3. CHAPTER OF GUYS AND DOUGH With HOTELA, Fund for Compensation for Hotel catering with seat in Montreux VD, it was one of those things. HOTELA will be the subject of a whole chapter of this book. But I would like to mention that we had been dealing earlier, in the Bernese Oberland, with this administration for retirement funds and Social Security. We had found nothing particular or negative about this organization. As we left the Bernese Oberland we had evidently settled accounts with the local and cantonal taxes, and with the assurances. At the end of 1987 we had received from the HOTELA a final statement concerning Social Security and retirement funds together with a refund of about Fr. 1.600,- for overpaid contributions. We were glad to get the money. We could well use it. Twenty months later they came up with a claim of complementary payment concerning our former place, per Fr. 5.447,70, payable within thirty days. I had the affair examined by the Courts. The proceedings lasted one and a half year. At the end we had to pay. But this episode left a bitter aftertaste. In the course of April-May 1988 we renovated the terrace thoroughly. All the tables were rusty. The whole furniture offered a picture of decay. The floor plates were sunk in the ground and lay askew. Behind the house there was a child swing, badly damaged and probably dangerous. The concrete plates had to be torn off on the whole surface, the underground filled with sand or gravel and the plates subsequently adjusted to millimeter precision. It was back breaking labor.
The pretty lanterns also were rusty, the lamp shades damaged or even broken. The whole facade needed a coat of paint. The former personnel left gradually the establishment. The young cook gave notice in the middle of Summer. I shed no tears about his leaving. His training was scant, to remain polite, his greatest performance consisted in bossing the kitchen help around. He had no sense of organization at all: the establishment used to remain open seven days a week until last Winter, but with a cook and an experienced waitress supervising the service we had expected to dispose of a day of rest, This proved to be a piece of wishful thinking. The self appointed maitre d', a lady of a certain age, did not give a hoot about her responsibilities. On Tuesday I would give the cook the menu for the following day, along with precise instructions and indications as to the recipes. The next day, as I would show up in the kitchen, he was rushing around like a mad thing. All he succeeded to do as a cook was to bring the crew and the clientele up to the boiling point. He did not get replaced. I had already started to train the auxiliary help in the kitchen according to my own methods, and with good results. After a relatively short time they were capable of fixing up a mayonnaise, several kinds of salad dressing, a salad buffet, a grilled sausage with hashed brown potatoes and many more things. Such a promotion was well perceived and most of them did very well. They were of real assistance and provided a lot of relief. And the business was getting on well. People came, saw, and came again. We had not flunked our coming out. The news made the rounds: "The new ones at the Station are doing a good job, they can be trusted". There came plenty of reservations for meetings of all kinds, for banquets, but also just people who came to test the place, the ambiance, the cooking, who wanted to try the wines. This first clientele is of paramount importance for an establishment: If the caterers succeed in winning the curious right at the start, the subsequent development of the place is largely assured. I don't mean
to say that it is possible to rest on one's laurels after the first success, on the contrary: As American caterers use to say: "Your reputation in this trade is just as good as the last meal you have served." A hard saying, no doubt, but how true! In the course of Summer 1987 already, as it was certain that we'd be taking over the place, we had given our full attention to the bills of fare and to the wine list. Such lists cannot be improvised. A well conceived bill of fare can help save a lot of money, through a more rational buying of course, but also through a definite saving of labor costs. Not the number of dishes offered is important, but rather whether the kitchen help is able to prepare the food properly and within a reasonable period of time, and to make good use of the leftovers. It makes little sense to set up a magnificent bill of fare if the training of the kitchen personnel is inadequate, and the installations stand in the way of the concept. Rather an ordinary offer, carefully prepared and served, than a choice of dishes which interest no one and ultimately inflate the bill of fare like a useless window dressing. Since the beginning it has been our policy to keep actually two bills of fare: One main bill with the usual offer of chops, cutlets, cheese toasts and the like. And then an additional bill, which is renewed frequently with seasonal and periodical hits: Game, asparagus, fish in all variations, home made sausages in the Fall, a Summer bill with light, appetizing dishes. In addition we have two luncheons specials at realistic prices. Of these two specials at least one can be obtained at reduced price for a reduced portion. This is meant for people with a small appetite and a small budget. With the specials we can give free rein to our fantasy, at the condition however that no order be allowed to remain more than two minutes in the kitchen. So speedy does the service have to be, so tasty and varied the food that during lunch hardly any patron will make use of the bill of fare. On Saturday noon business is usually rather slow, so we just have one menu, which didn't sell well during the week. So we get rid of the leftovers.
