|
Hello all, count me among those who cannot wait to get out of the restaurant industry. I've worked in casual chain, mom and pop kitchens, "upscale" seafood and BBQ and come to the conclusion that it is all poo poo. I just found out that I'm going to be delayed a year before starting school so I'm in the lovely position of switching my mindset from not giving a gently caress about my last six months. On the upside, reading this thread has been a very powerful reminder of why I swore I would starve under a bridge before working fullservice again. Highlights of my so-called career so far: - Cleaning up the aftermath of a grease trap backup. If you haven't experienced this, remember Tremors 2 and the exploded graboids? poo poo looks like the insides, has the consistency of liquified plastic, and smells like someone seared a wart-infested anus with a melted plastic rod and let that smell marinate in an airtight room for a month. - Getting kicked out in the middle of service because I rolled my eyes at a server. I don't do the whole FOH v. BOH crap but at capacity on a Friday evening is not the best time to have literally <50% order accuracy. This was the same place that staffed an Oompa Loompa, rarely had amuse more than 30 minutes into service, and ended up having their entire chain bought out for less than dollar value and their entire board of directors fired the next day. - The BBQ I worked for did catering, and each store had a car that was covered in a giant company ad. Every square inch minus the legally required clear areas like the windshield and headlights. One of the catering guys was running late one day so he decided to hit 90 on the highway. Of course he gets pulled over. Bad enough that he's sitting there in a car with the company name proudly displayed on the side, the client he was on his way to deliver to actually passed him while the cop was writing out the ticket. Somehow he didn't get fired. Not a month later I missed a turn on a run out in BFE, got busted for going ten over in a small town speed trap to the tune of $250, and realized I had left a dessert item at the store....40 loving minutes away. I don't miss catering runs. -Dislocating a shoulder. I only add this because I'm pretty sure this is a relatively rare injury in foodservice. Hurt like hell but the demerol was well worth it.
|
#
¿
Aug 2, 2013 13:59
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 5, 2024 12:19 |
|
|
I think I posted in here once before. My job is definitely not a career, but it pays well enough. I'm here to add my senseless bitching to the thread: We recently replaced part of our POS soft/hardware. The registers didn't change, but the monitor that displays tickets to the line was replaced with a bigger, clearer-view screen on an adjustable arm mount, while the software was, ahem, "upgraded" to make it easier to understand what's being rang in and all that. The new features include: - A "Average order time" readout. No once gives a poo poo about this, including the owners, because they care more about the customer getting a good product than they do about whether an order went over the magical line of "gently caress you you're fired". -A "% completed on time" section, see above. -Room to display ten tickets instead of eight. The "features": - Call-ahead releases up to 45 minutes ahead of time with no differentiation between a newly arrived web order/call-in counter ringing up a previously completed order/some poo poo that no one needs until next week. -Call-aheads not coming up at all because why not. -Special instructions, e.g. dry, no x sub y, gluten-free, not showing up at all. -Scrambled orders. For example, we have a bread side that comes with a few certain entrees. The new system displays this side despite us already knowing it, and this same side can be used as part of sandwich items. So you can have three sandwiches, two platters, and three bread listings, and waste an extra second sussing out how many extras you need, then another thirty seconds waiting for the cashiers to tell you which sandwich the extra is for. Or you could just have three sandwiches pop up with three buns below them in random order and just hope you win this round of mix-and-match. This is largely inconvenience (and too long) but when you have a literal borderline retard working the other side of the window it's the poo poo cherry on a pile of assholes. Oh, and last month some rear end in a top hat spilled butter all over the grill and followed the instructions of another rear end in a top hat who told him to dump a gallon of water on it. In front of half of the dining room. In the middle of dinner. On a Friday night. I'm still uncertain whether it's for the better or worse that the fire suppression didn't go off. I'd have checked out so long ago if not for an awesome boss and an surprisingly favorable effort:hourly rate ratio.
|
|
#
¿
May 31, 2014 04:25
|
|
|
MAKE NO BABBYS posted:You REALLY need to care about ticket times and % orders complete on time. The place I work at is a hybrid. Imagine Chipotle with up to $20 menu items and a different cuisine. People can walk in, order food that is better quality than your average Applebee's or Olive Garden fare, and be at their table or out their door with it in less time than they would spend in a McDonald's drive-thru at the same time. It's a weird combination of things, but it works (at least for our/most stores).
