This post ended up being much longer than I had anticipated, so I decided to break it into two posts. So without further ado ...
The time is now 10:00 am and I am finally able to sit down and check my email. Nothing pressing so it's time to check and see how things are going out in the cafe. Everything appears to be running smoothly and I have time to chat with some of the students, staff and faculty. I don't want all of you to get the impression that I hate my job and everything about it sucks. That is so far from the truth.
There are a lot of things that I love about this job. I love that I get to interact with my customers. As a chef you don`t often get the opportunity to interact with the people who eat your food because you are in the kitchen. I also have a great schedule for a chef, I work days, get all my weekends and stat holidays off, as well as two weeks at Christmas. I also do not have a boss looking over my shoulder all the time, and seeing as my boss works at another location, I have a lot of latitude in terms of how I structure my day.
Speaking of my day ...
Time to check my email, and this time there is something there. When I was at North Campus earlier in the day, I picked up a couple of cases of bread. Late last week North Campus was low on bread (again) and borrowed a couple of cases from us. Now they have returned what they borrowed. And guess what? They need more bread because someone left it out. Our bread for our sandwich station comes in frozen and we bake it in house. The bread sticks are supposed to be pulled and trayed the night before and then baked in the morning. Apparently, at North Campus, someone pulled the bread boxes but forgot to tray the sticks and put them in the fridge overnight, so the bread sticks have over proofed and can't be used. This can happen when you have predominantly new staff. But I do have one question.
Anyone who has ever worked in a kitchen knows, that the closing chef/manager should do a unit walk through at the end of the day. You do this to ensure that everything has been turned off (stove tops, ovens, flat tops, warmers, grill), check that the fridges are locked, the dishwasher is off, and that everything is put away.
So ... how ... the ... @#$% ... did ... the ... chef ... manager ... not ... see ... that ... product ... was ... left ... out? Seriously?
Oh and she also needs pizza dough and pizza cheese. I have very little freezer and fridge space, so I order what we need, what I know will get us to the next delivery day ... so, no ... for the third week in a row ... I do not have any extra pizza dough or cheese.
What's worse than working with a bunch of post menopausal women? Thanks for asking. Let me tell you. Working with passive aggressive post menopausal women.
I have one particular staff member who is very passive aggressive. She has some other issues as well, but I'll save those for the appropriate time. Miss passive aggressive is having one of her days. As I am working beside her, getting my prep done, she is mumbling under her breath. I have learned that it is wise to ignore this kind of thing. I am not a micro manager and I find it's best to let staff work out their issues without me getting involved and 95% of the time this works well.
Turns out she is upset that she is always stuck prepping vegetables. She hates cutting onions, and I really don't give a you know what. Again, I do not like to micro manage, and division of labour within each station should be handled by the individuals working that station. Additionally, when one of her coworkers was not in for a few days last week, she could have used that as an opportunity to do some other prep. Instead, she got her you know what in a bunch, because her coworker took a few days off. As a result, Miss passive aggressive, did as little work as possible and pissed everyone off.
I have had a chat with our passive aggressive friend and explained that she needs to be more of a team player. I have also explained that if she can not work well with others, there are other stations (such as pizza) where she can work on her own. She did not like that. Not at all.
My day ended with me emailing my boss to remind him to send my sales reports from the previous day. This is supposed to be done in the morning, but things happen and sometimes he needs a gentle reminder, not a big deal, but it does disrupt the flow of my day.
And that my friends, was my super fun day.
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