This policy has served us well in all the years in the Bernese Oberland, near Basel, in the Bernese Oberland again, and so we have stuck to it and look, it still works. Quite soon after we took over we became painfully aware of the fact that the infrastructure of the house was in no way apt to receive so many visitors: For the past twenty years at least, but probably more, nothing had been done by way of upkeep. I nearly fainted as I got sight of the first electricity bill: More than Fr. 3.000,00 for a single month. Something had to go, we had to crush the operative costs before we got crushed by them. Generally speaking the situation was in most areas simply impossible. In the kitchen for instance there was no table for the preparation of food, at best a narrow planking along a pantry wall. There was no connection between the kitchen in the basement and the counter on the main floor in the restaurant. The orders were brought to the kitchen through a narrow staircase from behind the counter - per order a gang down and up the stairs. Communications were yelled through the food lift shaft. The house telephone system was out of service, we had no office where we could do the bookkeeping and the correspondence. The dishwashing machine in the kitchen, the cash register, the coffee machine were ready for the final breakdown. The apartment was so cramped that we could not install our furniture. The children bedroom, for instance, was hardly larger than a roomy telephone booth: Two meters wide and four meters long, for two lively, healthy kids. Klara had definitely problems with the personnel. She is competent and responsible for the sales, the laundry, the wages accounting and the apartment. I am competent and responsible for the cooking, the buying, the upkeep, the correspondence and the main accounting. Klara has more to do with the help, three at the counter, three or four waiters, as well as part time help. I have at most two employees under me, in the kitchen.
We had to do with a pretty demoralized bunch. I have told about OeztĂźrk already. Klara was not in a much better position. She had to deal with a mean, petty mentality. There was that self appointed maitre d', a confidante of the former owner. She required a special treatment and more pay. And whenever we were confronted with a banquet or a larger assembly, she would come up with the same excuse: "Mrs. Simonin, I cannot come tonight, we're invited..." That was mathematical. On top of this a few women without motivation, and at the counter a couple of foreigners whose pay requirements were in exact opposition to their work experience and engagement. It was plain to us that these people would be leaving sooner or later, freely or not. We had hardly expected another start with the help. The manager who had been running the place for the previous six months was there on time and he knew it. He had undertaken no particular effort in order to develop a concept. We had to impose our methods, and this right from the beginning. These people were not apt to help us. This cannot be understood as a blame towards those employees. These people were - are - the result of a system which actually doesn't exist. They were the product of the failure of a whole generation of caterers and hotel keepers who had been living like so many lords and whose constant policy was to outrageously exploit the manpower. My first job in a restaurant I got at Yverdon VD, just out of school, in 1950. the pay was Fr. 70,00 a month and free room and board for a 13 hour shift, six days a week. For the privilege of entering an apprenticeship as a cook I had to pay Fr. 400,00, and for two and a half years I labored without pay at all. I still remember that winter 1954-55 at the Casino in Berne, as a pantry cook. There were some 120 employees in the house and a particular cook - a so-called
communard - was needed in order to feed them. Such a dirty, repulsive type I have never met again in my life. I still see his greasy hands full of warts, his apron, black with dirt, and which he didn't change for weeks. He must have suffered from mange, for his hair had fallen on one side. In such a large house the kitchen crew eats generally better than the other employees, this lies in the nature of things. The food for the kitchen crew was a real slop, moldy, sour, overcooked and scarce.