|
|
#
¿
May 31, 2014 06:44
|
|
|
MAKE NO BABBYS posted:Tracking data points over time that directly relate to customer satisfaction, consistency and the capabilities of your staff make you McDonalds? Okay then. This is all fine, and I expect they probably do look at the numbers, and I really should have been more clear. I'm assuming that the previous system allowed them to pull those figures, but the new system actually shows the line people what % is "on time" and the average ticket time, which is useless to us because we know when we're loving up. The overall point was that we traded away a functional but older system for a new, flashy POS (get it?) that has a couple little bells and whistles at the cost of functionality.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 2, 2014 02:47
|
|
|
Just picked up a part-time job for extra money. Nothing 5-star, but a nice enough backwaiting spot to save some cash. It's always awkward starting at a new place and waiting to see just how closely actual operations follow the official policies. One of my bosses has a Mario toad head tattoo so it can't be that tightassed. Also we're getting a third-party health inspection soon and I just want it to be over. Come in, make sure we're following the dozens of little things the actual health department does not give a gently caress about, including the things that weren't an issue when you were here six months ago, and get the gently caress back out so I can do my job without going at half speed to make sure you don't mark us because I exhaled too sharply within ten feet of a food contact surface. I get it, it's a great line of defense if the company ever gets taken to court but there's covering your rear end and then there's just paranoia.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 10, 2014 07:28
|
|
|
Republicans posted:Last time we had a health inspection the cook who was working solo that morning got in an argument with the inspector over whether or not you have to wash onions before you cut them. He doesn't think very highly of women so, according to eyewitnesses, he laughed at her like she was an idiot. This is why I'm glad the managers deal with the Steritech people. I'm the smartass who would say something clever and piss them off. I will say I'm at least glad we aren't in the neighboring county. The main inspector there is a dick on wheels. I have seen him go through a stack of over 100 full-size sheet pans and cite a store for water nesting for a few drops of water. As in, count the number of drops on one hand from the entire stack. Another place (apparently) after their grand opening told him that they were too busy to deal with him and he would have to come back another time to inspect. I don't know if that really happened, but I do know that for the six months I was there (and assuredly after) he made life hell for every person in that store. They had to send a corporate chef out to try and fix things and honestly I don't even know how they're still open. He would come in with the fire marshal, get the store fined on every possible violation, even stuff like stuff on shelves being so many inches below the ceiling. He would make his rounds like a prison guard, gigging every last thing. People took writeups over trying to wash dishes with him around. He managed to get the place shut down twice, once was something way way way out of date in the walkin, IIRC he was able to document that it was the same product being served on the line. The other was a temp check that basically said our walking was a nice crisp 55F. Honestly the place was kind of a shithole, I think the only guests they get anymore are college kids who want to mix bottom-shelf drink specials with silk shirts and popped collars and open blouses and closed fists. I may have posted this before, but in case I didn't: I have a coworker who at the age of 30 did not know that when you spill three pounds of melted butter on a stove you do not follow it up with a gallon of water. This is a thing that was a surprise to a fully grown adult. Vorenus fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Jul 11, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Jul 11, 2014 07:11
|
|
|
Alobar posted:Man, why would someone spill three pounds of melted butter? Why? This is a few pages old, but I forgot about this thread and wanted to answer this: We have a butter wheel on the front of our grill for toast. Dumbass #1 somehow knocked it over, probably because he needs glasses but refuses to wear them because they get fogged up and contacts freak him out (bawwww). So he knocked it over onto the grill, and dumbass #2 thought it would be hilarious to tell him to throw water on it. Which he did. If it was up to me I would have fired both of them for being useless, but as is I'm just trying to work out putting in my two weeks'. I just finished being rushed through backwaiter training, the management at this place loves me to an extent that is almost unsettling. If it all keeps going well for the next couple of weeks, I'm going to make that my full-time job, find another part-time, and give my two weeks to the place I'm at now because holy poo poo I could write an epic series of hardback novels. Also the 80F meat stewing for a week, gently caress that. I'd rather go to court over not paying rent than clean that up. I may have posted about this before, but the worst kitchen mess I ever saw was when a grease trap/tank backed up and came bubbling up through every drain in the store. Thank God we were closed.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 31, 2014 00:41
|
|
And on the stove? Did this happen? Did that guy really throw a gallon of water on the stove?
|
I've only zested a few times, mostly for home use, but I've never had issues with a microplane. I did have one place that tried to have me use one of those zesters with the little claw on the end, which led to me pretty much mincing lemon skin because the thing was a piece. Spoilered because this is a shitstorm three years in the making: For the past calendar year, I have worked 12-hour shifts every single Saturday and Sunday with the exception of two weekends where I only worked one or the other, and two weekends where I took both days off. I have begged for adjusted scheduling and been told no, because of the other people who work my position, one has his set schedule and the other two suck. They refuse to fire the two who suck, or hire better people, or accept that they will never find a cook who will give a gently caress at $9/hour. In the same calendar year, I have gone from being unable to handle the core position in the store, to being second-best to a guy who is insanely good. At my annual review, I was given 50 cents and told that I was basically lucky to get a raise for "just showing up on time". I can, and have, literally ran circles around my bosses on this position; I have trained GMs on how to do my job so they have a good perspective for the following weeks when they start their six-figure-a-year position, yet I'm not good enough to be a certified trainer. If my coworkers somehow had their solemn vows of apathetic laziness and self-centered narrowmindedness carved onto the surface of the moon it could not make it more obvious than their attitudes already do. I have repeatedly caught more poo poo for asking them to do their jobs/asking a manager to step in/expressing in any way, small or large, my frustration, than any of them ever has for not doing their jobs. I can watch my coworker stand around for an hour with no guests, sit on his phone in the office for 30 minutes while a a manager does his job for him, and get paid more than I do, yet if I stop busing my balls for two minutes I get told "find something to do or I'll find you something" by some snotty little oval office who things she's hot poo poo because she wears a polo shirt in a loving barbecue joint. I have to answer to people who are literally retarded. I cannot go one weekend without being told that I missed these dozen items over the course of ten minutes, being condescendingly told to remake them, and then having ten of