JoltSpree posted:

EDIT: vvv WHY

de la peche posted:

dick dinner

Doom Rooster posted:

One time a stoned fry cook dropped his phone in the fryer, which would have been bad enough from the smell of the plastic, and having to take the fyer offline for the night to cool down, drain and super clean it, however... The cook's immediate reaction was to try to catch it before it hit the bottom of the fryer. He plunged his hand in and got about a third of the way through his forearm before he snapped back to reality. He had 3 massive blisters filled with fluid that covered pretty much every inch that was submerged. Before they took him to the hospital, you could watch them jiggle when he moved, like a jell-o mold on a shaking table.

The Saddest Rhino posted:

ADVENTURES OF ME AS A PART-TIMER IN A UK CINEMA CHAIN

Capoeira Capybara posted:

I work for a chemical company that specializes in dishwashing chemicals for restaurants and other large scale applications. The things I have seen in my two years in this job would make your skin crawl. For example:

A local strip mall contains Mexican restaurant adjacent to a filthy Chinese Buffet. They are the two worst accounts I have. The Chinese place is dirty, greasy, and damp. I've seen them putting food out on the buffet, left over from the day(s?) Before, at 9:30 am. Buffet opens at 11. I've seen them sitting in a circle on the floor around a piece of cardboard butchering a pile of chickens that is sitting on the cardboard. They serve canned mussels on shells that they rewash in the dishwasher.

The Mexican place is just as bad. I live in the intermountain west, so big city pests like rats and roaches are unheard of out here. One day I opened up the top of the machine to adjust something, and like 20 tiny roaches swarmed out over the washer and my clipboard. I ran.

I can post more if anyone is interested.

Galsia posted:

I worked in a fast food restaurant when I was a teenager and it was mostly clean and the customers were alright. If customers were really nice we used to throw in free food. However, one repeat group of customers that used to come through our drive thru were travellers/gypsies and they were really unpleasant. They were always threatening staff and constantly tried to steal stuff by removing food from the bag, hiding it in the car and claiming that they never got it. Whenever this happened their replacement food was always rubbed around somebodys balls or anus. They honestly deserved it, gently caress those guys.

Maggie Fletcher posted:

I once got one of those re-labeled cakes. I love their individual slices of chocolate cake, and our Safeway is pretty bang-on so I was surprised to find the cake rock-hard when I got it. That's when I noticed the expiry date had been pasted over twice. The cake was well over a week old.

A friend of mine used to work for Edible Arrangements, and while it's a franchise operation so not every one is like this, but she said don't ever eat the dipped ones. They cut the rotten, moldy pieces off the fruit before they put it in the arrangement, but they don't always bother cutting off the moldy bits of the pieces they dip in chocolate.

McSpergin posted:

I honestly don't understand how people get carved up on loving meat slicers. In six years in a delicatessen, between Coles and Woolworths (Australian national supermarket chains), I never once injured myself. I had one coworker nick her thumb when cleaning it. Clearly there's not efficient training or relatively intelligent staff working, lmao.

For my horror story, my housemate and I were working together for a while at Coles and he was cleaning while I was on break, he slipped while cleaning a recently sharpened cheese knife (he got distracted by a customer) and sliced 80% of the way through the tendon on his thumb. Way to ruin my break arsehole! (He's username dernwiththesickness on here lol)

Ineffiable posted:

I'm so morbid. What happens if you pop those bubbles? I just feel like if you got something like those, you should pop them, drain them and bandaid it up.

Tiberius Thyben posted:

No! Pop them! It's fun!

Sic Semper Goon posted:

One that happened relatively recently near me was at a bakery.

The baker was teaching the apprentice how not to clean the moulder, and apparently decided to go above and beyond the call of duty by not only telling him not to touch the moulding rollers, but jamming her hand between the rollers herself.

The friction of the rollers ground the skin off, down to the bone.