(So you can imagine what the others got...). Well, I was young and hungry and in the pantry there were all kinds of fabulous things to be had: Lobster, real goose liver with truffles, asparagus, exotic fruits, what do I know. There was at all times a kilogram can of the best caviar Oscietre Malossol, Fr. 250,00 a kilo, nearly a month wages. I helped myself copiously, and the other cooks did the same. We were certainly not morally depraved, we didn't intend to hurt the house. We would have been quite content to get a grilled sausage with some hashed brown potatoes. or some boiled beef and vegetable. As my friend Mario Simmmel used to say: "It doesn't have to be caviar all the time..." I was aged 22 as I attended a waiting course at the Montana Hotel trade School in Lucerne. I had absolved an apprenticeship as a cook and had several years practice as such and had a good spoken and written command of three languages. My first job after hotel trade school was that of a bus boy in the old St. Gotthard Hotel in Lucerne. The pay was Fr. 180,00 a month, free room and board. The food was a slop barely fit for the pigs, for breakfast there was the warmed up coffee from the previous day out of one pail of four-fruit marmalade for the help were made two pails though the addition of water. For butter we had to pay: 20 centimes for ten grams. Well, I have never eaten so well and so refined as in those days: The crew was excellently organized and "organized" systematically veal medaillons with morel
cream sauce and noodles in butter, roasted or poached chicken, choices of cheese and various kinds of bread, fruits in any quantity and much more. If was theft with method. The rooms for the help were located directly under the roof. There was no heating of any kind. In the course of that 1955-56 winter the temperature sank to -17ยง Celsius. A few employees brought some electric stoves from home. The manager made a round of inspection and had them all confiscated "because electricity is expensive in Lucerne". We spent the winter in this fashion. As Spring came - what wonder - we all took off. It is precisely this sort of mistreatment, practiced during at least one generation - or more - which has given the catering business in this country such a bad reputation. And these methods are still partly in use. If we add to these bad treatments the total lack of organization in most large establishments - and why should they have organized and rationalized so much, since help was to be had dirt cheap? - and the barracks language which was customarily in use, and sometimes still is, especially in the kitchens, we should not wonder if more than three quarters of the young employees with a completed apprenticeship left the trade - and still leave. And what remains develops almost automatically the mentality: "Boss, if you don't like it, I go: There are twenty more jobs waiting for me". I have suffered under these conditions as I was young, and as an employer I suffer from the consequences. The misery with the employment in the catering trade is the direct result of the sins and omissions of the previous generation. Without ifs and buts. Well, the situation was as it was and we had to find a solution. To advertise for help in the newspapers was wasted money. Personnel with references and good certificates is practically non-existent, requires enormous salaries and shows frequently a diva mentality. The only alternative was to train our own personnel according to our own methods and expectations.
As I have already told, good employees are hard to find, even in the middle of a deep recession. It is very difficult to get a labor permit for a foreigner. There remains a third category of persons, the political refugees. These people are not subjected to quotas, they are free to move around - within Cantonal limits. With these people we'd try our luck. OeztĂźrk had been a mistake. The former helplessness about the problem was overcome. There were many more people available. We only had to get the proper ones. And rather soon we found what we wantted. The old crew left little by little and was replaced. It happened without duress. If I remember correctly, none got fired, except the barmaid What is so special about our methods? Well, the answer to this question sounds so dreary and so banal that I almost feel ashamed to formulate it: Our method consist basically in winning respect and confidence from the help by trusting and respecting the help and showing due appreciation for the work they do. It consists in a thorough study of the working procedure and the setting up of realistic work schedules and in enforcing these schedules. In compensating the - infrequent - overtime without delay and hesitation. In making the employees understand that by all respect due to the boss and to his wife their constructive criticism, their suggestions and remarks are welcome. In coming to the conclusion that no employee is too stupid to execute a job, but that the job is simply beyond his experience and knowledge. In such a case the problem is to be explained again and again, until the employee has gotten the point. This implies of course that we have correctly evaluated the true potential of the person: Any employee cannot be put at any given place. There is a difference between a race horse and a plough horse. Before we vent any criticism at a subordinate we should however ask ourselves:" Why am I about to say this? Is it because I earnestly believe that I can help solve a problem, or is it because I want to calm my nerves and show the world what a wonderful wise guy I am?"
