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Tell me about the stupid games and running gags you've come up with to pass the time in lovely jobs. At my last workplace, one day we were setting up the mise en place and my coworker pointed at a nine pan full of capers and said "how long do you think it would take you to eat all of that?" We had a long and reasoned discussion about it and this became a regular question - treated on a case-by-case basis, we would entertain the idea of eating, say a whole bulk container of radishes or an entire Cambro full of crostini, either in one sitting or over the course of days, with or without condiments or other foods or water to wash it down. By a few months in, we got real absurd with it - I could just point to a busbin or a brand-new roll of saran wrap and be like, "how long?" My coworkers at my new job - front-of-house, which I've found to be much better for my physical and mental health, not to mention my wallet - don't really seem to get the concept of 'how long?', which bugs me a bit. They're either way too optimistic (no man, you have to take this seriously, I know you couldn't eat a whole salad bowl full of lemons in five minutes) or they straight-up don't want to play.
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Sep 29, 2019 20:57
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 22:48 |
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Sandwich Anarchist posted:We used to sneak hotdogs into people's pockets and wait for them to notice and get mad. Like just barely in the pocket so it doesn't fall out, 85% of the hot dog hanging out hahaha this is good We had a similar one at the old place, because of all the extra crostini that nobody wanted, and the kitchen's proximity to the break room: We called it 'breadbagging', in which we would just sneak stale bread into people's bags and purses and bike helmets.
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Sep 30, 2019 00:01
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When we got a Vac-Pack machine at the old place I used it on a couple of FOH employees' staff meals. I was going to steal a buddy's pack of smokes and vac-pack each individual one but that would have been a huge waste. We had some fun with a big bag of anhydrous citric acid picked up for stupid bougie cocktails, too.
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Sep 30, 2019 00:07
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I know I posted this in one of the other industry threads way back but here it is since we're onto pranks now: The funniest new-guy hazing prank I've ever seen was when the floor manager told a new busser that at the end of the night, he had to drain the hot water from the drip coffee machine. the machine is connected to the plumbing
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Sep 30, 2019 00:21
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We had a similar 'no Drake' rule in an old workplace. I broke it as often as I could. I don't even like Drake that much.
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Sep 30, 2019 00:48
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This brewpub I used to work in had a little apple pie on the dessert menu. One of the new prep cooks misread the recipe - where it said 'cinnamon', he saw 'cumin'. We tried to pawn them off as some sort of 'Moroccan apple pie' or something equally idiotic but naturally, it didn't sell.
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Sep 30, 2019 06:18
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I used to work at one of the oldest brewpubs in the city as a busser. In like summer of 2012 there was a massive torrential downpour. The bar was in the basement of a heritage building near the waterfront. I worked the day shift that day so I managed to escape this, but apparently there were like six inches of water everywhere; they stayed open all night and servers were walking around with plastic bags on their feet. The owners brought in some bags of millet to pour down to absorb the water. We had to replace some of the carpeting (yes, the whole place was carpeted and smelled like a sewer for weeks afterwards). My last kitchen job in a well-established board game cafe was the jankiest poo poo ever though. The kitchen had no hood vents so everything was electrical. We're talking some really lovely induction hot plates (that would make an annoying high-pitched sound when turned all the way up) and a few panini presses that really took a beating over the years. But the piece de resistance was when they brought in this awful electric range to replace the convection oven that finally kicked the bucket. It was designed to plug into a 100-amp outlet; our 'handyman' (a French expat and friend of the owner, and total moron, who was definitely working illegally in the country) rigged it to one of your typical 60-amp plugs for a washer/dryer. This caused numerous brownouts, melted the plug to the wall outlet - when we called a real electrician he touched the plug and said "I'm not working on this until you cut the fuse" because it was hot to the touch - and actually started a small fire in the fusebox downstairs. Oh yeah, and the other kitchen, the one in the new venue they purchased, which I helped set up and open, well that was a proper kitchen with hood vents. Only thing was, it was built into another heritage building and there was no space allotted outside for the exchangers, so they had to be built inside the kitchen, suspended from the ceiling. This meant that I (a 5'11" man) had to duck to get on the line. Other cooks transferred or quit because they were literally too tall to work there. And to top it off, we'd been cooking there for about a month when the fire marshal showed up for a test of our suppression system. About twenty minutes before he came by, our handyman came in... to install the cylinder for the system. It was just an empty box; we'd been cooking with no fire extinguishers for a month. When I confronted him about it, he said "heheh yeah but ya got paid rite?" I was very close to spilling the beans to the fire marshal right there. Thank God I'm out of those places. Coincidentally though, last night at my current job (an arcade bar that I bus and work the door at, which I actually quite enjoy) we had a blackout. It wasn't us, the power went out all down the street. We kicked everyone out, did as much of the close as we could by phonelight, and right as I was about to leave the power came back on. Lol.
