I've been working in a restaurant for about 3 months now and I can already tell it's not the career I want. I don't mind prep, but I hate working on the line. I can't keep up with that many orders at once and I have a tendency to forget what I'm doing, for example I often leave the tomato soup in the oven too long and the croutons burn.
Is a career as a personal chef a better fit for me? I love cooking at home, just not in a restaurant.
3 months eh? any other jobs yet in life or trainning? 3 months is such a short period of time I always have said your not really on the job until you've cut & burned yourself and broken something which could easily take 3 months or all in one day if your good. There are many other positions other than line cook and certianly more to cooking than the one restaurant your currently at. If you like prep work try institutional cooking; lrg hotels confrence centers, hospitials, senior housing etc.
There's a lot of multi-tasking you need to do as a personal chef. However, you can start with small services and work up as you feel comfortable. After all, it's your business.
As far as whether this field is for you or not, it's difficult for any of us to really answer that for you. I would suggest reading this forum and get Candy Wallace's book--The Professional Personal Chef.
The devil is in the details. In order to be successful at this you really need to manage the details well. There are lots of systems to help you with that such as Mastercook and Quickbooks. A cook session where you need to do a 4x4 or a 5x4 and be out of the kitchen by the time the family comes home from there day can be very stressful when you first get started. My advice to you is to find a friend or relative that will agree to be a guinea pig. Get them to pay for the food but donate your time. Develop a 4x4 menu with side dishes and do a practice cook session. Keep in mind that you will get better and faster at all aspects including the shopping. The practice runs will provide you with a clear picture of what you can expect and you can then decide if you want to do it or not.
Line cooking though not typically a glamorous position is an art in itself really. It takes a lot of time to become simply mediocre. I am still proud of my line cooking abilities which took well over 10 years to master and led to my becoming a chef. I still miss it and even as an Executive Chef would jump in there just for fun or bail some rookie out of the weeds.
More than one Chef I've worked with has said they would always prefer to take someone who was an athlete and mold them into a line cook. It takes a great deal of stamina, coordination and speed. It is almost like dancing at times, honestly. That's when it gets fun. It takes a great deal of patience and practice. Depending on the skill of your expeditor, you should be able to work on the memory and "run downs" on orders for your station. Simply make them aware of your concern and ask them to work with you. Otherwise, you can drag an entire kitchen down. Keep it up as if you can work on this. You will begin to love it, eventually. Three months isn't nearly enough to judge your potential nor your chefs.
You can do it. Nothing is truly fun in the begining, at least until you master your art or job. Getting the prep-cook stuff out of the way is the first and most important building block/foundation of developing yourself in a kitchen enviroment and team player. See, you seem to enjoy it now as well. Be patient.
