CLIP: The Reason Most People Give Up Right Before It Gets Good, with Chef Paul Ainsworth

0:00That's where hospitality now, I feel, is in such a brilliant place in that, you know, everyone has worked so hard to kind of actually sort of, yeah, you can have a brilliant career and you don't have to work, you know, the hours that we all once worked.

0:14Olly Fawcett:Do you think that's because of what was going on in the 90s and noughties in terms of the crazy hours? Because you must have done some crazy hours and probably got close to the crossroads or Hospital Road or wherever you are, maybe that kind of came across. Do you think the industry has changed because it was almost broken? yeah it was almost broken and i think the the new the new generations coming through just questioned more but and this is now you know this is i am talking about me okay nobody else i am talking about me yes i didn't question it but i loved it and so you never got close to the crossroads yeah you did absolutely but i never got close to the crossroads because i felt it was the hours it was always me is it not being good enough yeah i got sacked i got sacked at gary roads told to leave pack my pack my shit and go for what i'd um started service and we were in service i was by now and by now as well i've reached quite a decent level on the senior chef to party oh wow after two years yeah wow and um we were flat out we were short teams and anyone that worked it worked for gary in those years knows it is the stocks that you made were immaculate and the method was immaculate right and i won't go into it but one of the secrets was you would have the big stock pots you would put them on a low gas and you would bring them to a haze with steam right and then you would turn them down even more you wouldn't even get close to a boil maybe like a like a simmer and the way that you did the veg and the pig's feet and all the bones instantly you you add what looked like gravy instantly and again i i'm not going to go into because it's it's too long in in the method but then once it come up you'd get these racks and you push them down and you would then be able to skim them and then you'd skim and skim and skim these were on for three days three days one stock three days as soon as they came off then the chicken would go on so now i'm talking about you're making your beef stock you're vealing your beef stock so i've gone up for service we're short teamed i'm late setting up service kicks off we are in for a monster dinner service and i've not set my time i've not gone back downstairs i've got the gas on kind of full till they've come up and they are boiling i mean boiling boiling boiling i've run downstairs three massive um stock pots three days that these things are going to be on is this the third day or is this at the start no this is at the start of the process and it is like like your latte there basically it looks like mud like they're all like mud and chap i'm telling you about steve smith uh i can't get away with i'm doing everything i i'm literally like i'm i'm shaking i'm like i i don't know what to do i'm like i've got to get back up on service anyway he comes down and he sees it and he goes absolutely crazy crazy because it's a genuine mistake you make genuine like it was just it just slipped the mind and he threw me off the service he he basically grabbed my knife box like like gave it to me like that and was like yeah i won't I'm not going to like a lot of, a lot of, uh, I went home, Ollie, I didn't sleep.

3:42I cried. I cried all night. How did you actually feel?

3:45Olly Fawcett:Did you feel like your career was over? Everything was over. It was over. It was done. I was, I was, I was, yeah, I was done. Was there no part of you at such an age being at all rational? Was it completely irrational thinking? Rational thinking, rational thinking. I'm done. Uh, but what's funny is it knows it, what still is apparent now is, is that they then come in the next morning and gone fucking hell we're in the shit today so i get this phone call from mike who was another he was a sous chef he was awesome as well um yeah mike like you're right i'm like yeah and he's like um steve wants a chat so i come in and like i'm like and he's like steve's like uh yeah you know look it was a bit out of hand last night and you know i think you know what you did wrong and i'm like yes yes steve anyway all right well right all right well stop fucking about get upstairs and let's go like this he was like so you know he was never gonna go i'm sorry i went too far uh it was very much like um listen let's just get on with it and we did and and again it was and i've had kind of a carver many a moments like that you know in in my career where you reach breaking point you reach the crossroads and sometimes people get to the crossroads and they will take a path that is they're not going to continue.