them sitting in the window twenty minutes later, at which point I'm told that I'm a bad worker because I made too much stuff I didn't need to make. For the love of Baby loving Jesus I have a boss I have to answer to who literally is loving illiterate and borderline retarded. I have seen hunchbacked geriatric Wal-Mart greeters with Down's who could manage this person's job with more competence. In contrast, I've had five training shifts and two actuals at my new part-time, and on every one at least one person has expressed their appreciation of my work ethic and attitude. Tonight they confirmed a few things I was unsure of, and I've worked out that depending on the week, I can make the same or more money over there with less than 1/10 of the stress. So, tomorrow morning my boss gets a two-weeks notice on an availability change. Among other things, no more weekends. I almost feel bad for how completely and totally hosed they are going to be until they find someone else. I'm honestly half-expecting to be fired on the spot while my boss has a fit of rage, but after the weakly-reasoned writeup I got recently I am literally incapable of giving a gently caress. I could never set foot in there again and not lose a single penny over it.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 5, 2014 04:20
|
|
|
Welp, I'm still at my lovely job holding out for a transfer at the end of the year. I'm also working a backwaiting job which I love because the kitchen is kind of in transition right now, meaning a lot of my time is spent standing around waiting for orders to come up, and also because the #2 manager is a cool dude who almost seems to enjoy making GBS threads on lazy servers. In the past two weeks I've had the following: -A closed-door discussion with the GM that started with "Before I fire you I truly want to know why you hate this job/no longer give any fucks" and ended with "Oh hey those are some reasonable grievances and we need you more than you need us oh poo poo" -Had to explain that yes I am in fact leaving at the end of the year. Apparently last month when I said "I'm moving to X at the end of the year, can you transfer me to X store at that time?" was not self-explanatory because I left out the part about why. -Cussed out by a manager over ice cream. loving ice cream. Took giving my two weeks notice to get an apology because apparently otherwise it's okay to tell me "cry harder about it" when I ask why my preclose is being cut before our rush dies off on a Friday night when I have a twelve-hour shift starting the next morning. -Tried and failed to continue giving a gently caress. I walk in here and instantly feel depressed. I may or may not have at one point told a coworker something along the lines of "I'm going to shoot myself in the head right here just so you can properly appreciate how it feels to work with you". -Given less of a gently caress than I even thought possible. I do my job, I do it correctly, and I maintain a general civility towards the inbred shitheads I work with. I also spend up to fifteen minutes at a time sitting on the toilet playing Words With Friends because it's an orgasmically enjoyable reversal of the last three years of busting my balls while 90% of the people around me slack off the instant the GM isn't watching. -Was told my multiple managers that I couldn't bury the expo on a Saturday night. So I drank some Red Bull and spent half the night remaking food that sat too long waiting for the expo to get to it because oh hey Vorenus is kinda good at his job and even with two expos they couldn't dig out until I rolled off. This was while I was jumping back and forth helping the other line position and singing every Smiths/Queen song I could think of. Oh, and got complimented on my singing voice. Twice. I believe the words my GM used the next day were along the lines of "I didn't want to suck your dick last nigh but that was pretty loving good" I'm this close to self-diagnosing Stockholm Syndrome, and literally the only reason I am hanging around this shithole is because I am trusting that if I stick this out the rest of the year, my GM will true to his word, give me his best reference to the store I want transferred to, where they might or might not end up having the hours I need on a position they're willing to pay my rate on and a schedule I'm willing to work. I have to hold out for this because another year in this city and I will literally kill myself. In contrast, I am still complimented at least once on every single shift I have worked at my new job. Every night at least one person tells me they appreciate my work, they like it when I'm on the shift, I'm fast/effective/etc. I'm still treated with respect, I still have a reasonable workload despite us being severely shorthanded this week, and I make just as much money for 1/10 of the stress. Vorenus fucked around with this message at 08:30 on Aug 28, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Aug 28, 2014 08:23
|
|
|
Thanks for calling me on my attitude y'all. I do in fact have a lovely attitude towards the one job, but to be fair that post was four years' worth of poo poo boiling out. It's poo poo and I need to get out and get over it until I do. My FoH job on the other hand I love. Hospitality is hospitality but holy poo poo it's such a strange wonderful new thing to be treated with respect by coworkers and legitimately enjoy guest interaction. I can actually take pride in doing a good job and not feeling like it's a waste of effort. The pay really isn't bad either. Something I've been thinking over the past few weeks is that FoH really is easier and better. On the one hand BoH has that guaranteed hourly rate, but you can still get cut if the shift is slow and whether you're doing 500 or 2000 an hour you're still getting the same money. With FoH, especially the way my place works, you have a bit of a paycheck and you get paid more for working harder and being busier. I think not being covered in grease and burns alone makes it flat out better.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 1, 2014 05:05
|
|
|
Black August posted:We have none. This kinda thing might be verboten in the thread, ignore me if it is, but might you happen to work at a chain that is very serious about a certain type of cat? I traded shifts to help out another backwaiter and picked this morning thinking it would be an easy shift and forgetting OH HEY it's a holiday. Got my butt kicked a wee bit, but the thing is the kitchen crew has a lot of weak links so despite not being at the top of my game the only time I had trouble was when they would sell me on two or three tables at once. Or when my radio cord caught on a soup ladle and I ended up with 20oz of hot soup down the side of my thigh. Edit: In case the above part about the kitchen sounds arrogant, it's accurate. The KM is incredibly skilled and efficient, if a bit irritable, but holy poo poo I have never seen so many misfires on a line. Then again I can't say I've never taken food to the wrong table or failed to catch an error as an outside expo. Point is the issues on their end are giving me a lot more time and slack in adjusting to learning everything. Vorenus fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Sep 1, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Sep 1, 2014 22:40
|
|
|
