Pexels/Reddit

Kitchen and front-of-house tension is nothing new, but there’s a difference between normal service pressure and just straight-up bullying.

One waiter has been dealing with an increasingly hostile work environment when she continued to be targeted by a chef who seemed to have his sights set on her.

Despite having a strong track record with the actual head chef, this one consistently treated her differently than the rest of the staff.

So during a severely understaffed shift the same chef spent the day fixating on minor mistakes and demanding she move faster, despite there being no physical way to do so.

It escalated enough that the chef’s own wife had to step in and defend her on the floor.

You’ll want to keep reading for this one.

debating on leaving from a disrespectful chef

I’ve worked as a waiter at a restaurant for 2-3 years now, and have always clashed with one chef. He’s not head chef or anything, and the actual head chef is really kind and never has any issue with my capabilities at work, and neither do any of my FOH managers.

There was one big incident that really messed with her confidence.

There was a large disagreement when I was told, in service, to take out a dish with the ticket down, and then was scrutinized for not spotting the missing garnish, and I then had two chefs shouting at me and insulting me.

My manager reprimanded them both and this chef stopped talking to me completely.

But lately, the chef is starting to be rude towards her again.

However, in recent months he has been creeping back into his old ways.

Today we were severely understaffed and I was doing 2-3 people’s jobs at once, so naturally service was slow.

This didn’t prevent the chef from monitoring her every move.

However, this chef decided to spend the day nitpicking how I stamped my tickets, once again not spotting a tiny mistake of his (which I admit, I should have spotted), and constantly telling me to hurry up when I literally could not move any faster.

It got to the point where the expo/team leader, who is also his wife, had to defend me, saying that we could not move any faster.

She doesn’t understand where she went wrong.

I feel almost defeated. I’m polite, I never protest what he says, and he’s never like this with any other current staff, and multiple people who used to work here a while ago complained but nothing ever happens.

It sounds like this chef just unfairly has it out for her.

What did Reddit have to say?

This fellow restaurant employee confirms this chef is holding her to unreasonable standards.

Maybe another conversation with the actual boss is overdue.

One thing’s for sure: this behavior can’t be allowed to continue.

It’s also time to start building a paper trail.

Nobody else on staff seems to trigger this level of scrutiny, which is exactly why all of this feels so personal.

A previous formal reprimand from the boss should have ended this bullying permanently, but it wasn’t even a month before the same harassment continued.

Getting defended by the chef’s own wife on the floor is a pretty strong signal that even people close to him recognize the behavior crossed a line.

At this point, maybe getting a new job would be for the best.