Hello from a line cook

Hello everyone, I just wanted to give you guys a chance to understand my background a bit before I went in and started asking the questions that I want to ask.

First off, I am not in the realm of very-fine dining. The first restaurant I worked for was Denny's, the one I currently work for is Red Lobster.

I have been working in commercial restaurants since I was 18... I turn 23 on Monday (11/29). I started off as a server, and ended up washing dishes through a crew shortage at my first restaurant. Later in my service to that restaurant, I was again bumped up, this time becoming a cook through another crew shortage.

I will say, that in everything I have done, I prefer washing dishes over everything else. However, I know that staying in one place is not exactly the best way to advance up through a company, so I am willing to learn and do whatever I need to do to become a better cook.

At my current restaurant, it was actually again through a call-off that I showed my general manager that I do have some skill at handling the cook's line when needed. I was actually only trained to be a fry-cook at my restaurant, but through observation and asking questions of current cooks, I was able to learn and eventually self-trained myself at Assemble, Grill and Broil. By the time I actually showed my skill and impressed my GM, there really wasn't a lot of training I needed, all I needed was more experience.

So a few weeks after I impressed my GM, I was told that they wanted to make an Expo, what Red Lobster now calls "Certified Grill Masters," CGM for short. This was not exactly what I had hoped for, but at the time, we had just lost one of our grill cooks to injury, another quit, so I was willing to do it to help them avoid burning out the only 2 grill masters we actually had left at the time.

Now, it seems that they are wanting me to continue grilling. My schedule now is usually 1 day a week in dish (the day where we come in during the morning and have to detail clean and re-assemble the broil ovens), and the rest of my schedule is CGM shifts.

This is where I will end my bio, and will post a link to my questions thread once I get it posted.

For those interested in the questions I have to ask, here is the link to my question thread.

http://www.cheftalk.com/forum/thread/63124/better-time-management#post_332029