We usually have meat orders going out around opening time every day; the system we use is a sheet with time slots on it, and everything is written at 30 minutes before the designated pickup/catering leave time so we can always be ahead even if someone is a few minutes early. Today the opening manager put all 40 pounds to be picked up at 1030 in the 1030 slot, which would mean it was for 11 so I got a nice surprise when three people walked in right behind each other wanting their orders the minute we opened. Then the caterer showed up and had a last-minute add-on to their order and half of it was still on the smoker. On the list of ways to know it's time to bail: When you ask your boss if you'll still be employed and full-time after the incoming trainee is up and going and he can't make eye contact when assuring you that they don't intend to replace you. My PT job scheduler asked if I was open to working doubles Fridays, I said I'd prefer not to because I'm already working a ton as is. He said no worries, check the new schedule today and guess who works a double next Friday and training a new guy. On the other hand, I've been there less than two months and they already approve of my performance enough to have me training someone and working shifts alone, so there is that. My only worry is I am not comfortable on expo. I can do it unless we're weekend night bombed, but when the kitchen fucks up an order for the third time and I'm (as mandated by my bosses) calling that the lead ticket is at 25 minutes (11 is max acceptable) and I really really need that tofu to sell I can see the rage building in the KM's eyes. And I know that rage because I feel the same exact thing at my other job when the expo is repeating the same call they made thirty seconds before. So I'm trying to balance communicating what I have to without getting chewed out by my bosses with not overcommunicating and stressing a KM who spends half his time fixing messes made by people he pays to not make messes. Any advice from you all, FoH and BoH, on being an awesome FOH expo would be greatly appreciated. Vorenus fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Sep 4, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Sep 4, 2014 22:10
|
|
|
Anyone who takes ten literal minutes to make a California roll should not be working in a kitchen. Not "It's the middle of dinner on a Friday and the roll came up ten minutes after it rang", but ten actual minutes to make the roll from start to finish.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 13, 2014 03:16
|
|
|
I've just realized that the chaos of a shithole on Kitchen Nightmares, despite being dramatized, is pretty much what my part-time is going to look like once the holidays hit. Cooks walking off the line for up to ten minutes and having zero fucks to give, cooks who can't cook, cooks blaming outside expo because the lead station didn't send tickets down to them, cooks being assholes. Last Friday I watched an average weekend crowd put that kitchen under worse than any Mother's Day or holiday season rush I've seen anywhere else, and that's anything from fast-casual to seafood chains where you pay $30 for three bites of fish to mom and pop places. Service is important but when you have 40-minute leads and you're comping multiple entrees on every other table you have a serious loving problem. According to some of the longer-serving staff, this is the worst this store has been in seven years. Apparently they used to have a very rude but skilled staff who basically all walked out because the job sucks. Which to be fair, it does. My main job, for all it's negatives, is much easier than a wok line and I get paid three dollars an hour more, closer to five or more if I count the free food we're allotted. That said, karma is biting my rear end off for every attitude I ever gave a FoH staff as a cook ever. If these cooks put half the effort into actually cooking that they do into being dicks about trivial things we would have an entire line of Anthony Bourdains. But hey the holidays are coming and my savings is going to be very happy based on volume alone, so whatever.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 16, 2014 00:31
|
|
|
Agh holidays. I have seen game shows where people show more decisiveness and speed with $1 million at stake than most people have in the past week in regard to a $10 lunch order. I mean hey, the guest is the focus as they should be but I have plenty of other things I could be doing that are more productive than visually measuring the distance between someone's lips as they gaze at the menu and their lower jaw goes as limp as a post-coitus dick. Then again, our menu is a lot more complex than the average fast-casual place so it's not entirely their fault, I just hate getting in the "let's bust it out gogogogogo" mode aaaanndddd.....wait. We just had a pretty cool holiday party though. Met at a bar across the parking lot for a bit, jumped on a charter bus to a local Dave and Buster's where they had a catered spread of food, free game cards loaded for about $150 with most non-ticket-producing games not charging anything from the card, pretty much everything free except alcohol. If you know which games to play, you can easily rack up 20k or more in tickets with that much, and since it's free (to you at least) you can walk away with some pretty cool/expensive stuff. By the way, if you ever go to a Dave and Buster's and you're thinking about getting alcohol there you'll get a better deal and more alcohol content by drinking beforehand and mixing your piss with tap water. OTOH, God Bless the hole-in-the-wall bartender and her heavy-handed Fireball shots. "This Fireball is so strong I can't taste the Angry Orchard in my Angry Ball" is a complaint I could live with every day.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 6, 2014 07:00
|
|
|
Oh gently caress me, I hope the other cat chain dude is still around here somewhere. Management team decided to pick a backwaiter to outside expo Monday nights, long-term sdous chef handpicks me as his preference. Feels good, whatever. I'm in the window five minutes before I send out a mistake order to be given away to a random table, give them some free variety, enhanced experience, etc. The backwaiter I handed it to chose a table that had been seated for two minutes and was still browsing their menus. There are no words. Working a 12 today, a good Saturday in the busy season is 12-13k sales, 15k is excellent and kinda brutal. Last Christmas Eve we hit 25k despite closing four hours early, and this year we're projected to break that. Oh, and we're 33 briskets short. Not short of projected sales, but 33 entire briskets short of what we need at a bare minimum to sell our preorders, not including the dozens of walk-in "Oh hey I need 15 pounds of beef and I was supposed to be on the road an hour ago, thanks" orders. I'm going to witness enough breakdowns today to fill an epic novel. Oh, and some regular brought in personalized Christmas cards for every. single. employee. containing $10 and a lottery card. I'm giving him extra food every time he comes in from now on, still working on finding someone to give him a blowjob.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 24, 2014 12:53
|
|
|
We had some poor girl and her date change their order to go the other night. Gorgeous girl, but apparently she wasn't paying attention and leaned in close to her date...right over top of the candle burning in the middle of the table. I didn't see it, but apparently there was a bit of burnt hair and obviously quite a lot of embarrassment.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 7, 2015 16:20
|
|
|
Hello fellow kitchen goons. I finally got my transfer- new store, new city, new home. Same company but its different like night and day. On the bad side, I now work with one of the meanest, rudest old-school cooks I've ever met. Been a manager for longer than I've been alive, now works as an hourly and takes the Paula Deen approach to making cobbler - if it isn't the consistency of Campbell's potato soup, add more butter. I wish I were exaggerating. Doesn't stop her from speaking as if she were the instrument of God Himself. Seriously so much butter I thought about getting some cardiologists' business cards and asking the cashier's to hand them out with cobbler orders. I'm now privy to a lot of what is and has been going on above the store level in the company and it's not good. I could write a short book but I don't know I could make it nearly as entertaining as tragic so yeah. If y'all read the BFC corporate thread, it's like Sundae's place but with food instead of pills. On the plus side, I get 40 hours a week in 4 1/2 days, soon to be 4. Sundays are always off for me, and I'm experiencing new things like being able to take a weekend off and not lose half of my weekly income, or working in a building where the AC unit is actually rated to handle more than 1/2 of the actual square footage it's servicing. I can bust my butt, and if we do get super busy and a customer has to wait more than 60 seconds for their $10 sandwich while I'm doing a two-man job I don't have to hear about how much I suck or how little I care about my job. I have gone two months without a manager telling me to STFU or otherwise cursing at me, which is roughly seven weeks and six days longer than I ever managed at my previous store. I'm also no longer responsible for the failures of peers whose actions I have no control over, and I'm now certified to train new hires to do the positions I work which means that not only do I have a hand in making things run smoothly, my efforts and skills are appreciated and I have more value to the company which means more money for me. In short, I absolutely hate this industry and cannot wait to get a degree but this store makes me actually proud to be there. Amazing how being treated like a human being can affect a person's attitude towards their work.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2015 03:12
