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Radio Help posted:
I've been out of foodservice for a long time and I still have nightmares about those goddamn things taking my arms off. Yeesh. I love threads like this. I read the stories and find myself nodding along pretty frequently, thinking "yeah, I remember poo poo like that."
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Aug 23, 2015 19:41
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| # ¿ May 17, 2024 02:42 |
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Fragmented posted:Even with all that i still don't see how you could gently caress up bad enough to give someone food poisoning it's all precooked food. Seafood and tuna setups getting old in the coolers and having their dates changed when nobody's looking because EEEEWWW MAKING THOSE MAKES YOUR HANDS SMELL FISHY SOMEONE ELSE WILL DO IT TOMORROW, and lazy employees not FIFOing when they refill the bain containers.
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Aug 24, 2015 22:09
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Novum posted:FOH manager was dating a server and the owners made him fire her the day before they fired him. Tha's frigid cold. Goddrat I walked into the produce cooler at the catering company I used to work at to find one of my part-timers bent over a pallet of fruit while a cook went to town on her. I asked the owners what I should do about it and they told me to go tell them to finish up and get back to work. I miss that job 
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Aug 26, 2015 16:07
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Radio Help posted:"You can sharpen a knife with another knife! This loving craaaaazy line cook showed me how to do it so it's true! Also it looks loving sweet when I do it!"  The noise these chucklefucks make while doing this serves as a sort of "idiot alarm."Radio Help posted:Also you're a white guy with dreadlocks. This is the most horrific thing in that post
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Sep 1, 2015 14:23
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death .cab for qt posted:I can't believe I didn't post my hosed up story yet. Jesus, man. And here I was gonna tell a story about how awful it was that a dude tossed pizza dough so high it hit the ceiling every time he made a pie, you gotta show up with "I made doughnuts within spitting distance of a corpse" Well, how about another story that involves a corpse? One time, I took a catering delivery out to a residential address. The name of the event wasn't specified on the ticket, but they'd paid in advance and there was no stay-in service, so I figured I'd just be dropping things off at someone's house. I get there, knock on the door, and a woman opens it. The first thing I see is a dead body. It was a funeral. "Oh, thank you for driving all this way, go ahead and put the sandwiches in the kitchen and the dessert and fruit trays over there by Frank." Frank, it turns out, was the name of the deceased. Just laying there in an open casket. Among the things I can say I've done in my life is the statement "I set a tray of freshly-cut pineapple on a table next to a dead man."
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Sep 30, 2015 20:59
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p-hop posted:I'd never romanticize it Lots of people do, and it drives me nuts for many reasons. They tend to be young people, having just finished the book and expect working in a kitchen to be a glamorous rockstar life full of drugs and booze and sex (and sometimes, it is) 24/7. They act like they know it all because they read the book, and talk themselves up as if they're top-tier professionals. It gets my goat that they completely ignore the part at the beginning when he's describing what a poo poo he was when he was young and why it was horrible behavior starting out. I also hate that they pick out all the awesome rockstar stories and ignore any parts where Bourdain explains that the work is grueling, you're gonna burn yourself, cut yourself, have to work insane hours for little pay, you'll be underappreciated, you'll become an alcoholic and dependent on one or more drugs, etc. They forget all of that and just keep saying "Yeah this is gonna rock so hard," then get indignant when they need to cover a shift on a Friday night or you tell them to stop showing up drunk or hungover, or to quit smoking weed on the loading dock. "It's a kitchen, dude, haven't you read Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain? This stuff happens all the time, man." Did you read the part at the end, you goober, where he says that all of those wacky hijinks were from an era gone by and that nowadays things like that wouldn't fly because kitchens are more professional? Urgh Story time! When I was an undergrad, I part-timed in the Union as a kitchen worker. The kitchen was actually two kitchens--one on the ground floor and one on the floor above--and I worked in the lower one. The lower kitchen served a cafeteria-style deal and the upper one served a sit-down restaurant. Nothing fancy, but they had cloth napkins. I made pizzas and did prep to help out the old-timers. Our unofficial supervisor was Allan. He'd been there a long drat time. He was a nice guy, but I was warned repeatedly not to piss him off. I guess