Why Do I Employ You ? Is it because, in the words of the SilverGinger song, "I like girls 'cos girls are better than boys" ? Well, there is a pinch of truth in this. My staff are aged between 14, with parent's permission, and at the other end of the scale my most senior staff member is just over retirement age. There is no age, sex or colour bar to working for me. There is however, a personality bar. All summer I work really long hours, I'm often in the kitchen cooking breakfasts, and I don't finish work until the last evening diner has left the building and I can lock up. As I'm spending such long hours at work, it is important to me that my staff are pleasent people, people that I can get along well with, hat I can talk to and enjoy the company of. As a sweeping generalisation, teenage girls seem to be more socially adapt than teenage boys. The first contact for getting a job with me is usually on the phone, if someone calls me for a job, or if I'm calling someone back after they have left a message for me and they answer in monosyllabic neanderthal grunts, well, they're not getting the job. If they made it past the phone call they have to attend an interview with me. This is a semi formal chat that allows me to find out a bit about the person I am interviewing. If the interviewee is old enough to have worked before I would like to know where they have worked, and importantly, why they have left.* Many of the younger kids that come to me have not held a job before, so what I want from this sort of interview is a chat, I ask about school and what subjects they are good at, we talk about food and what they enjoy, what they like to do in their free time, hobbies, pastimes, I ask what was the last book they read and the last movie they saw and can they tell me a bit about it. After twenty minutes or so I can usually tell who I'm going to like and who I'm not. Even at an interview for a fairly simple job like waiting on, you should present yourself well. I had one lad who turned up in trainers and tracksuit and who wore his Nike cap throughout the interview, already at age fifteen his fingers were yellow stained with nicotine and from my position at the other side of the table I could detect that he had only the most casual relationship with soap and water. No job for him then. I do of course make allowlance for nerves, some kids are obviously petrified at attending an interview, others coast nervelessly through it. Overall though, and back to the sweeping generalisation, if you take teenage boys and girls as two groups, the girls tend to perform better at interviews. This simple process usually ensures that I have a staff of nice people that can all get along together and get along with me. It isn't infallible of course, and every so often I have employed a bad apple, but my current team are all good people, nice to be with, hard working and good company, and in an endless series of 16 hour shifts, good company is vital. We have held a couple of staff meetings in the last few days to discuss issues raised on here ny psuedonym JJ. I'm pretty sure that I don't frighten my staff all that much, in most cases I know the parents of my staff and if there were a problem at any point it could be sorted out. They were all fairly upset at the accusations that had been made, and the author of the comments was generally regarded to be 'sad' and a 'loser' amongst other comments. I did also point out to the staff though that I'm not changing the nature of the kitchen, I'm daft as brush at times and will say things that are daft / shocking / close to the bone in order to get a laugh, provoke a reaction or move a conversation along. I am not Mr Politically Correct, and never will be. Nobody is forced to work for me, and if they don't like me or the job they are free to leave and I certainly woulnd't think less of the for doing so. So hopefully nobody had been harmed by this week's unpleasentless apart from the author of the comments, you've made yourself look rude, ill mannered and foolish. You're lucky that I'm not a great believer in litigation, there are many employers that might have launched legal action after the sort of comments that were posted. If you are an ex-staff member, and you're currently looking for another position, do you think that I don't talk to other chefs and restaurant managers, and have you considered that a few people in catering read the blog just because I post stuff about work and people like to read about their own industry ? I'm sure you didn't. Anyway, we're all carrying on just as normal here, the staff are fine and great people, the chef is overworked and still forces his staff to listen to heavy metal all day, and now I have got to go and cook, Georgie and me are going to make oat and sunflower loaves for the Ladies Open tomorrow, see you all later. *I had a bloke came for the full time chef's position a few years back, on the application form I had asked for a list of previous positions in the last five years, this applicant asked for a couple of extra sheets of paper. When he had filled in his application he had listed 21 jobs held in the last 5 years. My decision was instant, there was no way I was about to become employer number 22.