Part of the Kitchen Foundations track. Lesson 10 of 10.
The sequence
Give it ninety days.
Notice what you look forward to.
Notice what you dread.
And be honest about which is which.
The decisions
Whether to stay. This lesson exists because the alternative is that the decision gets made by attrition rather than by choice, and somebody leaves without knowing what they were leaving.
Some honest things about the work. The hours are the hours — nights, weekends, and the days everyone else has off. The pay is what it is early. The physical cost is real.
And what it gives back. A skill that travels. Work whose result is finished at the end of every shift, which most work is not. A kind of team you do not find in many places. And a craft with a floor and no ceiling.
What to ask yourself at ninety days. Did I get better at anything specific? Did I look forward to any part of it? Did the hard parts get easier or only more familiar?
And whether the room is the problem rather than the work. A bad kitchen can make good work feel unbearable, and that is worth separating before deciding — because the trade is not the same as the building.
What you are reading
Yourself, honestly.
What goes wrong here
The decision made by exhaustion rather than by judgment.
And a bad room mistaken for a bad trade.
Verification
Write down at day one what you expect. Read it at day ninety.
The boundary
This is not career advice and it is not a promise. Employment decisions belong with you, and anything involving wages, hours, or conditions belongs with a licensed attorney.