So a very dear friend of mine, a personal chef to be exact, had this very experience last night.
Let me preface this by saying that most of his events and dinners are executed in the customer's home where they have the luxury of their personal space and surroundings (nice, right?). Typically, the customer/host is eager to engage with him as the chef. He is there not only to cook, but also to teach, to engage, to provide the full experience of having a real, live chef cook for you in your home. Sounds pretty sweet to me!
And if I do say so myself...he's a pretty likeable guy. But I might be biased.
So off he goes to the hostess home, scheduled to arrive around 5:30pm for a 6:30pm dinner. He sets up the mise en place and has the full meal "AR" (action-ready for those non-kitchen folk).
Then he waits. A really long time for the guests to arrive. Like almost 2 hours.
When they do finally arrive, they proceed to compose the hostess's online dating profile with a concerted group effort. Dinner doesn't seem to be even on the horizon of their brains. Only the dating profile. Seriously?
Finally dinner. He kills it. Of course. It's a home run. They love everything, but I knew they would, he's that good.
He cleans up, packs up and out the door he goes. Close curtain.
Ok, I get it. She hired him to cook for the group. Not to entertain them. And I guess that's fine. But to so blatantly ignore the timing of the evening, to essentially not care about they how's and the why's of what he has created, and ultimately to treat him like a second class hired servant is just rude.
People, be mindful of how you treat those in the service industry. We genuinely want to make you happy. We genuinely want to give you a little piece of us every time we cook or serve you.
It's why we do what we do.
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