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Oct 19, 2019 19:43
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Manuel Calavera posted:I saw this on the KitchenConfidential subreddit. And, christ it's a masterpiece. To lazy to rehost picture to imgur so you get to click. https://www.reddit.com/r/KitchenConfidential/comments/ds113a/ I know I'm reposting this, but for a while in an old kitchen I worked, I had most of the line cooks saying "inside you" instead. It's not sexual harassment if we're all on the same page, right? Right?
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Nov 7, 2019 01:35
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https://youtu.be/IbvbF0L9tJg
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Nov 30, 2019 04:57
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Science WHORE posted:I want my steak seared inside but raw outside tyvm I once overheard some bougie
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Dec 11, 2019 18:23
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Ranch is Good not as salad dressing tho
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Dec 11, 2019 22:57
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not liking ranch dressing is classist
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Dec 11, 2019 23:27
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You guys ever have a customer complain and demand the autograt be removed? It happened to a server I used to work with (for no reason, guy was just a cheap rear end in a top hat) and I learned that in this province nobody is legally obligated to pay the gratuity. I mean that makes sense but like, poo poo sucks. I also once witnessed a large family come in and seat themselves at two booths to try and avoid the gratuity. Fortunately their server wasn't a dumbass.
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Dec 12, 2019 22:45
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Stolen from the CSPAM Pics Thread (and in my sleepless haste, accidentally reposted in the very same thread instead of here like I meant, lol)
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Dec 15, 2019 17:27
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Sandwich Anarchist posted:Dust the pork rinds with ranch powder, too now you've got my attention
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Dec 18, 2019 14:49
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PopeCrunch posted:Realtalk, if a server sabered a bottle open with a skateboard and actually managed it, I would drink whatever it was. I have a feeling that if you look deep inside yourself and are being completely honest, you'd do the same. We did the champagne sabering thing at a staff party one year at my last job. The next year, in a humourous attempt at one-upmanship, I offered to open a keg of beer with a shotgun.
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Jan 7, 2020 01:00
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Chili Con Carnal Knowledge
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Jan 16, 2020 00:24
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captkirk posted:what's the dumbest thing y'all professionals have done in the kitchen that you knew was dumb in the moment? Kicked the back door open while carrying a pot full of two fryers worth of hot oil.
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Jan 25, 2020 23:06
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I know I've mentioned both of these stories before, but it's a toss-up between: - Cleaning a meat slicer at my first kitchen job at age 15, slipping and jamming my thumb right into the blade. Cleaved my thumbnail right in half, still got the scar. - Using a grill brick on a piping hot flat-top, slipping and palming the thing. I had a blister the size of a golf ball on my palm for a few weeks; can probably dig up the photo if you guys want to see. The dumbest thing that didn't end up hurting was the thing with the pot of hot oil though. I mean, I'd seen the WSIB commercial and everything.
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Jan 26, 2020 23:02
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One time at that awful board game cafe a server couldn't find clear squeeze bottles so they put pink hand soap in one of the solid red ones, and of course it found its way back to the other bottles of ketchup and someone ended up putting it on their fries.