|
|
|
Entertainment is doing your thing while fighting a head cold that's teasing the border of bronchitis, being a half dose of medicine away from intoxication, and wathcing everyone else scramble to prepare and put on a show for the #2 company man's tour of the premises. I feel like there's something wrong with me now for never having had or even considered fried egg on a burger. Or maybe something right, I don't know. I do get the confusion re: guest preferences. Our menu is based on juicy, tender beef and pork that have been slow smoked for over half a day and people go "Nah, I just want chicken tenders and fries." But hey, in the end if it makes the guest happy and puts money in my pocket, it's good enough for me.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 11, 2015 20:06
|
|
|
I covered a FOH shift for a coworker with a family emergency on my day off. THe only food handling is via tongs and scoops so no gloves required, but I wear them anyway out of habit and preferring not to have to wash my hands every ten seconds. Manager walks by, hassles me for handling cash with gloves on. I explain I learned about food contamination years ago and know to change my gloves after. Not two minutes later we're watching him handle ready-to-eat food with his bare hands...after handling raw meat with his bare hands...with no handwashing in between. It took a solid minute for me to get the hamster back on the wheel after that. Re: Gluten allergy chat a few pages back, I don't know how sensitive the actual intolerance/allergy is, compared to tolerance/exposure thresholds for peanut and the like. Our policy with gluten free orders is literally "change gloves before making the order". So, beef sandwich with gluten allergy is still getting beef that has been touched with gloves that have touched bread, and has been cut on a cutting board that has touched bread. I would expect this would be enough to set off a real allergy but we've never killed anyone so I guess it's ok.
|
|
#
¿
May 4, 2015 01:06
|
|
|
Almost went down because of fryers today. Sometime between blanching things and the start of the rush, all three pilot lights decided to go out. I spent the rest of the day obsessively-compulsively checking the buggers. I also have to work the next two weekends, and I'm happy because this is the first time I've been required to since early February and I recognize how incredibly rare that is in foodservice. I started with a "no Sundays" agreement and due to scheduling/training issues with other people they have been literally unable to schedule me Saturdays. I'd love to know what those of you in supervisory positions think warrants a writeup/termination on this list: -Repeatedly -Repeatedly setting a dumpster on fire due to inability to understand heat/flammability safety. -Telling a guest "Sorry we're out, you should have come in before the last 20 people did" -Leaving >75% of closing duties unfinished as a manager, including clocking people out to make them stop and leave before their duties are done -Clocking out mid-shift despite being told you're not approved to leave. -Intentionally interfering with coworkers' productivity (e.g. opening an oven you have no business being near while someone is baking things, removing partially-cooked foodand leaving it to sit at room temp) -As a key hourly, giving your keys to a non-approved hourly employee so they can go in and open while you sleep an extra hour. For six months. -Consistently addressing superiors the way a strict manager would address a wayward employee (Most of these are different people) Vorenus fucked around with this message at 00:12 on May 13, 2015 |
|
#
¿
May 12, 2015 23:06
|
|
|
A Man and his dog posted:
My current employer (both personal opinion and unofficial company policy) shares this sentiment, and for my part that just tells me not to bother giving notice if I find a better job. Of course, the counter is that it had better actually be a better job.
|
|
#
¿
May 15, 2015 03:20
|
|
|
I've never really understood rigid anti-workplace dating stances. Act like adults, don't make a big deal of it, and agree beforehand to still do your jobs and ignore the inevitable efforts of your coworkers to damage the relationship purely for their own entertainment. I guess if your workplace is your career you might want to err on the side of caution, but to me this is nothing more than something to pay the bills and get me through school so I can get into a career I truly enjoy and take pride in. Not taking a shot at people who do this as a lifelong career, more power to you for being able to enjoy it and I know most of y'all are much better cooks/chefs than I'll ever be but I meet someone I genuinely have a lot in common with and enjoy being around (as opposed to "I'm a horny teenager and can't control my sexual impulses") I'm not going to automatically chase the thought away because I happen to work with that person. Now, I can understand policies/attitudes against two people dating when one of them supervises the other because that is almost guaranteed to be a headache for everybody no matter how many good intentions are thrown into it. Of course, this is all my personal experience and while I have been at this for 10 years, I've not been around nearly as long as most and I've always been more on the casual/chain side of things. At the risk of entering the dreaded territory of diary entries, it feels really really good to hear that someone you previously trained was singing your praises to your bosses. You know what doesn't feel good? Your coworker showing you that he can't get the gas grill to relight, so you maybe go back behind the grill and fiddle around for thirty seconds before discovering that the gas hose is barely hanging off of what is supposed to be a solid connection to the grill. I popped it back into correct position, but here's hoping that it actually gets inspected by someone with some actual knowledge and maybe, just maybe, fixed if necessary because if that hose happens to come all the way off well that's quite a lot of gas being pumped right out into the air and that grill isn't the only flame back there. Maybe I'm being overly dramatic but I know you do not jack around with gas and I'd prefer not to be victim/witness to what happens when a bunch of improperly contained gas decides to have a workplace relationship with an open flame. Oh, and there's this: "See, that's why I don't like sharp knives, man. Way too easy to cut yourself." Vorenus fucked around with this message at 15:14 on May 21, 2015 |
|
#
¿
May 21, 2015 15:10
|
|
|
Invisible Ted posted:What bothers me a lot is the 'fresh meat' attitude towards women in kitchens, FOH or BOH. I don't give a poo poo if people are dating/loving within as long as they're professionals, but I think it's really hosed up to see a new co-worker and think that she 'gets down' while comparing her directly to meat. That I absolutely agree with. Looking at/treating any woman as a piece of meat is scumbag behavior workplace or not.
