Do we have any chefs here?

I know this is a strange thing to ask, but I'm thinking about a career change and I need advice.  I have been an electrician for a while now, but I don't know how much longer I can keep it up.  I work in new construction so I am either sweating my ass off or freezing it off.  My ankles, knees and back hurt most of the time, and I just feel like it's time for a career change.

I have this fantasy about going to culinary school, but I'm worried about making such a drastic change.  If we have any professional chefs on here, I would love to pick your brains.  Mostly what is the money like, and what is the work environment like.  

I know this is random on a car forum, but there is a huge range of knowledge here.

I think there are longer hours in the restaurant business and a lot of standing. My wife had a friend in it and drugs were big to keep the long hours.  

You make far more as an electrician, and it could even be less stressful playing with high voltage every day. 

Kitchens are hot year round, usually cramped, and successful ones are extremely fast paced. Adding in the solid, uncomfortable floors to stand on 6-12 hours a day, and your body won't like it any more than it does new electrical construction. 

Although, that may make me sounds like a hypocrite as I'm working on essentially a pop-up restaurant as we speak. But I've worked in both fields, and for the money vs stress, electrician wins for me. I'm opening a pop-up out of passion, and because my overhead is ridiculously low. 

I see you're down in Virginia, depending on where, that could affect wages, but the highest paid chefs (non owners) I know around Pittsburgh barely break $20/hour. The owner chefs make a bit more but deal with exponentially more problems to make up for it. Most of the chefs I know who aren't extremely passionate about it, have moved on to mental health fields or gone white collar desk job to get benefits as well as extra pay. 

You have to love it enough to be able to handle the bullE36 M3, and there will be a lot of bullE36 M3. Much like picking the right college, picking a culinary school can really set your life plan before you even finish. Some community colleges have fantastic well regarded programs. Le Cordon Bleu is a crap shoot, Culinary institute of America will make you some life long contacts, and looks good on a resume, but will take years to pay off. 

How do you feel about cruise ships or resorts? They come with their own special levels of bullE36 M3, but typically pay better and offer some fantastic experiences to compensate for not being able to go home every day. 

Chefs are the number one substance abuse trade per capita for a reason.  It's hard, thankless work. Even with a culinary degree, expect to be scrubbing pots and pans til your knuckles are gone. Very very few make it to the level of "successful". Most of the ones that I know aren't even chefs anymore, they're business owners and they have chefs work for them. Food trucks, caterers, convention. I know one that just opened a bbq brick and mortar,  but hes using his already (well) established catering business to bankroll it. Chefing is fun as E36 M3 til someone pays you for it. The artistic freedom is what made me consider it. The people I met made me think otherwise. 

Bad gig, and I carry baggage. Food service suxx.

Your description of all your troubles sounds like almost exactly what you would get in a kitchen, but you would cut yourself more often.

Do you want to make less than a teacher in Oklahoma ($30k/yr) while also working 70 hours per week?

My best friend works for Texas Roadhouse as a GM. He has an HRAD degree from OSU and a culinary management degree from a bug culinary school.

He loves it, but he also works 65-75 hours per week and makes probably 10-15k less per year than me at 40 hours per week.

He only makes as good as he does because he works for a corporate restaurant.

Being a chef isn't like being Alton Brown, Bobby Flay, etc. They all have failed relationships and substance abuse problems for a reason.

It's not glamorous work.

If you really think you want to do it, go work in an Olive Garden as a line cook for a year and see if you still want it.

My brother and I both went to engineering school.  I became a plumber, and he became an excellent chef.  He works insane hours.  We never see him at any family events in the summer because he is working.  The one aspect of his life thats cool is he switches jobs and travels around.  He will work at a ski place in the winter, and then on Martha's vineyard the next summer.  He is 44 years old and has no place to call home, and very few possessions.  His long time girlfriend goes with him.  She is a pastry chef and they always come as a pair.  I don't know how he does it, but its his passion.  I know he is getting a little burnt out.  This Summer he moved in with my dad and took a job at a catering company, so he could be around the rest of the family for a summer.  He is still not around on weekends, but at least we can see him now.  Plan was to throw him a big birthday party this weekend, but you guessed it, he's working two weddings.

Did it for a few years, Wednesday is your day off, weekends?  Psshhhhtttt, no way!  Family?  All the good cooks I met are either alcoholics or working n their 5th ex-wife.

After my son left the Masters Program at Pratt when he learned the whole "starving artist" thing was real, he worked in Management.  His GF now wife was more like a room mate with benefits.  Hardly ever saw each other.  The attrition rate and roll over rate for chefs and line cooks is incredibly high compared to any other industry.

Good luck, but I would look for something more fulfilling and financially secure dog walking.