A remark, a criticism to a subordinate is always to be formulated with tact and restraint. Never should we question the good will or the mental faculties of the person. We simply have to admit the person's limitations and not force upon him or her a task which he/she is unable to perform. And should laziness, arrogance, hypocrisy or sheer stupidity render impossible the continuation of the relationship or even provoke a quarrel, so is the person required to leave within the shortest legal delay. By all respect for psychological leadership: Neither Klara nor I have ever been pricked with a gramophone needle. One might object that these principles belong to the public good and are rather self-evident. The point is however that in no other branch of activity the human relationship plays so cardinal a role as in the catering business: A cabinet maker, a car mechanic spends his working time with his personnel. In a public place the personnel also eats, indeed frequently especially in the smaller establishments - with the employer and his family. Quite often they are also quartered in the house. Therefore the help is part of the household, the contact between employer and employee is incomparably more personal and intensive than in any other trade. For this reason we have never used the familiar "Du" with our personnel nor have we ever allowed the personnel to use with us. For as the Americans - and possibly the English as well - say: "Familiarity breeds contempt". With the food it is one of those things. As time went by almost none of our employees belonged to the Christian faith. Nearly all of them were either Muslims or Hindus. For the Hindus a rind is sacred, and for the Muslims a pig is unclean. In the course of an interview with a candidate to a job I always pointedly ask about the religious beliefs. I shall ask a Hindu if he objects to eating beef. A Muslim I shall ask the same question about pork. If the candidate declares that he refuses to consume the prohibited food I look for someone else. Hindus have never made an issue of it. Muslims are far
less tolerant, but I do feel that unreasonable to give in on that point.
it
would
be
And the point is that in a Christian land everyone eats pork in one form or another. Whoever enjoys real Bernese hashed brown potatoes - a Rรถsti - eats pork in the form of lard and chopped bacon. In ordinary household grease there is a part of pork fat. In well run restaurant kitchen pork bones are broken to bits, roasted together with vegetable and spice and boiled in order to produce a gravy and this gravy, accommodated in many variations is to be found in practically every stew or meat dish. There a percentage of pork in every decent veal sausage. A chicken or turkey fritter without some bacon is not edible because it is too dry. Everyone in Christendom is involved with the pigs: Some buy pigs in a poke, others make pigs of themselves, others yet keep a piggy-bank; but all eat of it. Twice I have broached the subject of this prohibition with Muslims in a private conversation. I have asked them what is written in the Coran about it. These people were Schiites, and Schiites have in these parts the reputation for being particularly fanatical. It seems indeed that Prophet Mohammed - blessed be His name - has prohibited the consumption of pork by the true believers. This prohibition is absolute in countries where Islam is State religion, but Mohammed is supposed to have said that this prohibition should not be enforced whenever an adequate food supply was not assured. Islam is certainly a great religion and Mohammed a wise and tolerant prophet. And all the more tragic is what a few bawlers and fanatics in Algiers and Tehran have made of His teaching. Concretely our plan was to commit these people to kitchen work and to train them in this task as thoroughly as possible. We were aware from the start that such training would require a number of months or even years. Subsequently to take the person to the counter and eventually as a waiter.
