OCD

Today was normal. Again we pushed really hard and with Alexandre pumping like a beast with mixing all the doughs and helping me shape things were done quickly. I don’t feel as fast as I used to be...I mean that before when I was working in the bakery in Cape Town  I knew all my stuff. Different weights, shapes and quantities, recipes and multiplications. I knew where everything was and what to do and how long to mix and when to do what...it’s a bit frustrating and sad that I can’t really bring my A game in terms of flow buy I just try my best and push as best I can.

One thing I noticed is that I’m a bit OCD with some things in that I want things a certain way and struggle to give myself some leeway and I think this slows me down a bit. It’s not necessarily a bad thing though.

Also, here, it seems that visual aesthetic is more important that volume with some baguettes as they usually come out looking a bit flatter or oval in my opinion due to the scores being longer and closer spaced together. It is a bit more finesse this way and the cell structure is still good but I think more of a balance is what I would choose. Obviously you need to supply the customer/market with what they want but you also need integrity and to stand by your beliefs and philosophies.

It’s a bit screwed up here with the labour laws...I was talking to Alexandre after work while we were washing some dishes and he told me that you can’t really pressure people to do stuff here and most young French people have the mentality that the boss is responsible to make sure the kitchen is cleaned and a lot have that don’t-give-a-f***-ness as Eric used to say.

I used to make people stay and clean stuff properly but it seems that in France, if people leave, even if they resign, the company has to pay some sort of unemployment thing...it’s really stupid. And the pot washer for instance doesn’t always clean properly and even though she signed the contract which was written in French and she does speak French (she is Arabic), if she were to get fired she could go to a tribunal and just say she didn’t understand the contract and she would get money from the bakery. Labour laws are supposed to protect the employee and the employer right? It just doesn’t seem right that unlike most kitchens where you have a strong team vibe and everyone helps to clean, in a bakery it’s almost always every man for himself and I see Alexandre or Mr Pozzoli cleaning dishes. Just out of respect I don’t want my chef to do stuff like that.

People just need to take pride in their work areas and a few minutes every day to arrange things nicely and keep it clean and then everyone can enjoy a nice clean and organised environment.