Totally OT but: Of course I can see this chef's point but why does it look like they are psychopaths on loose in the kitchen ? When I talk with chefs or people running cuisine they are very aggressive and ready to burst out at any thing with a confrontational and "I am always right" attitude.
I worked as a chef for 8 years. I might have some ideas about this.
In the below, I will use the pronoun 'he' purely for convenience and may swear a bit.
When you're in a brigade, you're called 'a chef', but there's only one chef called 'the chef' and you are cooking his food. If he had 30 arms he'd do it himself, but he doesn't, so he employs 14 wastrels to make up the deficit. Make no mistake: you are an extension of the chef's body, your hands are his hands, your garnishes are his garnishes, and your mistakes are his mistakes. (Indeed, in the trade, you don't say 'I'm going to work at Noma' , you say 'I'm going to cook for Redzepi').
The chef probably sacrificed the best years of his life toiling on his feet for 70 hours a week, saving, learning, forming opinions and dreaming of the day he can cook his own food. Most people cave in, change careers or hit 50 and can't keep up any more. Chef is balancing years of agony and reverie on the improbable fulcrum of his restaurant, which he genuinely believes could come toppling down if his peppers aren't julienned properly. Except he doesn't julienne them. You do.
'What the fuck is this?'
'Peppers, chef.'
'Don't fuck with me. I wrote the menu. Read it. READ IT!'
'Raw scallop and peppers julienne.'
'Well, these are diced, we're behind on checks already, there's no peppers left and now the most important critic in the country is going to think I don't know what a fucking julienne looks like. Get in the prep kitchen and get Robbie on the pass. Fuck sake.'
'Yes, chef.'
What's the first thing that commis is going to do when he gets home, exhausted and aching? Crack open his Larousse and learn his damn cuts.
Chef made it through one of the most brutal industries in the world and is wagering his life savings on the bullshit odds of running a kitchen not for fame, not for money, but for the all-consuming joy of seeing his food, on his plates, being served to his customers. It is pure, beautiful, passionate narcissism. And fuck me if he won't let it all slide way because your sorry ass never learned how to properly julienne a fucking pepper.
Add that to the sincere hell of standing tooth by jowl with your sweaty, tired comrades in immense heat and pressure serving your last grilled octopus at 11:15pm, adrenaline dumping as you put your section back together to get ready for the breakfast shift in 7 hours and, yes, things get a little tense.
Not all kitchens are like this, but it is the default setting in those environments and preventing it takes conscious effort.
Do you think it also applies to smaller brigade ? (as in 1 chef and 1 commis) ? I have seen and heard some commis displaying that behavior when talking with new apprentices in a school context. It seemed to come with the job even when they hadn't "skin in the game" (yet?).
The alloy of anger and passion has become a bit of a trope in cuisine so I think some people just ham it up. There's also a trickle down effect (if an assistant does something wrong and passes it to a commis chef who doesn't notice who passes it to his chef-de-partie who doesn't notice who plates it for chef who notices, the cdp gets chewed out, who gives it raw to the commis, who kicks the assistant's ass).
I did work in a 1-1 environment for a little while with a chef who went into retirement and came back out to do a lovely little diner with food way better than it needed to be. It was probably the best cooking experience of my short career and nary a heated word was exchanged. The chef was a good guy, but it definitely helped that it was just two of us.
I don't think it's healthy, but I can see how rage can occur in the mania of a busy kitchen that takes itself seriously. In a school, however, I can't see how that helps. Maybe the commis thought that accepting harsh criticism was part of the lesson; maybe he's just parroting the way his superiors treated him; maybe he's just a douche.
Time pressure, mostly. Kitchens are full of people working exactly as quickly as they possibly can while working "sustainably" (in a very weak sense of the word.) It's the efficiency doctrine at its worst: any cook that's not producing at 100% is "spare capacity" that could be used to serve more customers, faster. Restaurants are planned, booked, and staffed so that the cooks will always need to be working at 100% to have even adequate service levels.
On the other hand, some kinds of restaurants—diners, for one—are operated with a different mindset, and don't have much connection to the larger "restaurant industry." Cooks that aren't forced to operate at 100% all the time are genuinely friendly and relaxed people (and also have enough time to both take your order themselves and then make whatever customizations you might ask for.)
Nature of the venture, probably. The head chef has the most skin in the game, if not all, so with great responsibility comes great power. Also the need to get things done quickly and decisively probably demands a more military structure, with care and feedback coming in the weekly catchup meal.
Reading the entire Bourdain book gives a lot of insight.
The restaurant business is high-pressure and low-margin. It's a cutthroat world and if you're not aggressive enough you'll get eaten alive...literally.
My impression going off what I've seen and read of the culture is you're right. But I've imagine a lot of us have worked with the dev or manager who seems like he'd fit right in that environment. And if you were to make a reality show about software development, I imagine that guy would be getting a lot of air time.
