Foodservice experiences

[shaberon]

This is a piece of equipment:








If I have the brand right, this has nothing less than rosewood handles. Rosewood! Sounds important, doesn't it? I think it may be. You save so much by switching to those comfortable plastic handles. But we have this large cheese knife, I think, for cutting dough. It may also be used for cheese, but I cannot confirm this.

Today I just want to make a note that I received this, in hand, at the bottom of the sink at the beginning of a shift. In other words, somebody stuffed it in there and walked away. But not before adding a couple of half sheet pans. Now if you scroll back up to that picture of the sink, it should be obvious that the compartment is a bit narrow. Here is what happens when you drop half sheet pans in it: they get stuck.

Combine these items and you get a giant razor that is locked into place.

Never mind that the whole thing should have been empty if no one was working there. To change shifts, you drain and clean, and then no one can exactly "put a knife in the sink".

I can't count how many times that has been screamed at the back of my head when I was never about to do it. At this employer, this is no longer a first, it makes the second knife I have grabbed by the blade which was not just "in there", but immobilized by everything on top of it. Touchy reflexes kept me from getting hurt on those.

So far these are also "no longer firsts":


Multiple fires. Don't think I've ever had this come up.

Multiple entire glass racks dropped. Never heard of this.



And I "found" something outside, in the dark. It is a pallet which has been placed adjacent to the laundry hamper. The only laundry I handle is about sixty pounds of soiled rags. That is because instead of anyone taking some out during the day, they just pile up until it becomes apparent that I will be working with people who cannot put rags in a bag. With grime like that, it should be obvious that it needs to be trotted away relatively soon, not walked on for hours. If I wanted to guess at the least sanitary item possible, it would be a damp rag with mixed proteins such as meat and cheese smeared on it. Bear in mind that almost all we have to sell is meat and cheese. This is probably the lowest rated type of cleaning on the scale of things.

The other kind of mixing you want to avoid is that such as the drain fly moving from mold to uncleaned oily crumbs to water with layers of vegetables and fat, and so on. Same thing that makes roaches a problem. The roach itself is not infectious, but insect bodies repeatedly contact any bacterial and fungal sources that are around, and introduce them where they are not.

I found the pallet while disposing of the great bundle of rags by tripping on it, and again touchy reflexes got me through without incident.

On the other hand I am paid better than some trained hospital techs and I don't want to work in a hospital.

I don't even go anywhere around here, so it is hard to imagine working at all.

I wonder if I can find anyone who will agree with me. Maybe that is the thing to do. The applicant interviews the place, to see if you would work there. I suppose I've never "changed" jobs by choice. Well, that's not true. Once. I think. That seems right. But if I do anything, it will be more commute. The new person has an hour and a half commute and was not there. That is not unheard of around here, in terms of your personal car and the highway, an hour is not uncommon, and in some cases more. Is that really conducive to the right way to live?


I am not sure if you call it the "end of civilization" when neither where you live or work holds up to some basic discussions at approximately a five-year-old level. Anything else is at my own risk.


That is what "they" do with rosewood-handled knives on a commercial basis, is use them for other than the intended purpose, and handle them negligently.

[shaberon]

I noticed two of the aforementioned pans going in the trash.

One was from my hand. I was watching the handle peel off the individual weld spots. At the end, it was held together with two of them. By the feel of its demise, the welds are not as strong as toothpicks.

But that reminded me of another first--and still one and only. One night I picked up one of these pans, and the cutting board it was sitting on came with it, because they had cooked together.

I thought of another interesting situation. When I came back to foodservice, the new thing was gloves and sanitizer. I did not even know how to use it at first, I thought the sanitizer was a dangerous chemical you have to rinse off again. You don't. Gloves are for any time you are handling food that will not be cooked again; if there is a barrier, such as a spoon or ladle, you do not need them. But for a while, I was handling food all day.

Then Covid hit. Eventually we re-opened doing some takeouts. When we ran out of gloves, we didn't get more. I was not told they were unavailable, I was told they were too expensive. So I racked up about a month of handling food without gloves, during this so-called pandemic.

Nothing, of course, happened. I think they may be a little facetious.

I am not sure how humanity survived all these years without gloves and sanitizer, or how I survived that month. Never had my temperature checked, used a mask, or any of that. Nothing. Prowled everyone's garbage and food the same way as always. Now that they are affordable, gloves are back in.

[shaberon]

Here is another one that is somewhat of a first.

Again what must be kept in mind is that on a commercial basis, most things are industrial strength, so it does not go like similar processes at home.

For example, once I found machine soap hooked up to the sink. I could tell something was wrong, immediately, and then I found out that in about two hours it actually dissolves your skin. Because this happens to be quite painful at the same time, I don't recommend experiments to see how far you can push it.

Even worse is de-greaser or oven cleaner. At the last employer, I literally saw someone decide to use this to clean dishes and silverware, and all I can say is that it gives you a severe rash immediately. I can't imagine eating the stuff. So you shouldn't be transferring it onto equipment.

That is my only guess for what I saw tonight. I take one day off, and when I come back, the equipment is filthy. That is to be expected. That is because the American work force can't work. This is a given. That is why I stick to what I am doing. Out of the four recent hires, I think maybe one is still employed. The next three interviews did not even show up.