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Feb 6, 2020 05:29
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A tale as old as time: I, and many others at my work, were hired to positions like busser, coat check/cover, security, line cook, on the assumption that there was potential for advancement to a bartending position. There isn't a lot of staff turnover but one of our top bartenders recently gave up her Thursday night shifts. Our manager hired a new bartender. It was done extremely underhandedly; last Saturday one of our other bartenders couldn't make it into town (because of the railway blockades in solidarity with Wet'suwet'en) and while I was working security our manager told me we'd have "a celebrity guest bartender" to cover him. I knew the guy, he's a very nice person and all but late in the evening the manager started openly talking to him about "we'll show you more of this stuff on Thursday" so it immediately became clear that he was a permanent hire, and it really sucked the air out of the room; things were very awkward while we were closing up. As you might imagine, none of us are happy. We're all very capable bartenders and have proven as much when we've been called up to stand in for or support bar on unexpectedly busy nights. I've started a group chat with a few other staff members (and titled it 'MUTINY') to form a plan of action. We're going to approach the manager individually with the same set of concerns; that had he promoted from within it would benefit all of us but instead he sneakily hired someone new which actually hurts all of us (new guy explicitly said he can work any position), that what we actually needed was a new cook and a temporary security guard (since I'm the only licensed guard on staff, our other temp guy got rattled by an incident and recused himself from the position leaving me working the position both weekend nights for less money than I'd make on the floor, even though I made it abundantly clear that I didn't want that), and that none of us have heard anything but positive reinforcement about our work as bartenders (apparently we were being vetted and "none of us are ready" for the position, none of this was made clear to us). If he doesn't listen, we're going over his head to the owner, and myself and at least two others are 100% ready to put in our two weeks. Mister Speaker fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Feb 13, 2020 |
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Feb 13, 2020 18:44
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nice meltdown
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Feb 14, 2020 23:47
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I honestly didn't think this poo poo would be affecting everything so drastically but last night was more dead than our usual Monday nights. We cut one bartender, one floor guy, both cover/coat check guys (and took me off of security to close the cover/coat check). The street outside was dead too; my manager took a walk for coffee and said virtually all the other bars and restos on the way (except for a wicked Jamaican fusion place) were completely empty. Waiting on receiving the word from management that we're closing for a few days - LOL yeah right, our owners would stay open during a riot if they thought it would make a buck. It would be the responsible thing to do, though... If there's any place people could gather and very easily communicate disease, it's a loving arcade.
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Mar 14, 2020 20:53
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If you've got time to rhyme, you've got time to shut the gently caress up.
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Mar 14, 2020 23:13
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iospace posted:Crossfit is like zero cardio. This is not true. Cardio isn't just running and swimming and cycling. You can get a benefit from doing HIITs or compounds with little to no rest, which is exactly what crossfit is. I'm not defending it I think it's dumb and dangerous and the Opposite of Fight Club (rule #1 is "never shut up about crossfit"), but it's certainly not 'zero cardio'. Failing at a warehouse job probably has more to do with lack of muscular endurance than it does weak cardio anyway. Mithross posted:Last night I got a ticket to-go, table #0. You suck. Mister Speaker fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Sep 6, 2020 |
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Sep 6, 2020 20:54
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Talking about those push-through tomato slicers? Yeah, made of razors is right. I was cleaning one and gave myself several parallel, deep loving cuts. oddly though, I've never cut myself on a mandolin. And I used to slice tons of radishes with them. Maybe it's my tiny hands.
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May 19, 2021 05:41
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Skwirl posted:same, but also getting high off the nitrous from the whip cream. 
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Jun 2, 2021 02:42
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Sandwich Anarchist posted:We just laid out the expectation of speed of service and food, and reminded them that everyone here has to catch a flight, and it DIDN'T WORK LOL Yet another microcosmic manifestation - like the way people merge in traffic, or how they'll try to skip the line to get into the arcade bar - of man's innate selfishness. "But you're talking to Me! The Protagonist of Reality!" We were doomed from the start.