|
|
#
¿
May 21, 2015 16:23
|
|
|
Employee survey time. I can't summon the will to actually log in and fill this (not at all anonymous) thing out. If I'm objectively honest, it's a dice roll on half a dozen people losing their jobs or me losing mine depending on whether upper management cares more about store performance/guest satisfaction vs. replacing a squeaky wheel. If I lie, I get a massive dose of cynicism that I really don't want, so I think I'll just play it safe and "forget" to fill it out. Then again, I'll be giving up my only chance to petition for liquor sales and including liquor in employee meals. A man can dream, right? Also, I would love to pull 5-10 hours overtime a week. LC has it right though, and I'd rather be mandated to lock out before OT than mandated to work it each week. And on an endnote in what bizarre fictional world does a 95% on an inspection act as supporting evidence to "this place sucks and is going to be closed down"? Getting shut down is when the entire walk-in is being run by Kenny Loggins with three containers dated to be thrown away two weeks prior, but whoops you're still serving from them*. Even that's only temporary unless it's happening repeatedly. *This place was hilarious. There were conflicting rumors about what started it, but when a health inspector(justly) has it out for a store it's almost kind of terrifying.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 2, 2015 01:47
|
|
|
Chef De Cuisinart posted:I was more referring to management. I am required to work 50/wk, as are the other managers. Ah, my mistake. IMO salary should always be either no OT or paid fairly/hour but in salary form. pentyne posted:After seeing all the rage against the salt allergies I was wondering if anyone has ever told them its an iodine allergy, not salt. Although the people claiming to be allergic to salt are probably just full of poo poo regardless. We get a lot of "no salt" requests on fries, but I don't think anyone has ever claimed allergy on it. With fries it's one of those "Soccer moms know this one cool trick for fresh food" things, which is amusing because most anyone who redrops fries is going to know the oil cooks the salt off.  This reminds me of the studies (cited/linked earlier in the thread IIRC) where a guy found that gluten can have serious effects on people who don't have celiac, and then a few years later he found that most of those people react because they're literally tricking their body into intolerance through sheer stupidity and paranoia. bunnyofdoom posted:There is legit only one time I go to a bar to celebrate and that's my yearly celebration of beating cancer, because I got cancer from working BoH, so it's kinda irony. Also, my friends tend to buy me way too many shots of tequila, and carry me to the cab. I don't understand how working BoH gives you cancer, but that's an awesome thing to celebrate. Vorenus fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Jun 2, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Jun 2, 2015 02:49
|
|
|
Reiz posted:I worked at a place where BoH staff meal every night is 1 item from the menu under $10 (they credited you $10 if it went over), and and $1 beer/well liquor. It was pretty cool -- I don't drink, but it created a nice atmosphere in the kitchen where everyone was really chill and helped everybody else close, even the dishwasher, so they could all sit on the patio and eat/drink at 1am. FIrstly, that is an awesome thing and not something I ever imagined actually happening anywhere. It would be really hard to not be chill/helpful when you're getting a free well liquor every night. Your summary is probably right, unfortunately. And really, even IF it would set positive changes in motion, it would be potentially screwing some good people as well as bad; after over a year in a borderline-lawsuit harassment environment, it's amazing it's only taken 6 months to nearly forget how preferable and insignificant my current frustrations are by comparison. quote:The bar is also really, really loving low for "generic manager at generic chain" so if you are even halfway competent you are already better than 80% of the talent pool. At PF Chang's I understand we paid the kitchen manager and general manager quite well (~80k), and the sous chefs and floor/bar managers were 40-50ish (on the way lower end for sous chefs, though). I worked at a Chang's for a bit, and got the impression that the management was generally well-compensated. I remember one busser making a sexist comment about the OP's "rich lawyer husband" and having to explain to him that she likely made close to if not more than any such husband. By comparison, they wanted one of the FoH managers to come to BoH as a sous for ~10% increase in salary or extra 10k/year, can't remember which, and he (wisely) laughed his way out of that meeting. You would have to be insane to go from 50 hours a week BSing with guests, managing servers, and seeing your family to slaving 70-80 hours in a kitchen for such a tiny increase. Then again, I've seen managers turn down pay increases to avoid going back to managing servers so I guess part of it depends on personal tastes regarding which brand of masochism you prefer. As a rule, I would never go from hourly to salary unless it was guaranteed to balance out to a profitable (for me) increase in effective hourly pay. Otherwise it's literally taking a pay cut to work harder. Re: Ordering food, there's nothing wrong with asking for modifiers as long as you're not trying to create an entirely new Frankendish based on your favorite ingredients from six different menu items. If you can be reasonably accommodated, you probably will be. Or you can order a Frankendish, alter one ingredient once it's delivered, repeat three times before deigning to bestow your acceptance upon said dish, do this every single time you come in, and leave all of your plates/glasses/silver on the floor when your server shows the slightest bit of irritation.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 2, 2015 13:03
|
|
|
JacquelineDempsey posted:Would a good pair of gloves insulate my hands at all? I've learned which plates and silverware to avoid for a minute while they cool (sort the knives last!), but the steaming glasses thing has been annoying. I can only imagine when I start training on pots&pans (whole 'nother area) it's gonna get worse on both fronts. You can get cloth gloves at hardware stores for cheap, maybe even at GFS or similar. Put a pair of regular food-handling gloves over them, maybe two depending on how hot the stuff you're handling is. Do not try this with hot cookery fresh from the line, your outer layers of gloves will melt and the cloth will greedily duck up any hot oil and hold it cozily against your skin, giving you horrible burns. Apologies if that seems like a thing to explain but work has recently made me very cynical re: common sense.If you want to go the hard way (since if you're not fully maximizing any and all potential masochism of working in FBH, you're clearly a wuss and a single ladder rung above a welfare-collecting tramp) you can just not use gloves at all. You'll eventually become desensitized to pretty much anything (but not everything) coming out of the machine. Seriously, after long enough (too long) you'll catch yourself reaching a few inches into the back of the machine to grab things that inevitably fall off the rack just before exiting the machine because you're that desensitized. The key with pots and pans is to soak them. Most stuff will come off after five minutes of a good, hot soak. This is where desensitizing yourself to heat will help, because you'll be able to use hotter water which breaks the crap down faster, which means less time refilling sinks/scrubbing stubborn stuff. Also, if you have it, Kitchen Kleen is a godsend for tough stuck-on stuff, as long as it's not a non-stick surface because KK/degreaser ruins the non-stick finish and then your prep cook is looking to crucify somebody with a rusty nail and a cornbread pan that's suddenly become almost adorably inseparable from the cornbread within. If all else fails, take a butter knife or oyster shucker and do your best impression of a violently disturbed person attacking a chunk of ice. Do not attempt this on fine china, glass, or anything fancy. As far as steaming glasses, I've always had contacts but apparently cleaning them with some shaving cream works?