So, the visible grime on our cooking equipment gets no attention, because no one is able to work, I take care of it while I am there. Today however it got noticed.

Now one of the worst enemies to cleaning is soot. You won't normally even see this at home, since very few houses are set up with open flame burners. When you cook with fire, it makes soot. This is nature at its most basic. If you do not actually remove the soot, then, when it gets wet, it turns in to a form of paint. It will streak everywhere, and especially those pretty white dishes will become smudged by your fingerprints. Again, if you are, in fact, dead, you can be excused from taking care of it adequately. So far the living are not able to contain this unsightly blemish.

Today, instead of baked-on dried grime, the layer of soot had somehow become jellified, it turned into the Black Oil from the X-Files, whatever it touches becomes infected.

I have never seen this happen.

I am guessing someone attempted to clean soot by coating it with a chemical, as if it would be removed from existence.

By this point, my medulla probably consists almost entirely of Benzene, and I am going to have to live on lard or either Crisco.

No wonder people buy vaccines. All it takes to clean things is soap and bleach, very old technology. If people of the twenty-first century fail to recognize this and continue to innovate simple cleaning with multiple kinds of failures, I am not surprised they believe in vaccination.

But more seriously, the plumbing issues that should have been resolved before I started, or when I asked about it three times, and was told it was being done "next week" which is last week, I have found out "may" take place in only a month or more.

In consequence, the piece of furniture that was already bad, remains shifted a few feet to where it is a serious threat. The idea was in preserving the "low spot" in the floor, which of course should never have happened. I have proved more than once there is absolutely no need for water to be there, except your workers are garbage. By moving the furniture to "protect" that spot, now, it receives additional donations of silverware juice.

I believe this is what is called "exactly backwards", like the Earth Summit.

Something that was always wrong is even more wrong and much more dangerous.

This is not to register at all the person who is right there, me, but if someone whines about something trivial, you better believe our lives depend on it.

I don't plan on spending a month or more on bad to worse for no reason other than stupidity, while, as far as I can tell, having failed to replace the first person I worked with in what amounts to about a year by now.

It still looks to me like a Plantation run as a Caste system.

The more I see and hear, the more I want to cast my head in cement.

Anyway, that's new. I am infected with Black Oil. The quantity I discovered when I realized I had contacted something unusual beggars description. I don't know how it happened. Simply astounding.

[Isserley]

This is not really a food service experience, but a coffee service experience... Bosnia has always been the best place for drinking coffee, a special ritual and experience

This is how they serve it

[Johnnycomelately]

Posted by Isserley (here)
.

This is how they serve it

Seems civilized. ~8D

In Canada, the historical norm of big weaker cups of coffee was to provide warmth at outdoor winter events like hockey games. More warmth for your belly, and for your hands.

[Isserley]

Posted by Johnnycomelately (here)

Posted by Isserley (here)
.

This is how they serve it

Seems civilized. ~8D

They bought me with a complementary cigarette

[Johnnycomelately]

Posted by Isserley (here)


They bought me with a complementary cigarette

I don’t need help with tobacco, but in case I ever get another passport...

So, coffee. Last week my ‘drip’ coffee maker quit, so I went back to ~cowboy coffee. I use a fine grind, and know how to make Turkish/Greek style, but now just do it with water, add a bit of sugar at the cup, and some milk. First cup doesn’t all settled yet, but with care with a soup ladle for skimming, the rest are just rich. Am enjoying this new timeline.

[shaberon]

Posted by Isserley (here)
...coffee service experience...

Coffee is a major food group, it must be. Contains your lifetime supply of Anti-Oxidants. Without these, we would rust. The superiority of coffee over tea is because tea is a major source of tannic acid, which, well, that is used for tanning hides and leather. If I can run an establishment that is mainly based on the coffee drink, I am going to call it foodservice and take care of it same way as everything else.

What you have shown is what we usually call Turkish Coffee (infusion). However the last place I worked at made it and called it Greek Coffee. Otherwise they killed the cuisine. Mexican kitchen. First thing they told me was "we don't eat this stuff". So about the only thing I learned working in Greek sounds something like this:

estriale malaka


which means "stupid American". It only took several thousand confirmations before I was sure this was what was being said. Otherwise it is a difficult language to sneak in to.

[Isserley]

Posted by shaberon (here)
Coffee is a major food group, it must be.

I do get that.
What is interesting to highlight here is that in this part of the world café actually means café where coffee is served, no food. Thats why Starbucks and other coffee chains haven’t quite worked up the gall to set up shops here.

When I spent some time in Canada, I was surprised by this difference in relation to food service. I'm used to having food served only in restaurants. We couldn't sit down for a drink anywhere without the place smelling of food

[shaberon]

Posted by Isserley (here)
What is interesting to highlight here is that in this part of the world café actually means café where coffee is served, no food. Thats why Starbucks and other coffee chains haven’t quite worked up the gall to set up shops here.

This kind of establishment is to be exalted. They are serving Satan's Drink.


It was once banned for sedition in the Ottoman Empire:


The ban was finally rescinded in 1524 by order of the Ottoman Turkish Sultan Selim I, with Grand Mufti Mehmet Ebussuud el-İmadi issuing a fatwa allowing coffee to be drunk again.

Beg was executed for his troubles by command of the Sultan himself, who further proclaimed coffee to be sacred.