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Jun 9, 2021 04:59
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Congrats, fool. gently caress that place and their two-week notice, eat a pancake out of spite on your way out.
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Aug 16, 2021 04:46
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Ugh, we've been getting slapped around at the arcade but last night was next level. Something like $5000 in sales, comparable to a pre-pandemic Saturday night but at half the capacity and doing table service instead of cash & carry like we used to. Lots of tables moving around, not obeying mask mandates when walking around, being rude to us (one of our top bartenders basically went home crying), sloppy drunk college students. I'm security on weekend evenings, so I didn't see a cent of tipout, but I had my hands full outside telling people they can't come in because they're drinking outside liquor, already drunk, or trying to show me just a photo of their ID on their phones, also corralling people who tried to smoke on the patio or climb onto the concrete blocks. Thankfully nobody got violent but I'm not looking forward to next weekend. And I'm on another stretch of like ten nights in a row, working everything but back of house - my only day off in the past three weeks was Labour Day (because we were closed), I have this coming Wednesday off but I anticipate I'll be called in anyway. I like this place as far as service industry jobs go, but this poo poo needs to change. I'm so loving tired. I can't believe I wasted the whole pandemic barely doing anything creative or trying to break into a better industry, and now I'm back in service being everybody's bitch. I'm such a sucker. Mister Speaker fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Sep 12, 2021 |
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Sep 12, 2021 21:14
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fizzymercury posted:I had a chef that insisted if you ate anywhere other than crouched next to the trashcan during a shift you weren't a true cook. He thought early Bourdain was Jesus. Wonder if those things are related. Bourdain would probably have called that guy an rear end in a top hat.
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Sep 28, 2021 20:50
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shortspecialbus posted:It can create happy memory associations with the place and/or coworkers so that you end up hating it/them just a little bit less when you're there the rest of the time. And it's more hygenic than banging in the walk-in. Skwirl posted:Also you sometimes get the drinks for free. Yeah it's all of this. It's also not having to walk down the street in the blistering cold, but it's mostly the camaraderie and cheap/free drinks. And the occasional 'close the curtains and drink for free until 5:30AM'. In my mid-20s I used to work BOH in a board game pub, and that place was like the Wild West. The kitchen was such a dead zone that we'd often be completely closed 15 minutes after closing at midnight, and we'd find ourselves at the bar knocking back four to six IPAs in the next hour and forty-five minutes before last call. And some of the bartenders would cuss you out for asking "how much do I owe you," since they deliberately weren't keeping track. My current job plays things significantly more by-the-book. Until recently, our single free 'staffie' post-shift could only be something in a bottle or can, 'dropped' in the busbin and taken to the back toom, since "we can't be pouring draft in front of the cameras, the AGCO has access to them." Management has relaxed on this since we re-opened, so I suspect that line has always been bullshit (I looked it up, it is in some sense true but they absolutely cannot remotely log into our cameras whenever they want). Doing table service for a half-open venue and policing people heading into the arcade sections with drinks/without masks etc. has been really stressful, so on a few occasions one draft staffie with the manager would turn into four or five.
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Oct 1, 2021 23:08
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Poohs Packin posted:Not that I particularly give a poo poo but a lot of employers would view this exchange as outright theft A lot of employers can eat my entire rear end.
