Saturday, April 30, 2005
This shit is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S
Thanks Gwen. I listened to that song as I was parking my car yesterday at work, and not only did the ditty stick in my head all damned day, but it eerily suited the entire day's experience.
Difficult to describe it all without boring you, but boiled down, it was an assload of work, a bunch of crazed and demanding people and me with no patience for any of it. Of course the week has been screwed up completely for me, so I shouldn't be surprised that it came to a head--oh hell, I'd better hope that yesterday was the climax, I keep forgetting I have one more day to the week to get through.
Wednesday was Secretaries Day. We got slammed for lunch, as one might guess, with offices taking out their secretaries to celebrate. Tuesday. We were completely unprepared. Lots of swearing and red faces everywhere. Wednesday was SUPPOSED to be my day off, but since I spent the majority of my late-day prep time actually plating desserts (example, on a normal Tuesday, we probably sell about 3 or 4 desserts for lunch. This Tuesday we sold 21.), I didn't have the time to prep what I'd planned to have for Wednesday, and I depleted the stores of what I already had. So I knew I had to work at least half a day to catch up. I was pissed, but it's gonna happen sometimes. But naturally then I realized, if we were that busy on Tuesday, the day BEFORE the Lamest Hallmark Holiday Ever, the Wednesday was going to kill us. I wouldn't be allowed to leave during lunch service. Fuck. So I had to stay. And we were completely dead. Sold 4 desserts total. Fuck. I wrote a lengthy and sarcastic rant about it here, in fact. And as I finished it up, my computer shut itself off spontaneously and ate the whole thing. Fuck.
So forward on to Friday--I've been busting my ass to replenish Tuesday's unexpected drain, as well as begin preparation for a massive 250 catering gig we're doing on Saturday. I was irritated as shit with Chef because things I needed weren't scheduled to arrive until Thursday and Friday. The man completely doesn't understand the difference between Pastry and Culinary. Yes, dude, I get that you have to cook your mashed potatoes the day you serve them. I get that your fish has to be fresh when you cook it. But chocolate chips will not go bad, and cookies can be stored for several days with no loss of quality. It would have been nice to get those done on Tuesday so I could concentrate on other things. I digress... I arrived on Friday morning to discover the back of the kitchen flooded because the assholes who closed left a sink dripping and the drain guard kicked out of place so it was draining onto the floor. So instead of getting a jump on my stuff that needed to get into the oven before everyone else started arriving, I had to spend my morning cleaning it up. Assholes also didn't put away the bread and desserts kept in the holding oven, so toss them and set me back a whole batch of 3 different items, 3rd time this week. I am now officially Seriously Pissed Off. This shit is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S!
In the middle of the day, I had to go get the kids and run back to the restaurant for a quick baby shower for Lucresia, our dishwasher. Terribly, terribly awkward because none of the employees who speak Spanish were there, and there was no one to translate anything for her. In the midst of the get together, I discovered that there was a reception dinner that evening that was scheduled to get 20 servings of chocolate cake. Well yes, I have it, but I don't have it cut and plated because I thought it was TOMORROW!! "It's written down!" I was told. [The party was written down on the board, though no mention of dessert or the party's number was written down, and they let their kid scribble all the hell over it so it was completely illegible anyway, but even so, I had ignored it because it was at the BOTTOM of what was otherwise written in ORDER, so I thought our next big party was Saturday.] But the kids got some cake, and we headed off to meet Daddy. Kids packed up with dad, I raced back to work to see if I could help plate the cakes. Luckily, they had AJ, the only reliable guy in the kitchen, prepping the cake for me. It was a crazy fucking night--nobody has yet to figure out why, but it was one of our busiest nights ever. And naturally, I couldn't get 25 orders of menu items, no, almost every single order had some bizarre request. "Chocolate cake with 3 scoops of ice cream", "X item with Y's side, Y with X's side and a side of chocolate sauce, Z cut in half and split, and an X with extra ice cream." Huh? So naturally, I didn't get half the prep done I had hoped to get done, and now I have to go in extra early to get ready for this damned party today. I have grown to hate them, and they haven't even arrived yet. Bad juu-juu. So off I go, to get my tiramisu and baklava done before anyone else gets in the kitchen and starts hogging the equipment I need. I know, I should have done the baklava yesterday, but the damned phyllo dough didn't come in until yesterday afternoon. Good thing I discovered that they had put it all in the freezer instead of the cooler, or I'd be hitting the roof in about 2 hours. Hell, I still might.
