I was in Abu Dhabi last week for the final grand prix of the season. I went there 5 days before the race, to get ready. Getting ready for what? For the biggest F1 catering in the world. Yeah, the company I work for, does catering for F1 grandprixes all around the world. Almost at every race. Of course there is an F1 cooks and patissiers team but for this unbelievably huge organisation they needed some of us and also other cooks from different places for help. Because Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is not like any others. There are 17,000 hungry and high quality service expecting people and all we have is 3 days. So that means, push push push for more than 150 cooks.
Anyways every single cook worked his ass off for 5 days at the organization and it was a success for whole team. Everymorning, we were picked at 5.00am from the hotel and got back at 00.00am. And of course if you are a cook, you have to enjoy a couple beers with your friends and talk about the day and then things other than cooking. Nothing is more fun. So If you are lucky, you get a two hours sleep before they pick you up again.
I remember my facebook status on those days.
"it's like very very vip but it's for 17,000. it's like for one very special moment, but it will last 3 long days. ok summarizing, we are not working like humans"
I want to talk about a little bit about how things worked out at the organization.
You go to your working place in the morning all the trays and everything are ready for your use.
When you are working, you leave your space to grab something and when you're back,your space is cleaned, garbage is empty. If you go into a chilled room, you can not see one thing without a label on. When you finish preparation at the main kitchen and go to paddock area to your box( there are like 25 lounges at the paddock area. One for each team and for some big companies in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.Each of them called 'box' with its kitchen and lounge.) All your 'mise en place'(preparation before service, also called 'A place for everything, everything in its place') is ready waiting for you for the service. You never look for something, you know where it is and just go to get it.
This is called 'SYSTEM' people. I hope everybody understands what I mean. Especially my Turkish colleagues. For me, I don't even want to think about the senario if this organisation was held by us. I see broken equipments,cooks that go to tea break in every 30 minutes, fighting people, joking around all the time, ' a lot of place for everything, and everything in each other's place.'
No doubt that we are good at what we do. We may be very talented but surely the laziest also. Because of this, also no doubt that we can not become anything important without system and discipline. I guess we have to focus on these for a long time to contol instead of being controlled.
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