It was a larger version of this machine:

Tiberius Thyben posted:

I work part time as a shipper receiver for Coca-Cola. All I really do is throw cases, so the worst I see are pallets of product that are covered in mold after a case bursts in top (which we usually send out anyway, incidentally.) The energy drinks are the worst for that, since the cans just don't seem to be strong enough, and the combination of the scent of the energy drink, and the smell of rot is pretty impressively bad. There's also the concentrate room, which has a drainage grate in the middle which everything flows into, and is covered in mold and poo poo, which fills the whole room with a humid, horrifying miasma. However, the interesting stories come from the merchandisers, who actually go into the stores and backs of restaurants. One of them told a horror story about a Chinese place where the chicken was just left to thaw in a bucket of water in the middle of the floor, with flies buzzing around it. Also a few stories about places that hadn't had someone in to clean their fountain drink dispensers for years, and which blew out chunks of mold when they finally did.

p-hop posted:

I guess I'm pretty lucky that the restaurant I worked at didn't have any gross triple-expired deli meat or festering chunks in the drink dispenser stuff. The night shift spent the last few hours of the night cleaning everything. All the kitchen staff cleaned their stations top to bottom, and then we'd team up to mop floors and do the walk-in coolers too. Day staff cleared out anything that was starting to go in the morning before it got crazy.

Since I don't have any good material for the thread, how about this walk-in that had mushrooms growing in it. Not just a film of mold, literally fistfuls of mushrooms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZEF3bniX3s

Tim Whatley posted:

My first job was at McD when I was 15. Two I remember specifically were a real fuzzy happy meal plush getting tossed by accident into the deep fryer and I had to spatula out all the fuzz. That was the end of "cleaning" it.

A co-worker put all kinds of things in people's food when they were assholes. This includes mop water and his dick. Yes, hand to God, stamped his dick right in a McFlurry with the ice cream dick stamp and all still there as I handed it out the window.

A buddy of mine quit his job at a New England pizza chain by putting lobster meat in the vents that they found six months later. Teenagers suck.

rndmnmbr posted:

candywife posted:

I did this to my own finger once. I was cutting black forest ham though. It didn't hurt when I did it, since the blade was so sharp, but it hurt afterwards like crazy. My manager was so pissed cause I got blood and a good chunk of skin on the ham.
I had to spend a full day watching kitchen safety videos and after that any time I needed to use anything sharp I had to wear these massive chainmail gloves and if I needed a knife, I had to sign a form to check it out.

Grocery stores reuse chicken like crazy. If a rotisserie whole chicken didn't sell that day, they would cut it in half and throw it in the refrigerated section with some herbs. If it didn't sell that day, they would cut it up into smaller pieces and bread and deep fry it. If it STILL didn't sell, they would chop it up and mix it into salads. That always struck me as kinda gross..

Astrofig posted:

A woman once returned a can of green beans to the store I worked at because she opened it up and found a grasshopper inside. A whole one. And not one of those little two-inch long ones, either---this thing was almost six and disgusting to look at.

Picnic Princess posted:

I worked at a Taco Time for about two weeks. I didn't last for a few reasons, but the main one that ruined it for me was the stacks of tortilla shells. The stacks would go moldy often, and the manager had us pick the tortillas that hadn't gotten moldy yet out of the stack and use them, while the rest were tossed on a pile on the counter to be thrown away after preparing the order.

I knew the guy managed at least a couple of Taco Times in Calgary so I just never eat at them ever. There were mold spores over probably every surface in all of them, I bet.

Captain Clown posted:

This is a quick blurb because it's my mom's experience, not mine, and I don't remember all the details.

Whenever my mom would take us to a movie theater when my siblings and i were kids, she would warn us to never get ice in our drinks, and would refuse to buy us popcorn. We were always curious about this, so she finally told us why. Basically, in the early-to-mid-90s, she worked at a budget movie theater. The popcorn was stored at the front of the counter in a clear glass case. It looked cool as a customer, since the entire front of the counter was just glass filled to the brim with popcorn. ...Or, should I say, it SHOULD have looked cool. The thing is, that thing rarely ever got cleaned. It was full of old popcorn butter and grease most of the time. So, one day, when my mom went to go get popcorn for a customer... she was met with the sight of pantry moths and their larvae crawling throughout the case to the point where it looked like the popcorn itself was squirming.

