The night I burned 40 chicken thighs taught me to trust my gut

We had a massive catering order for a wedding party, and I ignored my usual timing because the new sous chef insisted his method was faster. The whole batch was inedible, and we had to scramble to replace it. Anyone else ever have a new hire's confidence completely backfire on a big job?

2 comments

2 Comments

tarab5422d ago

Trust your gut" is the real lesson here. I once let a new guy talk me into a shortcut that cost us half a prep day. Sometimes confidence is just a loud way to be wrong.

jamesmason22d ago

That "confidence is just a loud way to be wrong" line is spot on. I make new hires run their new method on a small test batch first, during prep, not on the main order. If their faster way actually works, great, we adopt it. If it fails, we only lose six chicken thighs and some time, not the whole job. It turns their big idea into a low-stakes experiment.