It is thought to have entered Europe from the Ottoman
Siege of Malta:


Once the drink was safely cleansed of sin and the people of Europe were successfully protected from it, coffee really started to take off across the continent - but the danger wasn't over. By the mid-seventeenth century coffee houses had sprung up across all of the major cities and they fast became centres of intellectual debate about politics and religion. All of the great philosophers, writers and orators would gather to spread their ideas and discuss the finer points of society while sipping their coffee, and while it ushered in a new age of enlightenment, not everybody was pleased. By 1675 there were over 3000 coffee houses in England alone as as the general public spent more and more time discussing esoteric matters of governance and religion, the authorities - and the King - grew more and more frightened.

In 1675, the King of Great Britain and Ireland, Charles II, was feeling a little uneasy on his throne. He was the first King after the Glorious Revolution saw his father executed, and despite the relative peace of his rule, he was unable to produce a male heir. Knowing of the whispering that was going on in coffee houses across the kingdom he began to fear another uprising, and the figure at the centre of his worry was coffee, the stimulating drink adored by radical thinkers.


Most of what they were making was, of course, similar to Turkish coffee. And so it has this reputation in two continents. That is how it started!

[shaberon]

Before trying to re-evaluate my current experience of "the floor", I realized there is something similar, a legend, The Ice Machine.


It is from Manitowoc, and it has its own territory, which I think may have kept the original floor from the building. I believe it was flat tiles, and may have been The Dressing Room. By minutely examinating upon some old photos, I was able to determine that my storage closet was The Box Office. That is why I keep a refrigerator and a bathroom in the storage closet.

The details are fuzzy because it was only briefly after the beginning of my deployment into the puddle that one of the water lines to the ice machine ruptured, and rotted out part of that old floor.

Well, this was attended to rather promptly and the entire section was re-laid with something like vinyl, which is more suited for the purpose. I am pretty sure that not enough of the sub-floor was replaced. I think maybe some costs were cut there.

After the ice machine was given a whole brand new floor for its bad behavior, it somehow developed an appetite for ingesting multiple bags of ice on a regular basis.

As far as I know, this is a practically brand new ice machine, which already broke, and doesn't work.

The fact that it provides some ice is good enough to justify it being jammed into one of the worst nooks imaginable.

You can scoop ice from it, without actually falling in, but you are better off by throwing the ice into it from a relative distance.

Is that what is called "user friendly"?

If someone were to run the numbers on the amount of energy consumed by "refrigeration" on a daily basis, I bet it is a bigger category than anything except "vehicles". On a commercial basis you have to icepack things on a regular basis, such as greens and seafood, so we have to have it. The habit of putting ice in drinks does not appeal to me. Maybe historically before you personally had a refrigerator. But just to go around sticking ice in drinks is a ton of energy just for that momentary purpose.


Anyway, when you are a machine, your damage will be repaired immediately. When the same situation is caused by employees, apparently, a year later you get a piece of furniture shifted to "protect" you.

Has this reduced the traffic? It has! By about twenty-five per cent!

This means that the rest of them constantly interfere with me.

So they keep getting in the way, while the additional instability leads to substantial quantities of silverware juice adding in to the mix. Meanwhile, the ability to stack all the various foodservice items has become quite volatile, explosive.


Just so we know some of the few governmental functions that are of any use to us, we have the one that covers all labor under OSHA:


A workplace hazard is anything on the job that can hurt you or make you sick. Ergonomics is the science
of designing the workplace to fit the worker, rather than expecting a worker to fit into a job that has not
been designed correctly.


Design aisles in the kitchen area that are at least 4 feet wide. This is very important between
workstation and the grill, oven or stove.


Part of one's job is to identify and find solutions for hazards.

Within this are specific enforcements towards foodservice, such as Minimum Design:


Drainboards (must be self-draining), utensil racks, or tables large enough to accommodate all
soiled and cleaned items that may accumulate during hours of operation shall be provided for
necessary utensil holding before cleaning and after sanitizing. Recommended minimum
drainboard length is 24 inches.

When only a 2-compartment sink is provided, the restaurant must apply for a variance and the
restaurant is required to close whenever the dishmachine is not operating correctly. A 3-
compartment sink is strongly recommended.

Can wash facility for garbage cans and mops.


Adequate hot water heating facilities.


That tells you how to set up in the first place, and what tells you how to work is the Food Code:


4-901.11 Equipment and Utensils, Air-Drying Required.
After cleaning and SANITIZING, EQUIPMENT and UTENSILS:

(A) Shall be air-dried or used after adequate draining as
specified in the first paragraph of 40 CFR 180.940 Tolerance
exemptions for active and inert ingredients for use in
antimicrobial formulations (food-contact surface SANITIZING
solutions), before contact with FOOD; and
(B) May not be cloth dried except that UTENSILS that have been
air-dried may be polished with cloths that are maintained clean
and dry.


This stuff really does not matter if you are a boss or employee, it is how things are supposed to go. Everyone does it.

It is not quite a law. I can't call the police about the furniture. It is like in a store, if I see a bag of bread that says it expired yesterday, they aren't breaking any law. Nothing actually says anything has to be done about it. But if a refrigerated item comes out of refrigeration, they have to dispose of it.

