So chefling has resigned, and yet again I'm having to splash out a couple of hundred quid (at least) to advertise for a new one. Welcome to Fight Club, the rules of cheffery are................ You must be hard as nails, tough as old boots, 16 hour shifts with barely enough time to go for a piss, standard day. You'll work Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Years Eve until three in the bloody morning and then some back for lunch shift on New Years Day, and every bank holiday. Every Friday night, while your mates are down the pub necking pints and on the pull, you'll be head down over the stove, with forty covers wanting food and twenty more to come, with your homicidal/psychopathic/schizophrenic head chef abusing your haircut/accent/parentage/skin colour/sexual preferences, and especially giving you grief over that "DOGS VOMIT YOU CALL A VELOUTE, I WOULDN'T SERVE IT TO MAN U FANS, DO IT AGAIN SCUMBAG, IN TWO MINUTES" . (Note, any answer other than a swift "Yes chef" earns you a second, louder bollocking, and then you'll only have one minute to do the sauce.) You will burn yourself, and cut yourself, often. If you wear t-shirts in public people will stare and think you are a self harmer, other chefs will recognise the patterns of lateral burns on the inside of your forearms, it's like a secret society tattoo. Floor standing ovens, they're a bitch. We don't do workers rights, fixed home time, unions, breaktimes, lunch hour, shop stewards, jobsworths and as for contracts ? I've heard they have them in other industries. What are the benefits then ? I'm buggered if I know. I must love food. Furthermore, there are some specifics that apply to my kitchen. 1) You must be able to converse in more than monosyllabic grunts, we will spend at least 40 hours a week together, I'm interested in cricket, politics, current affairs, music, wine, nature, football, sf/f, d&d, all sorts of things, the ability to hold a conversation would be good. 2) I play music, and sing badly, a lot. My music ranges from AC/DC through Led Zepplin and Megadeth to ZZ Top, if you don't like guitars, tough, we do not do dance muzak. 3) You must at least understand cricket, even if you don't love it. If I get stuck in a meeting for an hour, come back and ask the score and you look blank and say "Err, two nil ?", I will not be impressed. So that's it then, poor wages, dreadful working conditions, evil ogre of a chef, I'm hiring.