So, what about the ice? Sometimes, the soda fountain ice maker would get clogged. It happens, and there are clean ways to fix it. But that's not what the manager of the theater did. Nope, dude just used a plunger right from the bathroom to fix it! And apparently, that was a common occurrence. Once my mom saw that in action, she up and left.

PBJ posted:

So, a few weeks ago, my workplace hired a rather interesting man named Kenny. Let me tell you some things about him:

- Kenny looks like what happens when an emaciated alien tries to blend into human society. He also attempted to wear his fedora into his first day of work (we have corporate-provided visors).

- Kenny cannot do basic arithmetic, as we found out when we tried to teach him to work one of the registers.

- Kenny does not know the difference between grilled and breaded chicken breasts. When informed that grilled chicken breasts do not go in the pressure fryer, he then placed the raw chicken on the burger grill, cross-contaminating it in the process.

- Kenny does not know how to cook red meat, and attempted multiple times in a single hour to serve severely under-cooked burgers to customers. He was hired based on his supposed background as a cook.

- Kenny regularly drops items into fryers. We've gone through multiple plastic tongs in the last week because he's dropped them into the adjacent fryer and melted them. He also lost both his car-keys and his hat within the span of a week.

- Kenny is incapable of cleaning dishes unless directly aided by another coworker. If not. he'll just spray dishes with a jet of water for 10 seconds or so, before placing them back where they came from, chunks of food and all!

- Kenny is allergic to peanuts, and did not disclose this during the hiring process. We only found out when he had a reaction in the middle of this first shift, and ended up sneezing and slobbering all over the condiment station, which then had to be completely sterilized.

At this point, the other coworkers and I are taking bets as to when he'll be laid off. When I asked one of the late-night managers how long she thought he'd last, she replied: "He's white, middle-aged, and working the closing-shift at a fast-food establishment. He's gonna be here forever."

Krispy Kareem posted:

Back when I worked at an all-you-can-eat soup and salad bar we had a customer who would go on bulimic episodes, eating plate after plate of food and repeatedly puking it up in the bathroom and making a horrific mess. So one day the manager had enough and just locked the bathroom. She hung out near the restrooms and would let people in one-at-a-time but when puking guy walked back there she disappeared. Imagine that scene from Alien, but no place for the xenophobe to go. I don't want to think what someone found in the parking lot that night.

The Moon Monster posted:

If you must wash chicken you're better off just wiping it with a paper towel. That said, don't wash chicken.

TracerBullet posted:

I don't know if this completely fits in with the theme of the thread but I couldn't figure out any place better. Besides, having worked in the food industry myself, the worst part is almost always the customers. This certainly speaks to that horror.

Trying to find a location for the Chicago Chipotle corporate office, I stumbled upon a website that listed the corporate headquarters for many companies, including Chipotle’s HQ in Denver. I like Chipotle more than the average fast food place, and I thought the general consensus was that most Americans were on board too, so the 2.0 ‘average’ rating and 449 total reviews really surprised me. This is just some random website, why are there so many reviews?

Because of people like this:


Shirley has berated some poor Chipotle employee MANY times about the hardness of her brown rice. Shirley is very serious about brown rice.


A cup of meat just doesn't cut it in the Kids Meal for this discerning consumer. HERRIBLE


Anonymous delivers a stream of consciousness complaint that says goodbye on its way out. Five stars indeed.


Again, this is just some random website on a corner of the internet. It is not Chipotle run or likely even checked by Chipotle…EVER. It’s like Ginger expects Mr. Chipotle to ring her up and help - she also ends with three question marks to show not even she knows where she wants the food to go.