there had been an episode right before I got hired in which the bigwigs told him he could no longer listen to his radio at work. Apparently the shouting was so loud it could be heard all the way back in the kitchen from the administrative offices. Whatever went down, we ended up being able to enjoy classic rock while we worked. So, little things could set Allan off, and while I was there, lots of little (and not so little) things kept happening to him. He was passed up for a promotion to the upstairs kitchen by someone "conveniently" related to the boss, his truck broke down, and his dealer got pinched. Poor guy spent days walking around both kitchens quietly asking even the part-timers if we had any weed. He explained that all he wanted to do after a long day in that hot kitchen was sit down on his recliner with a cold sixer and smoke a bowl in front of the TV. I felt bad for the dude, but the town was pretty dry that summer. Nobody had anything. One inexplicable thing that would happen on a daily basis was that at some point, the service elevator would arrive on our floor and one of the shirt-and-tie upstairs employees would bring in a cart with a tray of food on it. Only, nobody asked for it. Ever. We had no idea why trays of random food were arriving once a day and the employees delivering them would just shrug and say "look they told me to bring this down to Allan." Our menu was planned months in advance, so we had no use for any of it. He'd get a little grumpy, but never wanted to shoot the messenger, so he'd take the tray and thank them, then throw it away when they were gone. Sliced tomatoes. Chicken breasts. Plain penne. Mashed potatoes. Garlic bread. And one day, a gal brought down a small container of chopped mango. Was this poo poo they didn't have room for? Their leftovers? Food that was about to go bad? We never knew. When this first started, Allan was frustrated with it, but started turning it into a prank. Every single thing he got, he'd re-pan, top with cheese, then put it in the oven to melt the cheese. Didn't matter what it was. Pears? Yep. Lasagna that was already smothered with cheese? Oh yeah. When it was done, he'd send one of us part-timers up the elevator, saying "tell them this is from Allan." We'd laugh our asses off every time someone would come back down empty-handed--the upstairs kitchen was actually accepting pans full of the same random food they'd been sending us, covered with cheese. So one day, Allan's about to snap. We can all feel it. Everyone is silently going about their duties, trying to stay out of his way, when the elevator buzzes. Steamed veggies. "Thanks, doll. Leave the cart, though, I got something I gotta take upstairs in a little while." Damon was another old-timer. "Whatever you're thinking, don't do it, man." Allan wasn't listening. He cheerfully tossed the veggies (pan and all) into the food waste bin, got down a new pan, and took off toward the non-food storage closet. It was full of holiday decorations, extra signage, etc. He comes back after a few minutes with a bunch of x-mas garland, fake flowers, and fake ivy. Tosses all the poo poo in the pan, and sets about making an arrangement out of all of it. He's in the middle of creating his masterpiece when he says, "Go grab me the mozz." "No way, man, don't do this." Allan wasn't listening then, either. Just staring at the timer on the oven. It dings, and he pulls out a tray of fake foliage drowning in melted mozzarella cheese. The last time I ever saw Allan was when he disappeared into the elevator with his creation. All we knew was that he walked out after making his delivery, through the front of the restaurant, right past all the diners, still sweaty and wearing a stained apron. Asking any questions about it got us stern lectures from the managers about minding our own business.
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Oct 6, 2015 17:34
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There's also the OSHA thread in GBS. That one's more pictures than stories, but people do talk about crazy poo poo they've seen at jobsites there. There's a general sort of "stories from foodservice" thread somewhere, too. Maybe GWS? I remember it being consistently great, though I haven't caught up in a long time. A/T has threads where posters say "Tell me your stories about X," and while they don't really take off the way threads in other subforums do, they're usually pretty entertaining.
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Oct 6, 2015 21:47
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Jastiger posted:I don't understand. He was mad they were sending your kitchen meals? Maybe they were trying to be nice. Or were just mistaken. Why would he get fired for pranking them back? Lots of little things piled onto the poor guy over time and he sort of lost his marbles and ended up walking out. He didn't get fired, he pulled that last prank and hit the road. Why was he mad? Well, kitchens are busy places, and when you're in the middle of making food for hundreds of people and already grumpy about lots of other things, someone showing up with what looks like leftovers from their kitchen for the hundredth time, expecting you to do something with them even though you've never been able to use them for anything any of the other times would be frustrating. It was his last straw.
