Where I got paired up with the kitchen jerk

Not only did GG (see Kitchen drama, February 17, 2011 entry) not get fired that day but he stayed on, and I was assigned to work with him. The lesson here is that next time a chef tells you you’ll be working at the fish station, don’t believe him.
I’ve seen cooks scream and yell, but GG is in a whole different category. I knew it from the moment I met him and five minutes later he was telling me – telling, not asking – for my contact info so he could help me find a job – this guy was special, and not in a good way. He also told me that the restaurant was “merde” and that he couldn’t wait to leave, again, within my first few minutes of starting there.
He doesn’t have a foul mouth like the other chefs, no, he’s far too educated for that. He’s super smart (and reminds us every day), but his eldest kid is even smarter. He’s so good at everything he does… which explains why he is stuck at his station and not a chef of his own right at age forty-one and after six years of excelling in the kitchen (not!). I thought of telling the chef several times that I could not work with him, but though he almost did fire him, he’s still my hierarchical superior and the chef is on his side. I can tell that is so overworked and spread thin that it’s a matter of time till he cracks. He has three kids and a wife in a different town and works crazy hours. In the meantime he is as arrogant and pompous as can be, and had taken it upon himself to be my mentor, just like another supervisor I worked with at the United Nations…while we were both new to the office for some reason I was paired with him, and he too just kept doling out career advice on me, as if I wanted to resemble him… what makes these people believe that I want to be anything remotely associated with them? Who told them that when people are friendly it means “please teach me to be a jerk like you”?
Anyway, even though I told the chef at my interview that I didn’t want to be in the pastry shop, it so happened that during my first two weeks, one pastry cook resigned and the other was fired, leaving the pastry chef alone. Given that plus the fact that I was not getting along with my supervisor or Chef de Partie, I told the chef that I was ready to go sweet (I gave him a look that said “anywhere but with that lunatic you paired me with” but I’m not sure he got my subtle message).

So I spent my third and last week at the pastry station and it was like heaven. The chef was communicative and patient, sharing all his knowledge with me about melting points and oven ventilations and what not. He also made me do pretty much everything, so by the end of the week I was able to assemble and send out every single dessert on the menu, not the mention the after dinner sweets or “mignardises” (every French fine dining restaurant serves these at the end of the meal, after dessert). On my last day he let me bake a Fraisier (a lighter version of strawberry shortcake made with genoise, strawberries and cream filling), because I had mentioned to him that I liked it… I was truly sad to leave him.