Chương 27: The Distrusted Returner

"Hey, Chris, what are you standing around for? Go grab the beef bones and aromatics for the sauces, now!" Jack's impatient voice cut into Chris's thoughts. He raised his head to see Jack speaking to him in a commanding tone, brow furrowed, plainly displeased with Chris's "drifting off."

"Got it." Chris answered without arguing, and turned toward the storeroom. Passing Sarah, she said to him in a low voice, "That's just how Jack is. Don't take it to heart. He doesn't mean anything by it — he's just a little… wound up." Chris knew Sarah meant well, and gave her a small smile to show he was fine. Of course he wouldn't take it to heart. In his eyes, Jack was, right now, a project risk to be analyzed and managed. In the huge walk-in cooler, Chris took inventory of what he needed for the sauces.

Beef bones, veal stock, black pepper, an array of herbs, butter, cream, lemon… As he selected, he was rapidly building the workflow and timeline in his head. And then he heard an argument outside.

"Jack, I don't think this works!" It was Jessica's voice — always steady, but now edged with heat too.

"You've given me the entire hot-line for the strip, the salmon, and the pork burger, all alone. That's just not realistic! The grill, the skillet, and the oven all need running at the same time. I don't have six arms!" Jack's voice rose too.

"So what's that supposed to mean? I'm captain, I arranged it this way for a reason! You've got the most hot-line experience on the team — if you don't hold that station, who does?"

"I can handle the grill and the oven, but searing the salmon needs very precise heat control — someone has to be dedicated to it!" Jessica held firm.

"And on Sarah's side, the wings need frying and the burger patties need searing. One person on two stations plus assembly — it'll absolutely fall apart during the rush!"

"Then what do you want me to do? This is all the people we've got!" Jack's tone had gone thoroughly impatient. In the cooler, listening to the argument outside, the corner of Chris's mouth curved imperceptibly. Just as expected. It had begun. Jack's allocation was classic "take-it-for-granted." He'd seen only what each person was best at and crudely piled the matching tasks on them, with no thought for workflow or conflict when tasks ran in parallel. It was the most basic error a failing project manager made.

Chris was in no hurry to go out and voice an opinion. He knew that going out now would only be read as a challenge to Jack's authority — adding fuel to the fire. He needed to wait for a better moment. He carried a big box of beef bones and aromatics out of the cooler. The argument outside was still going. Sarah and Owen had joined the discussion too, and the whole Blue Team had churned into a porridge of confusion. Fifteen minutes of prep time gone, and they hadn't even settled the most basic division of labor.

"Enough! Stop arguing!" Jack roared, forcing everyone's voices down.

"We do it the way I said! This is prep time, not a debate! Got a problem, save it for service! Now move, all of you!" Under Jack's heavy hand, the argument quieted for the moment. Jessica, reluctant, still went to her station. Sarah and Owen traded a look and could only start working, resigned. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. The whole Blue Team's atmosphere had, from the very start, fallen into a vicious cycle of stiffness and distrust.

Chris set his ingredients down at his sauce station and started on the bones, preparing to make stock. His motions unhurried, as if the chaos around him had nothing to do with him. But his ears and eyes scanned the whole kitchen like radar. He saw Jack working the strip steaks — skilled hands, but cutting the beef with too much force, betraying the agitation inside him. He saw Jessica handling salmon and asparagus at once, struggling to stay composed, the worry between her brows impossible to hide.

He saw Sarah mixing the wing marinade, glancing now at the fryer, now at the burger patties, plainly overwhelmed by tending two complex processes at once. What caught his eye most was Owen, the fast-handed Asian guy. He was working through a mountain of cabbage and carrot for the slaw, his knife so fast it left afterimages, his efficiency astonishing. But Chris noticed that the cut strands were heaped carelessly in a big bowl with no preservation.

In this dry, air-conditioned environment, by the time dinner service began, the texture and moisture of those strands would be badly diminished. A fatal oversight of detail. Chris quietly noted all of it. He didn't reproach anyone, didn't correct anything. Because he knew that, before earning absolute trust, any "well-meant" suggestion of his would be read as provocation. What he had to do now was finish his own task to perfection, and then wait for them to hit the wall on their own.

"Hey, new guy." A voice came from the side. Chris turned to find Jack leaning against his counter, watching him work the bones with a scrutinizing gaze.

"You look pretty practiced at this stock business," Jack said, his tone complicated — testing, and a little unwilling to concede.

"Used to work in a restaurant," Chris answered simply.

"Yeah?" Jack raised an eyebrow.

"Which one? A Michelin three-star?" The words carried open sarcasm. Plainly he still took Chris for the lucky guy who could only do potatoes. Chris stopped, wiped his hands, raised his head, and looked Jack straight in the eye.

"Jack, we're a team now. Every doubt you throw at me only burns the little time we have. If you don't believe I can do the sauces, swap someone in right now. If you do, then let me work." His tone was calm, but the weight in the words left Jack stunned. He hadn't expected Chris to push back so directly. He'd thought Chris would stay silent like before, or offer a few words of defense.

"I — of course I believe in you!" Jack, caught short, said with a blustering edge.

"I'm just reminding you, don't slip up! Sauce is the soul of the mains!"

"I won't." With that, Chris ignored him and returned to his work. Jack looked at Chris's steady back and felt a surge of agitation. He sensed that his authority as captain had never truly been established from the start. Jessica didn't accept him, Sarah and Owen had doubts, and now this new Chris was more like a lion in a cage — calm on the surface, yet exerting a pressure on him he couldn't name. He stalked off in irritation to check on the others' progress, ceaselessly urging, "Faster! Faster!

The Red Team's already started their sauces! We can't fall behind!" Chris listened to the urging without a ripple inside. He knew that "fast" in a kitchen was never something you shouted into being. Without sound process and division of labor, the more you pushed, the more it broke down. He put the prepped bones into the oven to roast at high heat, drawing out a richer char. Then he began on the other sauces.

He didn't, like an ordinary cook, pile every ingredient together; with a programmer's mind, he broke each sauce into modules. Lemon butter sauce: butter, lemon juice, white wine, herbs. He weighed the butter precisely, pre-juiced and strained the lemon, minced the herbs. Everything sorted into small bowls, labeled. Black pepper sauce: veal stock, cognac, cream, cracked black pepper. He wrote the process on a small card, precise to the time and temperature of each step.

Buffalo wing sauce: hot sauce, butter, vinegar, garlic powder. He even made a small test batch ahead of time, checking the balance of acid and heat. His station was the cleanest, most orderly corner of the whole Blue Team kitchen. Everything laid out in perfect order, like a precision instrument. Sarah, in her scramble, found a moment to glance at Chris's station, and surprise flickered through her eyes.

She realized Chris wasn't just good at cooking — his extreme command of process management looked more like a seasoned head chef's. Time passed minute by minute. Chris finished all of his prep, and even had time to help Owen cover his big bowl of nearly-dehydrated slaw with a damp cloth. And on the other side of the kitchen, the chaos was only beginning.