Damned if you do, damned if you don't.




And this is all from Page 1...of 23. I certainly do not miss having to deal with customers.

TracerBullet posted:

I sad chicken. Call the layers!

death .cab for qt posted:

I can't believe I didn't post my hosed up story yet.

When I worked at a bakery in 2012, one of our merchandise packagers had a heart attack while on the job. She was 80something and had known heart problems, so it was sad but not entirely unexpected.

The unexpected part was when my manager instructed myself and the rest of the bakers to let 911 handle things and just keep baking. One of the clerks started performing CPR, the paramedics showed up and continued to do so despite her being stone cold dead. It took a while for someone who could legally pronounce her dead to show up. I fried doughnuts roughly ten feet from a fresh corpse until police officers showed up and said "yo everyone, what the gently caress, stop baking, shut this all down you are done for today"

Maggie Fletcher posted:

I've posted this on SA before, but it's been a few years. In high school, we were allowed to leave campus for lunch. The nearby Taco Bell was pretty popular with the students, and me being a smug vegetarian I never ate there with the cool kids, so I was saved the trouble of contracting hep A like everyone else when one disgruntled worker decided to add a special ingredient to the ground beef.

It was poop.

My Spanish class was empty except for me for a couple of weeks.

blaarghh posted:

We had a new employee who only lasted a week because he was caught picking at his eczema and eating it, while bagging up fries.

Scandalous Wench posted:

I second this motion.

e: I would be equally happy with this:
The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Post Your Favorite (or Request) > PYF Food Industry Horror Story: I sad chicken. Call the layers

Nuebot posted:

I've known people though who if they didn't eat their whole meal would intentionally ruin the food "because someone back there might be getting a free meal! Nu-uh not on my dime!" and so they'd soak chicken in left over soda and poo poo.

GOTTA STAY FAI posted:

Just arrived on Earth, eh?

For every person who flags you down and apologizes to you for asking to send her salad back because she wanted Italian dressing and we gave her ranch by mistake, there are countless dozens who do poo poo like hollow out dinner rolls and fill them with ketchup, dump soft drinks all over the plate before leaving, or ask for a take-out container for their leftovers, which they will then throw on the ground in the parking lot "just so the staff can't eat it."

People are fuckin' monsters, man.

Nuebot posted:

Oh! Here's one that I was reminded of today while at the store. Lots of places here leave their front doors open. I'm not entirely sure why because it doesn't cool down the store any. We also have doves all over the god damned place.

If regular old fat pigeons are flying rats, then doves are flying mice. The this comes to a head when you just see doves flying the gently caress around a department store and no one really gives a poo poo. Especially in a department store with an in-store food place like Costco or walmart. So seeing small nest of doves right above where they're making someone's pizza just kind of makes me wary of that place. I doubt anyone's ever found bird poo poo in their food, but at the same time I doubt they ever paid close enough attention to see it.

bringmyfishback posted:

looks bad Todd

ToxicSlurpee posted:

Companion animals have been getting prescribed (is that the word to use?) to people that have issues with depression or loneliness. It actually works, especially in cases where apartments will not allow pets. I actually have met at least a dozen people whose doctor wrote a note that amounted to "this person gets a cat, gently caress you." The one place I worked at actually had regular customer with a service parrot that sat on her shoulder the whole time she was in the store. Dogs can also be trained to detect seizures or impending psychological meltdowns. I met a person who actually has major freakouts if in a crowd too long but can't always remind herself to leave a crowd so she has a dog that looks for the signs and then tugs on her leash and is all "time to go, kid." It's amazing what kinds of things service animals can actually do.

But yeah..."I have a service animal" is no justification for "I just let my dog wander around wherever he wants in public what's the big deal?" Well...it's a huge deal. If your dog wanders over and loves all over some friendly-looking person who is also allergic to dogs, well, good for you your negligence just ruined some random person's dining experience. Places can't legally tell people to not bring their service animals of course but people really do need to control the things.