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Oct 7, 2015 00:25
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Picnic Princess posted:Mild is hitting a line cook in the face with a pickle tossed frisbee-style from 30 feet away while he's trying to flirt with other kitchen staff. Caked on old filth is gross. Ditto. I found out the same thing working for a grocer years back. We moved a piece of equipment in the produce prep area and the grout between the floor tiles under it was white. Must've taken a week of scrubbing to get the rest of that poo poo back in shape. It was so nasty. Thing is, it could've easily been prevented if people had followed the prescribed cleaning procedures when closing, but even the supervisors were skipping steps so why the hell should the part-timers bother doing it correctly? Also, frisbee pickle reminds me of a game we used to play at Subway when I was a wee lad in high school: Tomato Races! Two competitors would each grab a slice of tomato and, at the same time, toss them toward the door to the kitchen, aiming for the top. Whoever's slid down and touched the floor first was the winner!
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Oct 7, 2015 13:54
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kinmik posted:I don't have any kind of particularly horrific stories to tell, but I'll tell you that if you ever go to a buffet that sells something called "Seafood Dynamite", don't order that poo poo. Where I worked, the guys would take any leftover food item from the buffet line (crab legs, fried noodles, tempura, seafood stir fry), mash it all together in a big bowl, portion it out into fancy scallop shells, top it with tobiko mayonnaise, then throw it under the broiler. Twenty minutes later, it'd be out there, amongst the unsuspecting public. That in itself doesn't sound bad, but any leftovers of that, they'd recycle for days. Lemme tell you, mayonnaise that's been heated and left to cool over and over doesn't smell that amazing. We did the same thing at the bakery I worked at, except it was labeled as a parfait. Those usually weren't bad, and we'd Oh man, those types of dishes are my favorite! If it's named something like "X surprise" or "X festival" or whatever, you can safely assume that's what's going on. We used to do it all the time at the buffet I worked at. Fresh pineapple, cantaloupe, and grapes all about to age out? Mix those pans together with some whipped topping: FRUIT PARTY SURPRISE! The absolute best was when, after less than an hour, that pan would be completely empty. Nobody's eating this old food? This is America--fuckin' smother it in something and watch it fly off the buffet. Re: eating leftover food As a general rule, I avoid taking the first bite no matter how untouched or good it looks because that's setting foot on a dark path. Sure, that breadstick was completely untouched, but one bite and a week later someone walks in on you hovering over the food waste bin munching on half eaten sandwiches and finishing customers' soup. Customers' leftovers: not even once.
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Oct 10, 2015 16:17
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The Moon Monster posted:I have trouble imagining a large amount of people devoting that much thought to petty spite. 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.
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Oct 11, 2015 19:26
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cash crab posted:Sorry for the derail, but: I don't think you can actually get them registered if they're emotional support animals. I've seen a few. One guy, a veteran, used to bring around a rabbit. She wore a sign alerting everyone of the fact that she was a service animal. Anyway, service animals can't be released from their harnesses in places that otherwise do not permit animals. If you take them off their harnesses, most animals (chiefly dogs) think they're "on break" and will act accordingly. (Example: when I worked a pet supply store, a blind woman who regularly came in let her dog, Lagoon, off her leash, because that was her "break time" and we let her walk around unsupervised. So, while we were discussing Game of Thrones, which she was reading on audiobook, Lagoon tore open a 35lb bag of food and ate so much of it before we could pull her away that there wasn't enough left over to discount and sell. It was loving hysterical.) Yeah, there's a pretty clear line between "companion animal" and "service animal." Companion animals are generally not allowed in businesses, but service animals are. That, of course, doesn't stop shitheads from lying in order to be allowed to bring their dog into the pub or whatever. "Yeah, this pitbull, you know, the one with the 'collar' that is actually a chain with a decorative padlock dangling from it? He's my service animal. I'ma come in and eat 25-cent wings and drink a few beers while he runs around pissing on everything"
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Oct 13, 2015 16:22
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Denny's redeemed itself with a single tweet last year and I won't hear any further slander against my favorite drunken pancake house
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Oct 20, 2015 22:15
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cash crab posted:When I started this thread, I was honestly expecting stories like, "one time the line cook threw up on himself" but naturally you guys have to go ahead and out-do yourselves. It's what makes this thread great. I love seeing relatively tame (but still entertaining) stuff and then getting hit out of the blue with "one time I made donuts next to a still-warm corpse" and "ask me about the late-night Waffle House special."
