Disclaimer, take everything i say with a grain of salt. Ocd is a sickness and i’m not underrating it.
I have something you could call mild ocd. Something I see as a good thing, if thinking of my profession. I’m highly organized when it comes to my workstation, and I get really annoyed if someone messes my setup. So why am I calling it ocd? Being organized isn’t same thing. Because for me it is compulsive. I don’t have fears or panic if I don’t get my stuff the way I like it, I have no feeling that something awful would happen. Let’s face it, I’m still mostly just really logical person. I like my station organized and my plating as a chaos. See? Balance.
As said, being organized isn’t ocd, being compulsive about it starts to cross the line. I let it be a little compulsive for me, at work. At home, I couldn’t care less. Balance! At work I have to be the most efficient version of my self, and years and years of practice have made it happen.
I’ve talked about blindfold method before, it is something I use when I sharpen my knives. The same kind of method I use in kitchen in general, not by working eyes closed but more like not looking what my hands are doing.
Let me elaborate.
When plating food you have almost everything prepared. When you go to restaurant and order something there is very little any cooking involved at this point. Sorry to crush your image.
I work in the cold section of kitchen, which means I’m in charge of starters and desserts. There usually are from 3 to 8 components per dish and everything needs to be plated fast. When you have just random stuff in random drawers you are pretty much screwed from beginning.
Here comes the blindfold method in use. Everything is, and needs to be in specific order in specific drawers so when you open the drawer there is everything you need for the dish in order you need them. Simple isn’t it? When you learn your order and you can count to it be there you don’t have to look anymore. This cuts down second from plating and let’s face it, when you are dealing with hungry human beings, every second counts.
When I plate a dish I watch only the plate. Not the drawers or dispos (disposable case). I don’t need to watch anything else I know the order is there.
This is why I feed my ocd, I find it useful in the way that helps my profession and makes my work more efficient and fast.
And here we go again! A little, teeny tiny RANT! As said my workstation is always on mint condition, when I work there. It is just mandatory. But there is the thing I can’t work 24/7/365 alone (I would if I could….) so I have to let some people to enter my kingdom. Sometimes these people use same kind of method but they have their own order which is totally fine, we get each other and after our shift we change it back to be suitable for next shift.
Then there are those people who just fuck up your order and takes just benefits that others are nite and organized. This is something I face in every place I ever work in. Lazy-motherfuckers.
I’ve been raised in family of entrepreneurs, so I always think what is best for the ”house”. I do my decisions by looking at the bigger scale, not just the next paycheck. I know I don’t have to, and even i shouldn’t but it is something that is build in me. Take care of the house the house will take care of you.
It has tendency to fail miserable when people around you are there thinking only the next paycheck, or not even that. Tho this is something I face everywhere, so not like this is anything new. People are shortsighted as a species so why would I be surprised?
Before people get any wrong impression, I still like my new job and my profession, and my co-worker more than in the last place. The laziness in here is only 1/10 if we would compare it to laziness of the people in my previous kingdom. But being a underachiever is something I can’t stand, no matter how much I would like the place or people.