Various violations of these codes can cause the agencies to take legal actions which can force corrective behavior, issue fines, and revoke licenses. The Union is that which on the other hand pushed for a lot of the protective standards, but it does not enforce them. It can still push minimum wage, or launch its own lawsuits on issues like stolen pay. I knew someone who had Union defense over what I thought was a lie. So it has a somewhat different role.

The Code, etc., is copied nearly identically in all of the States which means all foodservice work should be close to the same.

I would have to go to City Hall to get them to explain to me exactly what "exemptions" that historical buildings are entitled to, just because of their relatively small space. I think it would be funny to fight City Hall with OSHA. Is there an exemption from a can wash facility, which in turn literally means you never clean the garbage cans?

[shaberon]

In the past month, I have seen that if you are Mexican and speak English, you get deported. But if you don't, you can stay and work, and there is no need to follow the basic safety rules.

What I am noticing now is that I cannot tell a difference between "property ownership" and "Nazi satanism".

What I mean by this is that so-called Nazis are about the same as bad parents who say, you have a roof over your head and something to eat, so you better do exactly what I say.

These people have no thought as to the misery they spread.

Whether it is parents, politicians, or what looks like simple property owners.

Case in point, where I live, was only by a certain agreement, which was ignored and then I was told to f off, so I am stuck in a mess that I cannot do anything about.

Similarly, with work, we enter with a certain agreement, which is usually just the rules of working. But I am with those who place themselves above it. So I am marking two anniversaries, about a year since the normal person left and the place turned to garbage, and, checking back, over a month since I complained about the inappropriate furniture.

Now, again, does this sound familiar:


It's just for a few days.

We'll take care of it next week.

It will be...sometime later on...


Well, two or three days I would understand. But it wasn't. After losing the tug-of-war trying to push the damn thing back, I gave up on it, churned I don't know how many employees because most people won't subject themselves to such nonsense, and wound up with a couple that seemed to stick. Unfortunately, they can't be trained, since our property is in such a disarray.

I know my rental and employer may have forgotten about me, but, surprisingly, that does not mean I forgot anything, and am just standing empty-handed over those agreements we supposedly made.

Fortunately, with work, we have recourse where we go over their heads, which I just did. I would rather not, since it may lead to unintended consequences, such as being shut down temporarily, perhaps permanently. I think if I really tried to stress it, and the level of sheer incompetence, it would be permanent. Did I mention the water?

Yeah, that was like...January...said that suddenly you have a water problem. No explanation about it. No investigation of it. I just checked and the code says that in a manual sink, water needs to be 110 degrees, and, in a chemically-sanitized warewashing machine, 120. That's not a matter of opinion or what you think or feel about it. It is a matter of, can the water coming out of your faucet peg a thermometer that high? And if not, I don't think you are supposed to operate.

I, personally, do not think anyone is tremendously at-risk health wise, if a cooking pan is not sanitized or the water is not that terrifically hot, but--my opinion doesn't count for anything. These are binaries. Is or isn't. If isn't, I don't think you can.

But that is not what I tried to pursue. My main problem at home or work is I can't move. And there is not much you can do to a house owner just because they put things in the way. So I am totally at the mercy of this Nazi-ism, or, whatever you would like to call it, since nothing I say will ever matter, since property owners distribute misery so freely.

I suppose you could call it the absence of civilization.

Maybe to some people, houses and jobs are fluid, and any given one doesn't really matter, since you just go on. The aggravating factor, in this case, was of course the government, which, if I remember rightly, blocked a lot of people from a lot of normal things very recently, as if that is something we should accept from them.

So far in the Covid era I have not perceived anything other than Nazi Satanism.

If I can find a different job, I will definitely be interviewing them first, as in have you got a situation that actually is not morbid and miserable. My expectations are low. I don't go anywhere around here because I think it will be about the same everywhere.

The last time I intentionally left a job, was from over-enforcement of code in a way that did not apply to me. There is a chance that the correction I have requested will work out, and, if the place might run at least comparably like it used to, I wouldn't leave. If, on the other hand, I can find something else that might be normal, then it will feel like escape, from the lack of any code at all.

It does not matter what job you are doing, you must be aware of health and safety issues, you must share this knowledge, report any defects, and make any corrective suggestions you can. You have to at least try to keep it wrapped up. I did, if almost anything I am talking about was brought up more than once, that is about the end of the line for what a worker can do. When you do that in a commercial establishment and the garbage cans still haven't been cleaned after a year, then, your obligation for discussion has passed.

[shaberon]

Strange sense of timing.


I heard some strange commitment today about the "end of garbage work".

Too late, I have already filed a federal complaint. This is while I am starting to look for another door to go into.

Then these weird people--and by weird, I mean ultra freaks, and I have never been considered normal--got flushed out of the woodwork. One of them claims to be a Chef! Isn't that strange? I don't know their names, but, one says they have the "top" job available in a kitchen. Well, what that means, is, in order to do your job, you actually have to do everything I say. Again, I am just nobody, remember, nothing I have said for a year was ever acted on, because nothing works right. If you want it to work right, you have no choice other than to accept me as supreme dictator.

So, I found it unusual as I started bouncing ideas off these two, all they could say was "of course". No problem for anyone with any minor amount of experience to see that everything around me is completely wrong.

This is a race between the ability to repair four years worth of damage, and me finding something that qualifies as "civilized", anywhere around here.