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Oct 21, 2015 18:21
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Haymaker_Betty posted:Confused, I turn around. There are these two elderly people walking up, in full yachtzee gear--polo shirts, khakis. The woman asks the boy who his friend is. He calls me, I poo poo you not, Steven, and then says goodbye and wanders off with them. Later that week he came back and apologized, and said that I was too poor for him and he didn't want his grandparents to get on his case, and he figured since my hair was short they would think I was a boy and not get him in trouble for fraternizing with the poors. I did not even know people like that existed. They absolutely do and it's baffling. I grew up in a tiny cornfield town in the Midwest--stories like this and movies and books depicting this kind of thing are like staring through a portal to a world so alien that it's beyond comprehension.
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Oct 22, 2015 13:02
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Haymaker_Betty posted:Oh god I got hot glue on my belly one time. Teeny tiny spot, and I have just the smallest raised scar, but it hurt SO MUCH. Oh, gently caress those burns. That guy Damon from earlier, the one who tried to talk Allan out of putting cheese on fake foliage? When I first started working there, I gave him a wide berth because he had scars all over his arms. He was an enormous motherfucker, but very soft-spoken and level-headed. Basically, picture Michael Clarke Duncan's character from the film The Green Mile. I figured he'd either been through some rough poo poo or was into self-harm, based on the series of horizontal lines on the insides of both of his forearms. Either way, I figured I'd be better off staying the gently caress out of his way. One day, about two weeks into the job, Allan has his hands full when one ovens' timers goes off. He tells me to drop what I'm doing (mindless prep work for pizzas, which I was glad to be doing because honestly I'm 99% sure I was still drunk from the night before) and yank his pans of rolls out of the oven before they burn. I eagerly oblige, doing my best to make myself look like a good (sober) employee, but I'm a young idiot and way too enthusiastic about it and end up spending my lunch break with my arms up to my elbows in a bucket of ice water. Break's over, so I grumpily pull my arms out of the bucket and examine the wounds, when I notice something: They're a whole bunch of horizontal lines, on the insides of my forearms. They were the first, but definitely not the last of scars like that. They've faded away in the many years since, but if I get too much sun, their ghosts come back to remind me of each and every burn.
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Oct 23, 2015 20:38
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Couple of lucky bastards itt whose superiors never brought their kids to work rather than shell out for daycare or a sitter. To a kid, the kitchen's gotta look like a spaceship. All that stainless steel, all those strange devices, and tons of people in uniforms running around. This lever dumps mashed potatoes on the floor! There might be aliens hiding in this stack of boxes, better knock them over! And oh, over here on the wall is a gun that shoots bubbles! You know, because to save the galaxy you need to spray floor cleaner all over our workstations while we're busy trying to prepare a huge order. And you can't bitch about him because he's the boss' kid. Just gotta keep re-doing work he ruins and do your best not to attract his attention. That is, until you bring a gameboy and a box of fresh batteries to work and give him a milk crate to sit on in the corner 
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Oct 26, 2015 15:36
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Sometimes, you just don't have time to do things by the book. Should you move a pot of hot oil? No, but sometimes, you have to. In a perfect world, nobody would have to cut corners like that, but we don't live there. I guess I should be thankful that at least some people have the luxury of telling their superiors they won't do this and that without getting sacked on the spot and being replaced by someone who will comply 
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Oct 27, 2015 13:59
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My Little Puni posted:Who spilled the cheese This is my vote. I need to know who spilled the guddamn cheese.
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Oct 28, 2015 01:07
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My Little Puni posted:I spilled the cheese. I knew it Babylon Astronaut posted:Jesus you guys work in shitholes! I've worked in some bad places, and some really great ones, too. The best stories usually come from everyone's worst jobs, but sometimes you get a shock when a buddy of yours who works at an upscale catering company and only has good things to say about his work environment casually tells you "if you go to that charity thing we're catering tonight, stay away from the chicken, because the cart tipped over and it all fell on the floor. We didn't have time to make more, so..."
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Oct 28, 2015 14:37
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JoshGuitar posted:it wasn't always cooled to 40 degrees as quickly as it should have hosed up if true.
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Nov 16, 2015 19:16
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| # ¿ May 17, 2024 02:42 |
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Yeah, holy crap, I'm glad you reigned that in. Please tell me you found a sympathetic doc that didn't give you a colossal load of poo poo for letting things get so far out of hand? They can be pretty grumpy when it comes to substance abuse, even if you're sincerely trying to get your act together. Kudos for getting things sorted, and yeah, maybe stay out of kitchens for a while
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Feb 4, 2016 00:27
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