Hi chefs,

Need advice please.

This 5 star hotel i work for 2 months, got me assigned at breakfast larder for buffet and VIP club lounge. The ingredients including juice bar, fruit plates, charcuterie, cereal, dips, jam, bread, pastries, packed mini yogurt, bottled kombucha among other things that I have to set up, are 3 pages long more or less, only for buffet. I have 1.5 hours each morning to bake pastries, reheat bread loaves, and set up both areas. Then when breakfast finishes, i have 2.5 hours to pull everything out and set up the trolley again for the next day.

I really, really am trying to stay positive and think to myself that if i can overcome this I can handle any other kitchen, but for f sake, it is so hard. Cant count how many times i skipped break just so i can prep. In average i'm always 15-30 minutes behind the rostered hours.

Since i'm a part timer, i'm filling in the days when the full timer is having his off days and i never receive any handover so there are some mornings when i spent minutes trying to figure out what happened etc.

To top it up, the kitchen is so old school. There's only 1 kitchen hand working everyday and he has to handle both crockeries and gastros in separate section. Gastro area, mind you, doesn't have any machine, so handwash. Most times i have to pull out sticky trays and gastros. There are 3 if not 4 cool rooms where stuff aren't properly labelled and most times it took me 3-5 mins to try and locate things. Its like there's an invisible system that everyone can see but not me.

We dont have direct access to get cling wraps or gloves so often in the morning, I dont have any in my section and to wait for the kitchen hand to retrieve them for me can be time consuming. Oh have I mention i need to fill out small teacups and glasses with housemade smoothies, chia pudding, and bircher muesli? Because they are not specifically crockeries assigned for breakfast, often i wait for after service and had to ask nicely to the kitchen hand to wash them for me so i can prep it for next day. On a good day, he will hand them out to me quick and they're clean. On a bad day, he wouldn't remember at all cause he has lots to do.

Last week, i had to bake my pastries in the dark cause the light didn't work. The premise also is going to open a steak house but the management doesn't want to get a new fridge, so breakfast hot section has to make room.

Everytime i go to work, I feel anxiety and stressed, and keep saying to myself, this is it i'm gonna quit but i stay put and giving benefit of the doubt. Have i mention we have no step or proper label? So if we need something from the top shelf, often i see they just climb the rack.

I needed to vent, especially after today.