I thought it was hilarious as we received a "complaint" about the sloppiness, and, well, guess what, my complaint is bigger than yours. That is, of course, because I have no qualms about destroying a business if that is what needs to be done, and right now we are on the cusp of that happening. Best suggestion? If you have a business, don't hire anyone. You will get garbage, and then if you happen to get a sensible person, we will pull your license as a public service.

Weird, eleventh hour attempt, but, if you could revert it to at least the initial conditions where it was good enough as a job, I stop leaving or filing motions. As of now, you are in the position of being forced to implement something that is recognized by other people as "Safe". I'm not letting go of that because it is for everyone, not just me. For my part, I am always happy to tell you I will kill you, and look at you like you are stupid until I do it.

Don't ask unless you want the truth.

And, again, I can fully explain to you the legal constraints of how this works: if I can reach you, you are too close. If you have been warned, then, the consequences are your problem since I am in self-defense.

Same as on the street with someone you don't know is going to mug you or what. Or, you can do it to me. You can't threaten me. But you can tell me to keep a distance of a meter or so. That is Sovereignty. Because I don't swarm co-workers, this has never happened. I am sure some of them are terrified of me, but, this does not apply to emotional problems or verbal interaction. For the most part no one cares and that is your problem. Right now we are talking about injuries and the like.

Remember, in this example, I already have three examples which were basically confrontations, plus, on top of that, I am in a standing conflict with everyone. So the emotional and verbal hostility is always fully present, just looking for something to do.

That would be my description of the American work force. It's pretending that conflict is not really there.

You job is to find a way not to kill those around you based on deep-seated, internecine rivalries, but then you do it retroactively when they assault you.

Because this is not really a community, we are not running on much more than a temporary stave-off of utter savagery.

Rotting out a practically new floor as an excuse to OSHA violate me is not cute, funny, or amusing, I might call it negligent or incompetent, and what really bugs me is the utter facelessness of it all. No one will take the heat or responsibility or bother to even say anything. This puts me in a position where all I have to do is tell the truth, and I can do it in front of a large number of people that know you, and you will be introduced to what is called in the ranks "humiliation".

In turn, I cannot be humiliated, like I cannot be sued. Nothing there. It's like fighting air.

I am not going to purposely pull my arsenal against these slack, ignorant carcasses, but just watch what clock ticks faster between other prospects, and, the vast process involved in making a business what it already was, minus the maltreatment.

[shaberon]

Next on today's episode of "I wish I was making this up".


This is one of the only times I care that posts are dated because it is easy to look back and see that the "furniture show" started around the beginning of April. Two months of this.

I learned something, which, may be the last thing I ever learn, and I want to pass it along. I spent around fifteen years in management and never dealt with a single incident report, because, normally, there are no incidents. So I didn't really know what it was. I have heard of a few, but never been directly around one. And so just by hearsay, it is no surprise that when someone cuts their finger to the bone and goes to the hospital, that would be an incident.

The report is much more than that however. It doesn't have to be "serious". I should have been incident reporting everything that has happened to me over the past year. When someone collides with me and I am injured, or I get machine soap which attacks a person like lye, then, even though I was able to continue working, those were incidents. The knives with the locked down blades that I touched, but didn't get cut by, were incidents.

In fact, it covers "near misses, close calls, and safety observations".

In that case I need one every day.

The relevance here, is that, I am not sure if I posted it, but at some point, the co-workers who helped me move the furniture, disappeared, and we hired new people at the point where I had surrendered to the apparent intent that nothing is going to change.

Remember, this started over the remark that "the floor might cave in", which, to me, sounds like a safety issue.

The fix was to commit another safety violation on top of it, to "reduce traffic", meaning that the people who use the hand sink for a dump sink, have to use it sideways, which they could have done without putting the thing in the way.

So when the new people came in, I told them "This is not ok" several times. I asked them more than once if they had any suggestions how to improve the situation. Nothing was said.

After they have been there a month, instead of saying anything, they committed more violations by bussing glasses to the garbage can, and jamming bus pans halfway into my station.

Chain of events: (1) no health code rots out the floor, causing a safety issue in their words not mine, which (2) is temporarily suppressed by the furniture which might have been ok if it really was for just a few days, leading to (3) instead of finding a solution for the dangerous bussing, making it far worse.

Verbal and written messages have so far been useless, and so I really should have been "incident reporting" all this. I will try to catch up to that in the near future.

The inappropriate furniture is important, because, we can't figure out where to store a few mustard bottles.

The ignorance and helplessness is simply amazing. Totally what I call a caste system. Fine dining served by a few people who don't know what they are doing and are about to kill each other. Probably a lot of businesses are like that. So be careful. Oh, and verbal harassment also counts as an "incident". I am not suggesting anyone whine over nothing, but, I strongly suggest everyone remain aware of basic safety conditions wherever they work, and make reports if you see something off.

[shaberon]

Fine dining brought to you by the caste system.


I don't want to harp on the same strings all the time, but, this was stunning.

First of all I have to talk to the labor board because they are not sure if this is in their jurisdiction. Well, yes, it is a Gordian knot of several layers of Health Department issues, mixed with OSHA. The main reason I didn't already use Health Department was to try to work around the rotten floor, because, I think it might lead to immediate shutdown, and, then who knows about re-opening. I am not trying to sideline other employees for something they are not involved with. So, I thought, if forced to fix the furniture first, then we can follow up with the human behavior. But, it has to go in the hands of someone with authority, and if they pass it to the person who goes around with a UV lamp looking for signs of contamination, and, the basement happens to be a moldy slab of salad dressing, they won't like it.

