep you constantly looking over your shoulder and thinking you can be replaced at any moment.

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  • Of course, when an employer underestimates a worker and decides to assert their supposed authority by punishing or firing that worker—well, you end up with stories like this, where the employer pays the price of their hubris by having their business fall out from beneath them… Just like this restaurant did when they fired their apprentice chef who, just out of school, owned the book of recipes the restaurant came to rely on.

  • 01
    Posted by u/tsscaramel Upper management of the sports club fires me and cripples their kitchen. L OC So I'm a professional chef and I have been for a few years, and in Australia apprentice chefs are trained in a sorta college where we learn about 150 recipes. Now many of the recipes are provided to the students in bulky, finicky booklets that you wouldn't really want to take anywhere with you so I started writing some of the recipes in a separate notebook along with some other
    via u/tsscaramel
  • 02
    recipes I'd learnt from coworkers or family members and created a sort of pseudo- cookbook and I would often bring this book into the kitchen so I would remember ingredient quantities and cooking times and eventually I would leave the book in the kitchen pretty much around the clock. What I soon found out was that some of the other chefs in the kitchen were using my cookbook to check official recipes for the restaurant we worked for (as typically the head chef would have to tell them and this go
    via u/tsscaramel
  • 03
    As it turned out, management had stopped making changes to the official club recipe book a few months before I even started so my book became the defacto official recipe book. For a while this was no issue to me and I kept adding new recipes to it throughout the next few years, however after my 3rd year working there I finished my studies and became fully qualified as a chef so I suddenly became more expensive to keep on as a staff member and as such management started looking for any reason to
    via u/tsscaramel
  • 04
    Eventually they found someone to replace me and gave a half assed reason for firing me and told me to "take all my things and leave as I could no longer offer what they were looking for", so I took everything I owned and left including the notebook with all the clubs recipes. For a few days not a whole lot happened but slowly the clubs reviews started complaining about bland food, dry cakes, inconsistent classic recipes and every other food related. thing you could think of, at one point there w
    via u/tsscaramel
  • 05
    for our town was a massive amount of negative reviews in one day. It felt pretty good since I felt they deserved it and left me unemployed on short notice however I was quickly offered a new job by a smaller restaurant who's owner knew me from the sports club kitchen. The Malicious Compliance: After about a week I received multiple calls and after answering one i heard one of the higher managers at the sports club asking if I could return the book as the kitchen needed it back, I obviously laugh
    via u/tsscaramel
  • 06
    them that they had told me I "could no longer offer what they were looking for", the manager clearly began to panic as he offered to give me my job back and "just let bygones be bygones”. I already had a new job so I completely brushed off this offer and ignored him. I hung up pretty soon after that. I started putting the recipes from my book on the new restaurants menu and it was beginning to attract a few regular customers of the sports club so I quickly found myself with more and more respons
    via u/tsscaramel
  • 07
    about a third of the menu was from my book, now this slow trickle of sports club regulars picked up speed after about 3 months and lead to several high level managers from the club deciding to visit the restaurant I'd helped build and virtually demanded I give them my cookbook claiming it would be much more beneficial for the community if they had it. My head chef laughed in their faces and told them to off. It's been about 2 years and my head chef and I have a very positive relationship and the
    via u/tsscaramel
  • 08
    We didn't take every customer from the big club but it was enough damage to their profits to scare a few investors away and also lead to a decent bit of damage to one of the higher managers reputations. Furthermore the recipe issues and negative reviews lead to the majority of the kitchen quitting and according to one of my old colleagues they citied the lack of support and organisation from upper management as the final reasons everyone was quitting and this lead to an even larger dip in the qu
    via u/tsscaramel
  • 09
    Zoreb1 8 hr. ago "just let bygones be bygones" means that in Jyou over I screwed over myself worse so forget what I did and save my You just know if you had taken your old job back they'd copy the recipe book and find another excuse to get rid of you in a few months. Reply Share Vote
    via u/tsscaramel
  • 10
    Polymarchos 4 hr. ago 1. Accept job back with (unreasonable) pay increase and golden parachute clause to contract 2. Return to work, use their recipe book, never bring in the fabled "the recipe book" 3. ???? 4. Profit Vote Reply Share
    via u/tsscaramel
  • 11
    Mental-Attempt- . 8 hr. ago As another cook that got fired after graduating culinary school.... Good on you! We've all dreamed about doing this. Vote Reply Share Vote ●●● bbcllama 2 hr. ago Question, can't they keep you on staff but not give you a raise? Reply Share
    via u/tsscaramel
  • 12
    AngryCod - 8 hr. ago one of the higher managers at the sports club asking if I could return the book as the kitchen needed it back LOL no. he offered to give me my job back and "just let bygones be bygones". I'm sorry, demand has suddenly skyrocketed. The going rate for bygones is now 10x my previous
    via u/tsscaramel
  • 13
    salary, plus a guaranteed contract with penalties for early termination, harassment, or other job-negative outcomes, so you can't just turn around and fire me again (or harass me until I quit). In fact, just start adding zeros and I'll tell you when to stop. virtually demanded I give them my cookbook claiming it would be much more beneficial for the community if they had it Yeah, I'm gonna need you to ALL the way off with that Vote Reply Share ●●●
    via u/tsscaramel
  • 14
    GovernorSan. 7 hr. ago Too bad their altruism didn't extend to giving OP a raise after graduating rather than firing them. Vote Reply Share
    via u/tsscaramel
  • 15
    CoderJoe18 hr. ago Their plan was a recipe for disaster Reply Share Vote BlueLanternKitty 6 hr. ago The manager and his half-baked idea. ::shakes head:: Vote Reply Share
    via u/tsscaramel
  • 16
    Panigg 7 hr. ago "As this book belongs to me I will rent it to you at a rate of 2500$/month for a minimum of 3 years, please sign here." Vote PlatypusDream 6 hr. ago Reply Share . Vote Total payment in advance. All rights reserved. Reply Share
    via u/tsscaramel
  • 17
    MomToShady. 8 hr. ago The person who should have been updating the restaurant's recipes should have been fired. How lazy is it to rely on the book owned by the apprentice? Vote Reply Share
    via u/tsscaramel

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