No substitutions please? The story of a missing 'Top Chef'

I'm all for work/life balance, and a staunch believer in teamwork, customer service, and standards of excellence. But what does one do when more two or more of these business tenets conflict at an intersection?

This past weekend, I traveled to visit my family. My brother is in town from the West Coast with his children. My sister and her beau also made the trip so that we could have dinner as a family. After a beautiful Saturday afternoon of sitting by the pool, steps from the Atlantic Ocean, we went upstairs to ready for dinner. Where my mother lives, the lobby of the building is home to a dining room with a well known local chef at the helm. Since Mom's oven is a repository for phone books, needless to say, she and her husband are frequent guests at this eatery.

Nine of us sat down to dinner, opened a few bottles of wine, and placed our orders. It was chaos from then on. Orders were incorrect. Recipes had been changed. Food was overcooked. Sides were missing. Special requests had been ignored. The Maitre'D, who was circulating through the dining room, was very apologetic when he noticed our server making continual trips to our table. At one point I jovially asked him, "Who took the night off in the kitchen?" as a humorous way to let him know it was not the wait staff at fault. He looked at me and said, "You don't want to know," with a tone in his voice that hinted, "This night is not going to be pretty." It turns out, his father is the Executive Chef. He has been running the kitchen for over a year, but prior to accepting the position, had made a commitment to cater a large event that evening being held in a neighboring town, but neglected to mention it to the rest of the staff. My guess is that a sous chef had to play team captain at the last minute.

So, in honoring his commitment to a previous customer, the oversight of not communicating his intended absence sent the rest of his team into a tailspin! It is likely that while each person was well trained to do their own job to the best of their ability, no other member of the culinary team was prepared to step into the leadership role vacated for the evening by the missing chef.

The customer service was there, and the teamwork was there, but along the line, the standard of excellence went out the window because there was no one there to safeguard quality. In a restaurant, being a control freak may not be the way to go - secret recipes are just not an option.

Just one more justification for cross-training and grooming team members for promotion. You never know when one will have to step in to save the day. Without the proper skills, it's a recipe for disaster!