I am fairly positive that no one from our side checked anything out.

So, after filing a complaint and essentially stopped talking--which I strongly advise you to stop talking when you are in a position of possible legal consequences--I have just been standing around watching what new employees do when they come into a broken kitchen.

First of all, the Health Code doesn't happen. I have never seen it happen. After all, this is a caste system that is stuck somewhere in the Civil Rights era, the pictures on the wall prove that. So there is no training.

Secondly, after asking for suggestions about improved bussing and nothing was said but the decision was made to stick bus pans over the manual sink, that is a safety violation. I mean, it probably says that in the Health Code, but obviously it pertains more to physical safety than bacterial growth. You don't do it.

The next decision was to throw a folded-over floor mat into the zone where I walk. Guess what that did? It tripped me. Ha ha. Well, I, personally, can negotiate most things without hurting myself, so, I survived, but, as I just found out, this was an "incident". And, I figured I might want to start using those reports. So I tried to get one.

Guess what I was told.

We do not provide/accept/use those.

I could write something down, but, it would be an ordinary piece of paper that could go in the trash. That already happened with the Health Code. I wrote it down, nothing happened, until the floor rotted and the solution was to jam in these safety violations for only at least two months now. And I have no recourse to safety under normal means.

I think you might be able to say Eff it if you are a Sole Proprietor. Chances are that a Corporation or LLC is obliged to do this. I take that as a very compromising statement, that no, you cannot do what I thought every company in the world was supposed to do. I had a pack of incident reports in a drawer somewhere and was trained to use them for an incident, which, for me, never came up in about fifteen years.

Although the way in which it came up was not "serious", the categorical denial of accepting them sounds like a legal violation to me.

I am not picking it to pieces, yet, but I may accidentally stumble into actual proof that you should never deny there is such a thing as an incident report.

Level one of "blame the untrained employees" was a managerial denial of responsibility, and, I think, not reporting anything about safety would be another level.

Maybe that is what the last place meant when they said "if you get hurt, we fire you".

[shaberon]

Posted by shaberon (here)
...the basement happens to be a moldy slab of salad dressing, they won't like it.

I am fairly positive that no one from our side checked anything out.

Turns out I was wrong. How wrong? Completely.

Sometimes I am wrong. In fact, today I went past someone while I was doing something wrong, and said, I regularly do something wrong, and I will admit it if you can catch me. But you can't, because you just don't know. I mean who in the world confesses their sins in the very moment while they are committing them, asks for public admonishment, and nothing happens. Geez.

So, because we do know that the top side of the floor--which is not about to break, but, works very well as a sponge, is represented on the other side by "it's bad".

That means I will find out what happens when you go into the Health Department and say "Looks like you will have to bubble wrap the Theater Building and send in people with hazmat suits".

That constitutes willful negligence, of course, which can be challenging to a business license. Can they keep it? Who knows! Hopefully this will scandalize everything. Next I am going to dragnet the whole Plantation and eliminate the caste system. If I can, I will absolutely destroy everything that is "highly rated" if there is even a whiff of it disregarding workers' safety rights. I think this is probably a league of capitalists taking advantage of peoples' ignorance, I doubt a four-year-old business is doing anything new except copying what they heard from the older ones...we shall see.

This is where the East Coast elite hangs out when they don't want to be cold, which is fine, except for the total disregard of health and safety that is just pushed back around the corner so you don't see it and pretend it is not happening.

I mean our food handling is absolutely 100% zipped up, perfect, nothing wrong with it, but that is a farce if you manage to achieve the...I just don't have words for it...how can you rot out a brand new floor, fill the basement with mold, and whistle Dixie as if it were just not there again tomorrow??

I don't know, I will just go on protecting strangers as if they were my own children, against the injustices of capitalism, and...if you did a crime, you do the time...not my fault.

[DNA]

Here is a question.

Why don't we ever use brass for cooking.
It doesn't rust.
It lasts forever.

I personally use cast iron.
Cast iron hasa few downsides.
You have to keep it seasoned.
I use beef fat personally, it's amazing beef tallow.
Cast iron will rust.
Cleaning is kind of tricky.
I love the heft.
At first you think the weight will suck but no, it adds to the stability of the cooking process.
Also cast iron doesn't scorch food like stainless steel will.
Cast iron distributes heat well.
Nothing better than cast iron for frying chicken on the stove.
Let you in on a little Cajun secret, to get the best fried chicken results use beef tallow.
That's what the popular chicken franchise Popeyes fried chicken uses in their friers.

[DNA]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

Posted by shaberon (here)
Food is an industry that has night and day differences depending on where you are.

Restaurant work was the first thing I "stuck to" as a teenager, because of the culture and smoothness of it--those were good experiences because everyone was trained appropriately. I was warned at the time, "you don't want to go away from us into the wilderness", because chances are those jobs won't pay as much and the situation will be significantly worse.

This may or may not be on topic. But the thread title (if the title's a good description!) suggested this reply from me.

Some Londoners may have heard this story, which I recall from maybe 10-15 years ago. (If so, do please substantiate it with anecdotes and references.)