I was never a chef but did my back restaurant time. Had some fun, learned some lessons and learned that i wasn't cut out for that lifestyle. Lots of drugs. Not weed either(plenty of weed but that wasnt the prob). Hard stuff.

I have issues with my current position(mechanic of sorts), but the pay, benefits and relative freedom are quite good. 

Dont do it. Thing about crummy jobs, as long as your getting paid good, decent benefits and have a ok schedule, crummy jobs really arent THAT bad. You would be going to something with probably more stress, more BS, horrible hours and most likely far less pay.  Unless your extremely lucky and make it big and become well known which just by the numbers is almost impossible. 

I havent read his books but i did love his shows, maybe read anthony bourdains early books. I think he painted a brutally honest and not very pretty picture of the food industry. 

Also another point, are you currently working alone as an electrician? If so its just you you have to worry about. Food service is full of kids, flunkies, junkies, bums and a scattering of good folk. You dont want to count on them for your success. 

Rough reviews, I hope you've taken it all in and stay out of the kitchen.

If you're feeling beat up doing new construction, come work in facility maintenance.  I know that the gubmint will hire a good electrician, pay him well, and not work him too hard.  Just a thought.

In reply to rustyvw :

I too will just chime in with the summary and rephrase of your statement....  " I am a qualified electrician who is focused on new construction and not liking it."  

Answer: get out of new construction and put your Electrician skills to some other side of the industry.  For example: take a job with a firm who does electrical repair.  Your inches away from HVAC or maybe a HVAC company needs a dedicated electrician, etc.  

If what I read is true, Electricians are in high demand.  Not happy with current role then find a new role.  It should be easy.  

Thanks for all the advice, I guess I hadn't really thought it through very much.  I enjoy cooking, but I bet that's because I can do it in my own kitchen with no stress. 

The thing I love about this forum is that no matter what the question you will get an honest answer from people with experience.  

I’ve spent my share of time in kitchens. I can confirm everything that has already been said. Don’t do it. One place pushed me to a full nervous breakdown and I’m surprised I quit without getting committed or burning the place down. I was also the only person on staff who could pass a drug test. 

Well, this is my first post in GRM........

I, too, love to cook at home. And do the majority of cooking in the house. And find it a way to de-stress and have the food I like to eat

Used to live in the SF Bay Area (up until a couple of years ago) , and you have probably heard all about the hot culinary scene there. In Glassdoor, they are showing the pay for an executive chef in the SF Bay Area at $ 80K. For that area, $80K isn't that great of a wage, especially considering the amount of work you would need to do. 

I have a career in sales, and it has paid fairly well over all the years. As a thought, if you are looking for a challenging career that can pay well, you may want to consider sales. A lot of your knowledge would probably be transferable to product knowledge. Maybe industrial electric products, maybe some of the distributors that also sell industrial controls and automation.

And you would need to gain sales skills. However you would be bringing along your technical knowledge.

It is certainly not without stress, however it has been called the hardest easy job you can have.

TJL said:

I havent read his books but i did love his shows, maybe read anthony bourdains early books. I think he painted a brutally honest and not very pretty picture of the food industry. 

Yes - I was thinking "Kitchen Confidential" is a good book to read if you're thinking of being a chef. My only experience as a cook was a summer job in a Waffle House, and it was enough to learn I'd rather not make that my career. Believe it or not, the Waffle House gig seems to have been a less dysfunctional work environment than the ones Anthony Bourdain depicted, although the pay was just minimum wage.

Watch "Restaurant Impossible". 

Its week after week of people who just had to get into the restaurant business because of their interest in owning a restaurant but no clue as to what it really meant.  Some did the professional chef training and failed at managing the money side and/or personal management side.   Some have no clue about cooking, cannot manage money and also piss off their employees all the time because of micromanagement of the wrong issues. 

My college roommate was Culinary Arts and ended up being head chef at a kinda swanky place downtown.  I make about the same money as he does and I work for a non-profit theater, but his days start at 7am and don't end until about 11pm.  It is a ridiculously high-stress job, but he loves it.  I think that's the key.  You have to LOOOVE it or it will own you.

He gets up early and goes to the market to plan the specials menu and makes food orders to be delivered.  He takes the meats with him and the produce comes on a truck around 9 or 10.  So from 8-11 he and his crew are doing prep while he prints the specials menu and shows the sous chefs how to do it, they open at 11, and it is non-stop hectic stress until 10pm when the kitchen closes.  Then the cleanup and next-day prep start.

I couldn't do it.  I love doing it for myself.  Tonight I'm planning a lovely pan-seared miso teriyaki swordfish steak, with coconut-roasted kale with turmeric and yeast, and garlic mashed redskin potatoes, but if I had to do that 150 times a day while I have 50 orders backed up and three tables complaining about how their steak is overdone, I'd probably take a lemon zester and stab it in my eye.