* *The glasses, not the contacts. Please do not treat your contact lenses with shaving cream. I hope that helps, again apologies if any of that seems condescending or obvious, it's just stuff that worked for me when I did dish. One last: If people keep coming back wanting to use your sprayer, instead offer to let them leave it and you'll get it. Not only keeps them out of your way, it makes you seem like A Nice Guy. This is especially important if you're in one of the many kitchens where the cooks think that they are a deity over you because they stand over a fryer and you stand over a dish machine. Vorenus fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Jun 5, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Jun 5, 2015 22:55
|
|
|
JacquelineDempsey posted:
At that length a hat should be fine. FBH= food/beverage/hospitality. Shorthand for hell. Vorenus fucked around with this message at 04:14 on Jun 6, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Jun 6, 2015 03:56
|
|
|
People walking in last minute are frustrating. What I've never been able to tolerate is the ones who get there 15-20 minutes after close, wait for the last-minute person to leave, and walk in as that person is exiting the clearly locked door. The last time I saw it, the guy paid for three individual rib bones, argued about dining in, finally accepted the to-go bag, and then asked the manager if his status as the last customer of the night entitled to him to any extra free food. She repeated the request to me, I looked at the nearly-full slab of ribs on the cutting board, made eye contact with the guest, smiled and said "We're all sold out". There are simply times when accommodating a guest is the absolutely wrong thing to do, because much like rewarding a child throwing a fit, you are teaching said guest that acting like a complete and total oval office is not only acceptable but preferred.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 15, 2015 04:09
|
|
|
A Man and his dog posted:
I remember a PF Chang's Drahma person complaining one night- keep in mind, this position requires you to know 75-70% of the menu off the top of your head and you're the initiator for line orders so if you don't have wok buried in ready-to-cook plates you're hearing all hell. They had just lost several cooks, needed this girl to work drahma all weekend every weekend, had her training new staff and refused her a raise for the second time in 6 months, so she was thinking about going down to Shithole McGee's for a 25c raise to $8.50 an hour or something like that. I wouldn't work a Chang's line for 150% of what I make now, and what I make now is more than 150% of what most of their poor cooks make. I cannot imagine dealing with that level of stress for so little money. In my mind, it is morally indistinguishable from literal slave labor. Not to say this particular issue is at all exclusive to foodservice; restaurants are just the most egregious offenders. I've ranted to no end in this thread how I absolutely hate this industry, but my pay is way above industry standard and I try to be mindful to thank God for that every day. I deal with stupid people and stupid procedures and sometimes it's maddening, but at the end of the day it's also stupid simple and a fair deal. The other important part is re: turnover. I fully believe people should be accountable for having a solid work ethic, but you get what you pay for and you can't expect someone to do a physically/mentally/emotionally draining job for a sub-poverty line income any more than you should expect a $1000 used car to get you across Death Valley in July. Vorenus fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Jun 17, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Jun 17, 2015 05:27
|
|
|
mindphlux posted:lol this sounds pretty loving ridiculous. I am glad I have never been to a PF changs. I'm guessing "drahma" means like pre-assembling components so someone can cook them in a wok? pre-cooking meat? Yeah, for every dish that's ordered, drahma knows and assembles the exact portions of each ingredient, raw, on a plate and sends it down. Sometimes it's one guy for meat and one for veggies but sometimes it's Saturday night rush and you're doing both by yourself. Chang's is the only place I've paid this much attention, but I can only assume that it follows the rest of the industry in that there is literally zero, no, loving none whatsoever reason to work BoH unless you actually want to experience 10x the stress and hard work for less loving money. I'd always heard it, but it never really sank in until I watched the wok line on a weekend rush. The more I think about it, if it wasn't a 30-min drive to get to the nearest one I'd work there again. Backwaiting was a joke 90% of the time.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 18, 2015 01:29
|
|
|
I am a terrible rear end in a top hat. I was working front last night, and someone wanted their to-go chicken wrapped separately from the bread due to a gluten allergy. I acknowledge this, let them know I'll make sure the cooks know. Five seconds later he interrupts me to ask if I'd heard the gluten free that I had just repeated back to him. I acknowledged it again, explained I would not only put it on the ticket but tell the cooks directly...finished the ringout...and promptly forgot about the allergy. Thank God he saw them making it and said something to them. Odds are it wasn't Celiac but I could have been responsible for someone getting seriously hosed up. That's the first and I pray to Jesus last time I ever screw up on something like that.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 21, 2015 20:21
|
|
|