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Oct 5, 2021 03:16
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In a similar vein to people who sit down and order food while you're trying to close the kitchen, I just absolutely loooove the lingerers. IDK how it is in other provinces/states but here in Ontario we have a 2AM hard last call, and all drinks have to be cleared by 2:45. Inevitably you have someone who orders a pint or two right at last call, and barely touches it. Usually you end up standing there looking annoyed while they awkwardly try to chug an entire drink. At the arcade we're sort of fortunate in that if we're busy enough to go right to 2AM, we shut all the games off at 2:20 (flipping those switches is extremely cathartic), and that gets most people out very quickly. But there is almost always one or two tables who will sit there in the silent darkness and continue nursing their drinks until I walk up and take them. Once in a while we get a similar "oh we know, we're service industry too and we don't want to keep you," but they just. keep. sitting there, after I've walked by to warn them every five minutes. Anyway, it's my birthday today and I'm going to go bug the staff at another local bar, yell at the pucksport boys on TV, play some Galaga and order several rounds of blackbirds. I don't plan to be there until last call (house party after), and how ridiculously well I tip will go up proportionally with my level of drunkenness. Mister Speaker fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Dec 7, 2021 |
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Dec 7, 2021 21:54
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Skwirl posted:I was once a bar back at a nightclub in Oakland (enforced closing times at 2am in the city). We'd do last call at 1:15, then at 1:30 I got to walk behind one of the giant bouncers while they physically took drinks out of people's hand and put them in the bus tub I was carrying. It was kinda fun if I'm being honest. Oh yeah, there's definitely some catharsis in taking a half-full still-cold pint from someone's hands and pouring it down the drain, for any reason. I hate wasting product (then what the gently caress am I doing in this industry, I know), but it sure is satisfying. People trying to sneak drinks outside is another favourite. "Hey ma'am you can't leave with that [full rocks glass of gin & tonic you're poorly hiding under your jacket]." "Does it look like I'm trying to?" "[Given that you're halfway out the door,] it kind of does, yeah." "Honey if I really wanted to, you'd never know it, 'cause you're not that smart." "Hey cool, so you were just leaving, right? And never coming back?" She said something cliché about "you don't make me laugh but your Dad sure did last night" and I wish I were more quick-witted, I would have told her "my Dad's dead, so you can cut that out right now," but telling her she's banned got me off enough for one day.
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Dec 7, 2021 23:55
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Canuckistan posted:It's a rule that I have to snap tongs three times and then go 'rawww' and have them bite my wife on the butt. I don't think that would fly on a line. I can also do a really bad Gordon Ramsay impression.
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Dec 20, 2021 02:41
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was it the 'mayochup' debacle
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Mar 11, 2022 03:46
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BiggerBoat posted:Anybody ever serve or wait on anybody famous? Kenny Hotz (of Kenny vs. Spenny fame and also owner of a handful of restos/clubs in Toronto) came in once or twice when I was working at a popular brewpub, but I never met him just bussed his glassware. I 'carded' Eric Andre and Panos Cosmatos a few months ago at the arcade bar. I was working security; they approached and showed their vaccine proof and I chuckled, said "thanks, nice to meet you" and opened the door for them. I definitely didn't want to be yet another obnoxious nerd making Eric's visit uncomfortable (and I didn't recognize Cosmatos' name until someone else pointed it out). Eric put his hood up the entire time he was in there, and they left after about an hour for a quieter cocktail bar. I said "there's a good one a block that way, have a nice night" and that was it.
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Apr 27, 2022 22:15
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Oh yeah, I made a burger for Rupert Grint once. It was a burger that I 'put on the menu' (even though the end recipe was kind of neutered by our chef), with some pickled jalapenos and I think jalapeno havarti on top. He ordered it, took one look at it and removed the jalapenos and cheese and basically just had a normal burger. It was a nerdy board game cafe so all the servers were losing their poo poo trying to figure out who would serve him. I don't give a gently caress about Harry Potter.
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Apr 29, 2022 00:49
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 22:48 |
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Is there precedent for insurance companies to revoke or reduce payouts to businesses who engage in crowdfunding? A spot near me recently had a big fire. They're reaching out on GoFundMe. I've heard from friends that the crowdfunding campaign is supposed to go to pay for lost wages for workers who used up their EI during the 'lockdowns', but I have a hard time believing it. Either way, I'm wondering what the place's insurance company would say if they found out about the crowdfunding.
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May 17, 2022 00:59
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