Thanks Gwen. I listened to that song as I was parking my car yesterday at work, and not only did the ditty stick in my head all damned day, but it eerily suited the entire day's experience.
Difficult to describe it all without boring you, but boiled down, it was an assload of work, a bunch of crazed and demanding people and me with no patience for any of it. Of course the week has been screwed up completely for me, so I shouldn't be surprised that it came to a head--oh hell, I'd better hope that yesterday was the climax, I keep forgetting I have one more day to the week to get through.
Wednesday was Secretaries Day. We got slammed for lunch, as one might guess, with offices taking out their secretaries to celebrate. Tuesday. We were completely unprepared. Lots of swearing and red faces everywhere. Wednesday was SUPPOSED to be my day off, but since I spent the majority of my late-day prep time actually plating desserts (example, on a normal Tuesday, we probably sell about 3 or 4 desserts for lunch. This Tuesday we sold 21.), I didn't have the time to prep what I'd planned to have for Wednesday, and I depleted the stores of what I already had. So I knew I had to work at least half a day to catch up. I was pissed, but it's gonna happen sometimes. But naturally then I realized, if we were that busy on Tuesday, the day BEFORE the Lamest Hallmark Holiday Ever, the Wednesday was going to kill us. I wouldn't be allowed to leave during lunch service. Fuck. So I had to stay. And we were completely dead. Sold 4 desserts total. Fuck. I wrote a lengthy and sarcastic rant about it here, in fact. And as I finished it up, my computer shut itself off spontaneously and ate the whole thing. Fuck.
So forward on to Friday--I've been busting my ass to replenish Tuesday's unexpected drain, as well as begin preparation for a massive 250 catering gig we're doing on Saturday. I was irritated as shit with Chef because things I needed weren't scheduled to arrive until Thursday and Friday. The man completely doesn't understand the difference between Pastry and Culinary. Yes, dude, I get that you have to cook your mashed potatoes the day you serve them. I get that your fish has to be fresh when you cook it. But chocolate chips will not go bad, and cookies can be stored for several days with no loss of quality. It would have been nice to get those done on Tuesday so I could concentrate on other things. I digress... I arrived on Friday morning to discover the back of the kitchen flooded because the assholes who closed left a sink dripping and the drain guard kicked out of place so it was draining onto the floor. So instead of getting a jump on my stuff that needed to get into the oven before everyone else started arriving, I had to spend my morning cleaning it up. Assholes also didn't put away the bread and desserts kept in the holding oven, so toss them and set me back a whole batch of 3 different items, 3rd time this week. I am now officially Seriously Pissed Off. This shit is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S!
In the middle of the day, I had to go get the kids and run back to the restaurant for a quick baby shower for Lucresia, our dishwasher. Terribly, terribly awkward because none of the employees who speak Spanish were there, and there was no one to translate anything for her. In the midst of the get together, I discovered that there was a reception dinner that evening that was scheduled to get 20 servings of chocolate cake. Well yes, I have it, but I don't have it cut and plated because I thought it was TOMORROW!! "It's written down!" I was told. [The party was written down on the board, though no mention of dessert or the party's number was written down, and they let their kid scribble all the hell over it so it was completely illegible anyway, but even so, I had ignored it because it was at the BOTTOM of what was otherwise written in ORDER, so I thought our next big party was Saturday.] But the kids got some cake, and we headed off to meet Daddy. Kids packed up with dad, I raced back to work to see if I could help plate the cakes. Luckily, they had AJ, the only reliable guy in the kitchen, prepping the cake for me. It was a crazy fucking night--nobody has yet to figure out why, but it was one of our busiest nights ever. And naturally, I couldn't get 25 orders of menu items, no, almost every single order had some bizarre request. "Chocolate cake with 3 scoops of ice cream", "X item with Y's side, Y with X's side and a side of chocolate sauce, Z cut in half and split, and an X with extra ice cream." Huh? So naturally, I didn't get half the prep done I had hoped to get done, and now I have to go in extra early to get ready for this damned party today. I have grown to hate them, and they haven't even arrived yet. Bad juu-juu. So off I go, to get my tiramisu and baklava done before anyone else gets in the kitchen and starts hogging the equipment I need. I know, I should have done the baklava yesterday, but the damned phyllo dough didn't come in until yesterday afternoon. Good thing I discovered that they had put it all in the freezer instead of the cooler, or I'd be hitting the roof in about 2 hours. Hell, I still might.
Comments:
Post a Comment