There is or was a restaurant in London's West End (I believe in Soho) that became infamous for its truly terrible service. It was so awful that it became a source of entertainment for young businesspeople who went there after work to enjoy and make jokes about the unplanned chaos.

Then, the restaurant owners caught on to the fact that their dreadful service was actually boosting business. So they started to ham it up deliberately with the serving staff doing their conscious best to offend and upset the customers. It all became like a kind of slapstick live comedy show.

Does anyone remember this?

Back in the late nineties I used to work at this semiconductor manufacturing plant in Phoenix Arizona.

It was a warehouse slash chip manufacturing logistics space.

Back in these days computer processors and memory chips were pretty expensive.

Everyone who worked here had to submit to a bottleneck entry point that had a metal detector and two security guards monitoring building access.
We are talking single file lines so when breaks or end of shift time hits there would be a miserable line here.
But the absolute best part of it was this old black security guard named Stewert.

He had to wand you or give you the affirmative if you set off the alarm. And most folks did.
Stewart would accuse everyone of being a thief, he would come up with pet names that were put downs for people.
No one escaped his wrath if they set off the metal detectors.
He would make comments about their intelligence. He would tell them what would happen to them if they went to prison.

I mean things you could just never get away with in this time of political correctness.
And truth be told this process was ten times more painful when he wasn't there to do it.

Something about his banter and comical accusations that kept away the silent reality of your employer truly not trusting you and forcing this situation on you.

The silence from the guards not named Stewert focusing on finding things on you was a hundred times more painful to submit to than Stewert who would wand you, and infer that only an idiot or a thief would set off his metal detector, what you got a possessor in your pocket or you just happy to see me.

You know I'm starting to think you got a thing for me, Is this what you're into? Making me wand you?
Is it gonna be worth making license plates for ten years just so you can make me bend my old ass over and wand you down everyday?

You beep my machine tomorrow and I'm gonna put my size 11 in your ass, you hear me?
He would sing people out the door with abuse all the way to the parking lot.
And we loved it.
Everybody in the whole company loved Stewert.

That is until NAFTA and the USA lost all of its domestic chip manufacturing to Mexico.

Stew even hosted a Saturday brunch at a local breakfast restaurant because it wasn't enough that people got abused mon-fri, some folks felt the need to get abused on Saturday as well.

I worked at this place for six years and I had a few decent conversations with Stewert.
I remember asking Stewert how he was able to do what he did which was basically insult people and get away with it.

He told me that he had spent most of his life working at a prison in New York state.
He said he had a hard time when he started,,, until he came up with a personna he put on everyday for work.
This act served as a buffer between he and the prisoners.
He said he didn't really mean to but he had carried it over to this place.
It was like second nature.
He was a cool guy. I miss him.

[shaberon]

Posted by DNA (here)
Here is a question.

Why don't we ever use brass for cooking.
It doesn't rust.
It lasts forever.

It doesn't rust but I believe it throws verdegris from the copper--entirely toxic. That is the greenish looking stuff, which, I think, is the equivalent of rust on copper, oxidation. You would be better off eating the rust.

Today's lesson is that the slaves at the Plantation are still slaves. Here, I am trying to give off some tactics--the best form of mind control remains the lack of information. Give them enough rope, and they hang themselves. Yesterday I confessed my guilt to someone--I am doing something wrong if you can catch me--while I was doing the wrong thing right in front of their face. No clue.

Today I started a discussion with the guy--20 y. o.--who had given me the new gift of a tripping incident a few days ago. I did not and have not yet accused him of that particular thing. I just tried to talk about basic safety, including the fact that our company was already totally negligent and abusing our rights to "cover its tracks" or something, which, normally, you might think might rile someone up. In turn, I got:

1) Denial--"you have nothing to worry about from me". This is despite the fact that a few nights ago, I missed getting a metal shield up my nose by about an inch, but thanks, I survived.

2) Corruption--these companies just bribe and pay their way out of anything, and that is how the world works.

3) Complicity--continued to commit one of the safety violations I was objecting to, and told me, that if I expect any basic safety protocols, I should not work in a kitchen. Any speaking out is actually a form of betrayal. You have to do anything someone vaguely hints at, even if it is obviously unsafe by any common standards.


On my behalf, I specialize in public humiliation, but I cannot actually do it because I cannot summon any people with any attention span. They mawk about like animals and return to their phones. And are the most asinine, dangerous things I have ever seen in my whole life, and I have been sending bosses to jail since before most of them were born.

That's never actually been my intent, since I basically just tell the truth as I have witnessed it, which is usually sufficient for ownership to press charges. But in this case the ownership is on the moon. Was not interested in multiple health and safety issues I tried to raise a year ago. Recently when I was picking something up for the "normal" bussing of the place said that "I don't want you to get hurt". That is just a bit creepy, like confessing that "normal" bussing in your place is pretty risky, but, it was far less the stuff that I was concerned about, than the people.

So, I spent tonight witnessing the same safety violation that I verbally disputed, over and over again, and of course the company has revoked my rights about this, same as the trip, or, the untold number of things that previously should have been reported, but, I tried to sort out verbally. Or in most cases, gave up, since that employee was already gone for some other reason, conversation over.


At what point I say in front of everyone, that, the tripping incident taking place during the investigation intended to resolve the bussing problem, revealed a serious Labor violation which may kill the business license, oh well, who knows. That is why you don't blurt it out in anger. Targeted strike. Use as many witnesses as possible and just tell the truth.

