THE CHRONICLER OF THE KITCHEN February 2009
Mike Campbell
SLED DOG DAYS OF WINTER
The New Year is here and “THE HOLIDAYS” have past. The six-week adrenaline rush is over, and you body is spent. If you were in the military you would be sent somewhere to recover from “combat fatigue”. The military also would have issued “combat pay” but you are not in the military.
You missed the parties, or attended and paid a terrible price. There had been only time for work and inadequate sleep. Now the 9 to 5 world is back to work and you have excess time on your hands Beware Mr. and Ms. Hospitality worker; the “Sled Dog Days Of Winter” are upon you.
The beginning of a year brings bitter cold, howling winds, and a lot less sunshine. At this time of year the hospitality industry is dead. You should relax and enjoy the calm, but a body that has been on the go for so long, has a hard time slowing down. Your body is exhausted, but your mind still races. To paraphrase one of the laws of physics: a body at rest tends to stay at rest and a body in motion tends to stay in motion.
There are no holidays or big events on the horizon and Valentine’s Day is just a speed bump along the way to Easter Sunday.
Your workdays begin to drag. After four hours on the job it feels like you have been there a week, lethargy becomes your middle name. You repeatedly look at the clock and it never seems to move. Since Thanksgiving, you have cursed every time you looked at the clock. You retain this habit, but with a difference. Before the clock said: hurry up, andarlay, andarlay, arriba, ariba, that party is here or that table is fired. Now the clock just taunts you: your shifts not over, your shifts not over, you have to stay here!
Everything becomes a burden. You shuffle through you tasks. You are bored and don’t want to do a thing. Every order aggravates you, because now you have to do something.
The past six weeks were spent on a natural adrenaline high, now you go searching for artificial stimulants. Caffeine and energy drinks abound. There’s a good chance you will not really wake up until the warmth and sunshine of spring arrive.
Of course any chef worth his salt, won’t let this happen. They can always do something to piss you off. Anger is like a good sugar rush. Instantly, your blood boils and your body comes to life. You spew venom, stomp around, and may even bang things like an angry gorilla.
The most common and initial mood altering devises in a chef’s arsenal deals with cleaning and leaving.
Every chef will chant; ”if you got time to lean, you got time to clean”. Kitchen equipment is made of stainless steel so it is easy to clean. Everything that is easily reached is cleaned daily. However, there are lots of spaces that are not easily reached and these areas suffer during busy service times. Getting after these areas is usually termed “DEEP CLEANING”.
You must move everything and clean where it used to be. Remove plates on high shelves and clean, pull out refrigeration drawers and clean, the refrigerator gaskets must be cleaned, the grease collected on the wall behind the fryer must be cleaned, grease bubbles must be cleaned from the exhaust cowling above you head, the protective light bulb covers over the line have to be cleaned, under the toaster, under the microwave, under the flattop, scrape any burnt on residue on the range tops, in short everything is to be cleaned. Oh, did I mention the walls, the wire racks that hold dishes, pots and pans? You get the idea. It’s a dirty job and Mike Rowe is not here to do it!
This is also the time that management starts to watch their labor costs. The holiday banquet functions are big profit items and overtime is not a concern. This attitude is discarded, however, once January first is over.
All restaurant managers seem to think that an employee earns their pay only when they are on overdrive. The staff has just put in tons of extra hours, over a long period of time, and helped the owners earn elephant bucks. Is the staff given a little down time as a reward? Not usually.
Some places will send staff home early if they are slow. They start to practice “FIFO”: “first in, first out”, or the quiz game “Who Wants To Go Home?
The most common methods to avoid being sent home are (1) do something (2) look like you are doing something (3) not be seen.
It is vitally important that everyone practice these methods. Nothing gets a managers attention like a group of staff talking loudly and standing around in a “union meeting”.
And there is another added benefit, from this time of year. Your hands get destroyed. During your scrubbing, you undoubtedly will jam you hand on something hard, bruises and jammed fingers abound. Wet skin also tears quite easily.
All the wetness, outdoor cold and dry indoor heat will turn the skin on your hands into dry scalely claws. Your skin is so dry that normal movements will crack it. The cracks are small, usually around the knuckles, and will bleed slightly. I generally don’t notice until I see the small red lines of dried blood on my hands.
You will be applying lotion for weeks. The skin will heal on two days off but will crack again before the workweek is up. And you stop laughing at the idea of using “udder cream”. There are several brands, all sold at local department stores and pharmacies. That’s right, cream developed for use on a cow’s udders works wonders on your hands
I owe, I owe, its off to work I go
Into THE CAULDRON
Is tuisce deoch na sceal
No comments:
Post a Comment