Today, after nearly seven assessment of this policy:
years,
we
can
draw
an
Without doubts we have hired a few dubious elements. They have never stayed for long. The overwhelming majority of the refugees who have found employment with us have demonstrated zeal, motivation, intelligence and a great amount of interest for their work. They have honored their contract, have never been a burden for this country, have always paid their taxes and their social security. They have performed tasks for which no Swiss could be found, particularly on week ends and in the evening. And after a number of years of true and loyal service they all have been thrown out of the country by our Government. But the duds and the criminals among them are still with us. With the lamps in the restaurant it also was one of those things. These thirteen lamps consist basically of a big globe of unpolished glass at the end of a chain. This globe is fixed at the chain through an iron bar which runs from one pole of the globe to the next. At the lower pole we find a wrought screw which holds the globe. Between the screw and the globe we also find a shell of copper, with a hole in its center, through which the bar comes. Fixed at the bar inside the globe three sockets for small electric bulbs. Those bulbs were forever burning out. Every time the lamp had to be taken apart. Once I had a fit of courage and took all the lamps apart and replaced all the burnt out bulbs. Hardly had I completed the job that I could start all over again. Each one of these lamps was a devilish contraption which produced a tango illumination at best. The time had come to get a bright idea. I pondered the problem for some time, and there came light. I summoned a locksmith and ordered him a "split" bar, I mean, I requested him to cut away the central part of the iron bar and to replace this part with a diamond,
large enough to contain a 25 watt economy lamp. To weld the diamond to the remaining upper and lower part of the iron bar, at the upper end of the diamond to weld a hook to which an ordinary bulb socket could be affixed. The work was executed on all lamps to my full satisfaction. With the time all ordinary bulbs in the house got replaced by economy lamps. Also before the first winter all the windows and doors were made weatherproof. In February 1989 we replaced the kitchen stove. The ancient stove was a 49.900 watt monster, with four large heating plates, two of which were faulty, three quick plates, two of which were damaged, two ovens without ambition, and a plate warmer and a steam table which were okay. Also the dish washing machine was replaced early. It was down and out. In the kitchen I had an oven with rotary blower installed, a steamer and a day refrigerator near the stove. The small staircase between counter and kitchen was obliterated. The internal phone system was put up to date. Between the counter on the main floor and the kitchen I had a plastic tube installed, alongside the food lift. The purpose of the thing was to send the orders of the office personnel to the kitchen: The waiter writes an order on the proper chit, puts the chit into a metal capsule, introduces the capsule into the tube at the counter end and the capsule comes crashing loudly into a metal bowl in the kitchen. Also the shouting through the lift shaft got replaced by an intercom. The work tables in the kitchen had long since been replaced. The cash register was ripe for the museum, the coffee machine was down and out. Thank God we had brought our own coffee machine from the Bernese Oberland. The main staircase needed a fresh coat of paint, as well as the windows inside and outside. Also the cellars were in pitiful shape, particularly the wine reserves and the liquors. French wines, totally undrinkable on account of their damaged labels, of their overage or simply because they were out of fashion. The situation with the Swiss wines was hardly better. In a particular instance I found six wines of the same origin, each from a different producer. The liquor cellar was
filled with non-sellers, Weisflog, Amer Picon, St. Raphael, Diableret, all those things that were out of fashion already as I was still young. All this had to disappear. The worst wines landed in the kitchen and were used for marinades, those which were less bad - but not much better - were sold by the glass. About the liquors and aperitifs from another age we should not ask too many questions. They have fulfilled their last duty. Of the predecessor who bought these anachronisms and didn't know how to negotiate them may be said what is said of a good doctor of medicine: "The sun shines over his successes, and the earth covers his failures". Most of these activities supported no delays. I did all I could myself. Klara helped me all she could but she was taken by the restaurant, the laundry and the children. Her workload was crushing, but she never complained, was always in a good mood, and yes, she always took time for our two daughters. Never would Sylvia and Suzi have gone to bed without a good night kiss, without a bed story, or at the very least without having told what they had done during the day. In the morning she'd always be first on her feet in order to prepare the breakfast for them. One should not think, however, that this constructive period of our existence would have been a single drudgery. We still found time for an occasional swim, for a walk, for a game of chess. I took the time to write a few reader's letters for a specialized review. That all these renovation jobs were using stacks of money need not even be mentioned. Our last financial reserves were long since exhausted and our bank account reached abysmal depths. And then came that thing with the cooling system.