Then, of course, we may trot over to the newspaper and local media to reveal to them how it goes in fine dining. Remember I am serving the East Coast elite. Some days I park beside a Maserati which has hub emblems similar to the Ukrainian "trident". My vehicle is filthy, smashed up, with no back windshield, so I try to get beside the most expensive looking car on the lot.

It may not be necessary if we do, in fact, have a situation that will take bubble wrap and Hazmat suits.

Let it self-scandalize.

First I have to tell the county that they better not be bribed off of this. If I have to, I will go to Justice to sue Health, and so on, who cares. Easy to do. To me it appears to be "willful negligence", but, since of course there is no actual maintenance request log, there's no paper trail of a request being ignored, which, I think, most people know, anywhere you are, that any kind of deficient maintenance log is a serious liability. To be technical, legally, you could serve until seven or eight and then "sorry folks my hot water's out..." which of course would then encourage you to get the damn thing fixed. "Word of mouth" obviously goes nowhere, and, even worse, the guy who's supposed to be in charge of this stuff should find and fix it automatically. But no one knows what he does because he comes in at four in the morning and usually leaves before more than about two others show up.

Again, just according to straight Health Code, that is shut-downable since January, but of course the company can pretend that it is news.

The second one, which, would probably be considered a public health emergency in any sane area, has simply been ongoing for, I believe, the entire time the establishment has been open. Not a surprise, but, of course we can pretend that it is, even though we already know.

Again, new guy--I tried to do what I could just to forcefully straighten out the improper bussing situation which was not your fault, and, you returned what I think may have been the most drastic employee-related incident I have ever experienced, and then I discover a criminal violation of Labor law while we are being investigated by Labor. Ironic. Pity this. Just the way the mop flops. It was all over a batch of incompetence.

[shaberon]

Today's episode is called "It Gets Deeper".


This is not just for foodservice, it applies to practically all occupations, because OSHA applies to everyone, and then you simply add the various codes for particular occupations.

I put in a special notice to quit that is called an Involuntary Resignation. This causes an unusual release known as a Constructive Discharge, which means that the only way to "construct" the conditions of ordinary safety, is to remove the employee from the employment, because the company is negligent on meeting its "adequate and safe" obligations.

The burden of proof is on the employee, which makes it almost impossible to prove, since a company is usually in a position to rebut your claims of harassment or incidents, and you will enter litigation until you eventually lose in court, so don't think you can just "do" this. It is very rare that anyone would be able to prove such a claim, because, even if something happened, a company does not usually have to do very much in order to be seen as "responding" to it. Usually a handful of those reports is enough to throw your claim out the window.

But in the event of a crime, it is automatic. Not taking those reports is a crime. That is why this is a serious matter, and automatic unemployment for me.

I went in with a sealed envelope stuffed with about five pages and said "you do not need to open this unless you want to contest my claim. If you open it, then you will get something which is utterly indefensible".

So I believe I will exit under my own terms, it seemed like my request for no contest was submitted to. I don't think they will try.

The reason they might be taking it seriously is because when I filed for the lack of reports, this triggered the jurisdiction on my previous claim, and I received a copy of the order from the Department of Labor which demands a plan to resolve those physical issues. When that hit, you could sense an immediate shift in psychology, like there is something mysterious and spooky in the background, like a vacuum cleaner sucking up all of the emotional force.

That's called "timing", you know that the management is aware they are under authority, and then you drop the resignation to someone who is like putty.

You might wonder why is it a notice instead of effective immediately. That is so I can monitor and control the situation. I made it for one week so it has the appearances of "leaving quickly". I added caveats that if anything bad happens, then I resign in the middle of a shift. So that is defensible in the sense that it does sound like safety concerns.

If salvageable, I am basically going to make the unsafe kid do my work for me, while I draw unemployment, and then when he goes to school in August, I would have the option of returning to the same job--repaired to OSHA standards and staffed by people who are going to listen to me. I don't need a title, just the truth.

Moreover, since I have to look for a job, it is far more likely that you find something that you just "don't like" and that has no legal standing at all. All you can do is voluntarily quit, which is usually not a good idea unless you are starting another job, and so it doesn't really matter if unemployment gets me stuck somewhere lame--as long as it is adequate and safe, there is nothing to be said about whether you like it or not. If I don't like it, I already have an agreement that I would return to something I left involuntarily, because if it really was adequate and safe, I wouldn't like it all that much, but it is decent enough to not really worry about it. The "atmosphere" is not fantastic, in my opinion, except that aspect could easily be much worse, so it is not all that bad. Average at least.

If I find somewhere that has a really good atmosphere, then, I am not forced to return to this job. My employment will have been severed with a non-binding verbal agreement, anything else would be a new process.

I didn't quit immediately, because I have more work to do, which is not the work they employed me for. The other caveat is that due to the physical constraints, your work is probably going to be slower. Don't bug me about that. I have no legal ability to improve your efficiency, only an "adequate and safe" way to do it at all. Your problem, not mine.

I need another week which will be more a case of what to say to whom and when.

That is because I am not in a retaliation, however it is something like a mercy killing of whatever is not right, and I haven't been able to get to everything yet. I have more to do in terms of safety awareness which is why I did not immediately quit.