Kenning posted:I think I just developed Irritable Bowel Syndrome reading those last 77 posts. I'm about to go in and I haven't slept in 48 hours so I'm going to ramble a bit. (Also, any chance you're in OH/KY?) As a guest, I personally care more about the food. As long as I'm not catching a blatant attitude or waiting on service while people are visibly goofing off, I don't really get bothered by much which probably puts me in the true 1% of the US population. If I had to be picky, I'd want fast service that seems genuine - a genuinely casual attitude makes me a lot more comfortable than an insincere attempt at making me feel like I'm God's greatest gift to mankind. Cleanliness is good, and whatever type of service, having someone stop by and briefly ask how the experience is going is always a bonus. The place I'm in is counter-service, so things will be a bit different if you're in full-service and I have no idea what your background/experience is so apologies if any of this comes across as . On the providing service end, I just make an effort to be friendly and briefly but clearly explain anything newcomers might not understand. In my mind it really all comes down to imagining yourself on the other side of the counter/table and what you would want/expect. Hopefully some of that was helpful, sorry if not. I'm going to prep some downhome stuff and hope I don't start hallucinating before my shift ends. Vorenus fucked around with this message at 11:53 on Jun 23, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Jun 23, 2015 11:49
|
|
|
We hired a prep cook a while back. He's overall a nice guy, but it's been clear since he was in training that he's not really cut out for kitchen work. Maybe dish...maybe. Anyway, today he wants to make himself a sandwich. I'm making orders when I hear behind me *CLANG* followed by a mutter of "Oh poo poo". He spilled 2 pounds of melted butter on the grill. After gravity mated the butter to the open flame, it then consummated that union on the drip pans under the grill, which are supposed to be cleaned at night but haven't been in roughly three months. I can't be sure of the time frame because I can only measure it based on ash and flame, of which there were very much. The casualties were a large bottle of seal salt, two oven gloves, one permanently blacked sheet tray, three customers' hopes of getting an order quickly, and the inevitable sense of awkwardness I'm going to feel tomorrow as I hesitantly scrawl the words "permanently puckered anus" on a workers' comp form. Thank God our hood fire suppression is manual-only activation. Edit: No injuries. I had salt on it within a few seconds, and the MOD was able to get a tray over it quickly after. Vorenus fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Jun 24, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Jun 24, 2015 22:43
|
|
|
virinvictus posted:Restaurant I work for is slowly becoming more and more, I don't know how to put it, corporate? the great deceiver posted:Goddamnit I had just gotten to promoted to prep and the dude they hired to replace me in the dishpit thew a temper tantrum last night and walked out because the work was too hard after less than TWO days on the job so I got kicked back to washing dishes just so we could get through a busy Saturday night. Also they hired the number 2 sous chef's son as a dishwasher for a summer job and I had to train the kid in 30 minutes and the little brat didn't want to hear anything I wanted to say, just wanted to sneak out back for a cigarette/weed while his dad was busy on the line. The place I'm at actually isn't a bad place to work at all and isn't as poorly run as I'd make it sound but it was just a particularly lovely weekend, for me at least. Mostly had to do with the executive being off-site on some sort of catering/party gig or something for some political VIP, I'm not really sure. Like I mentioned earlier my restaurant is right across the street from the California state capitol so we live and die by politician/state worker business. Hahaha. If someone can't handle the stress/effort of washing dishes they had better hope they can find a way to get on SS disability because if you can't handle that I really don't know what you can handle. TBF, the pay usually sucks but wow.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2015 22:20
|
|
|
The funny thing is the hospital is probably more interested in whether he's a nicotine user than they are in anything illegal. What with the ACA forcing insurance costs down to a mere 1/4 of the average foodservice person's post-tax monthly income (with an easily affordable $1k deductible before they generously kick in 25% of any remaining costs, those downright charitable insurers!) they have to find SOME way of keeping in the black (which they surely can't do by offering insurance policies that are on the knife's edge of being outright highway robbery) and ensuring that your client's new employee never gets within ten feet of a nicotine waft is a good place to start. I'm actually surprised to realize that even with three worker's comp injuries I've never been tested for a restaurant job.I always had the impression that a lot of places now require that if you have an injury, you'll be lucky to make it to the hospital without a lawyer reaching down your pants to milk a sample out of you.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 30, 2015 22:30
|
|
|
Whenever I get conflicting direction from different managers, I just default to whatever my GM says and tell the rest "Well, [your boss] told me to do this, so...." I don't have time for those games. I already have a #2 boss who I have to explain to why I refuse to load raw turkey overtop of half-cooked sausage, or gee boss can you please not touch this ready-to-serve food with your bare hands that haven't been washed since before you spent 30 minutes doing paperwork in the office, or why chicken dripping on chicken that's 30 minutes ahead of it is at best inconvenient and at worst is a good way to get someone sick. The silver lining is that he's being sent to retrain for a few weeks, which is a hilarious waste of money because you can't fix stupid.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 6, 2015 08:33
|
|
|
Turkeybone posted:See, I always thought diner dash was a bad influence because it rewarded making the customers wait and it hosed the kitchen (take all the orders at once, serve all the tables at once, clear all the dishes at once). I worked at a M&S a long, long time ago and they tended to do this. Officially, the rule was to rotate seating sections and for servers to never ever ever ring in more than one table's apps/entress/desserts at once. In practice, most servers got seated up to six tables back to back and would ring in half to all of them at once. I don't know if this is standard practice, but pantry took care of all the cold stuff from apps to desserts, as well as hot desserts/amuse/ahi/sushi/sashimi. The end result was one cook (or a lucky pair on an extra busy weekend) trying to bang out desserts for half of the first seating wave while the salads/amuse/apps for the second wave were pouring in and the freshly-printed tickets piled up on the floor deeper than the tears. Our first exec's facebook job description was "Bang. Bang. Bang." and his successor's introductory speech centred on hitting metrics so he could get promoted to a coveted exec role at another store. "I can't wait to get out of this hole" was the jist of it, which did wonders for morale. This happened shortly after I left the company; his changes included making it a terminable offense to clock in more than 5 minutes before scheduled time and charging staff full price for fountain drinks, no free refills. I think I had nightmares about oysters for a solid six months after I left that job.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 6, 2015 23:42
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 5, 2024 12:19 |
|
|
meh
Vorenus fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Jul 14, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Jul 14, 2015 07:06
|
|