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Old 7th Sep 2006, 11:23
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gulfboy
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Planet Earth
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Are you girl-chef or boy-chef (not that it matters, but we are a bit short on female colleagues) and how old are you?

Inflight hefs will be trained as FAs for safety reasons with all the related duties and responsibilities (I'm sure your flying relatives can explain in detail. Doesn't matter which company thy fly for. Much of a muchness, really).

Chef's responsibility is MAINLY to look after the pax in First class (and the pilots), but also to have an eye out for Business class and the odd problem in Economy class.
DON"T expect to do a lot of cooking. It is mostly heat and serve. Food comes in kit-form, a bit like food Leggo, and you assamble meals to pax's requests. Your creativity is needed to make the food look good.
Your job is to be seen in the cabin, talk to pax interact with themand market the product.
So if you are shy and can't string a sentence together or can't make up a few entertaining yarns every now and then, the job isn't for you.

You will work with people from many cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Some of whom can be, let's say, a bit "challenged". YOU run the show in F class and have to work with and direct your Flight Attendant who will do most of the serving, whilst you prepare the food. Most of them are very well trained, but you come across some mindnumbingly stupid ones as well. Then you must keep your cool. It ain't a kitchen, where you can chuck a potato after a daft waiter. Controll is everything and the walls have ears..

Pay is OK, but the Aussie Dollar is way too strong for our taste. You'll ed up with (ballpark figure) AUD 3700 in your hot little hands. (Tax free)
Accommodation of a nice standard will be provided. Fully furnished (down to the teaspoons) flats with utilities paid for. Local phone calls are paid foe as well "up to a certain limit", but fear not, in 4+ years I didn't have to chip in to the phone bill. Duty transport to/from work is provided, but this is very infuriating and after 2 or 3 months every chef I know off buys or leases a car here. (Buying a runaround from AUD 1500 to BMW and leasing from around AUD 250/month fully insured) and if you don't use company transport they give you a few dinars extra per month.

Free time. Mostly spent in bars, clubs, restaurants. It's a small country, so you will get to know the faces. Downside, EVERYONE knows each others business, and what we don't know, we make up. The most stupid rumours get around the fastest.

Bottom line.
A nice job to have for a few years if you do not mind to be tired all the time and don't mind spending 250 nights a year in some manky hotel room.
Danger is that if you do this job for too long, that you will lose touch with the "real" industry and find it difficult to go back into a proper kitchen...
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