Enraging Externships.

This post will not be pleasant; you have been warned.

I am not sure where to start with this concept. Let's start by defining professionalism. In my opinion, a professional person is one who wants his business to succeed. A professional is prompt, polite, and most of all, does not go back on his word. A professional should treat people with respect, even if they are not his superiors. I don't care what industry you're involved in, the core of professionalism should remain the same.

That being said, the industry that I have chosen for my career path, that I have fallen head-over-heels in love with, is full of people who don't know a damn thing about having a professional mindset. I have been completely screwed over by my original externship site: the restaurant Craigie on Main in Cambridge, MA. They could have warned me in advance not to come out for my second stage when they realized they might not be able to afford an extern, but they didn't. They allowed me to come work an eleven hour shift FOR FREE without even a hint that there could be a problem with my externship offer.

I've moved on. I've realized that I now have hardly any time to find a new externship site, but I haven't let that get me down. I've applied to 30+ places all over the country. Guess how many I've heard back from?

ZERO.

That's ZERO responses. Not even rejection letters, just people being too damn lazy to even write me an email to let me know that they aren't interested/aren't accepting externs/already have an extern/went out of business/whatever the hell else their reasoning could be.

Needless to say, I'm discouraged. I am flat out disappointed in this industry. I am not a naive person, I understand that people are busy, that not everyone is nice and helpful and wonderful; but I had at least a sliver of hope that the restaurants listed on my SCHOOL'S WEBSITE would be a little bit more responsive than the ones that I sought out on my own. This is completely untrue. Chef Tom Gray from Bistro Aix in Jacksonville, FL has proved to be the only decent chef that I have contacted. He didn't even do much, he just called me to tell me he could not take me as an extern. BUT AT LEAST HE CALLED. We can't have spoken for more than five minutes, but those five minutes mean more now than I ever thought they would.

So here's a word to all of you chef/restaurant owners out there: you were me once. You were an eager student/cook/pastry chef/baker at one point in your life. You cannot treat people like this and expect anything good to come out of it. I will never forget being screwed over by Craigie, and I will never forget who finally does take a minute to send me an email to tell me they would be interested in at least having me to stage.

I'm good at what I do, and I'm extremely confident in my ability to succeed. I'm going to be someone someday, and I will never, NEVER ignore someone who is eager to learn. It's completely unprofessional and rude.