burned out/gone crazy.......

Well, it's finally happened: I've gone totally nuts, and I wanted to share with my cyber-family my typical day:

Doing pull-ups on vent hood for exercise.
Rearranging the walk-in by colors.
Putting plates up in the window and annoucing: "TA-DA" and insisting that everyone on line do the same.
Marking things off the prep list that are really, really close.
Letting my tickets physically HIT THE FLOOR before I start working on them.
Insisting I cut ALL steaks to order (we've got all shapes, sizes and parts of cow).
Playing "What ticket?" with wait staff, until they're almost in tears and then selling the ticket.
Sending the new guy to our sister club for the squeege sharpener or food glue or parsley curler.
Making lewd gesters with rubber gloves and water, leaving them to be found in the Freezer.
Turning Dry storage into a grocery store: "The salsa is found on the Mexico Isle."
Blah, blah, blah.....Boy I really need some time off......

[Jim]

I send the dishwasher down to the store room for a case of steam.... or call the front desk and make reservations for large groups under names like Ben Dover (read it quickly).

Hey Spot , call in sick for a day and take a break . You really sound like you are on the edge or maybe even over the edge on burnout . Take a whole day and forget about everthing but yourself and having fun. Then make yourself a resume and start lookin cause you see what the work force can be like
and it is weak at all levels . there are not enough people who know the biz from the ground up in Mgmnt. and we need more real people like you . Why I myself just live for the days that I can cut steaks to order especialy on a busy saturday night . Get real and find somthing else cause you are obviously not happy working for this outfit .
Good luck and keep cookin .

Wow, there's also: writing the prep list in crayon, and giving the fish in the walk-in cigaretts to smoke....Please Send Anti-Depressants NOW!

[Jim]

I just remembered one:
Soft Shell crab races accross the kitchen floor. The winner gets cooked first! Caffeine..... more caffeine.

[m brown]

Lobsters, pets or meat?

[Pete]

see spot You are not alone! I think we are all a little twisted. There was the day we all dyed our hair green with cholorphyl (sp?). Making mascots out of the little crabs found in freshly shucked oysters. Beating my head with waiter's trays. Myself, the other sous and the exec. seeing who could take the hardest hit with a snapping towel (see who was the first to draw blood). The bloody marys at 5:30am on Thanksgiving just to keep us going because we had never left the restaurant's bar the night before. Then there were the cruel tricks that we played on each other such as sprinkling cayenne down someone's neck (it takes awhile for the sweat and skin to absorb it but when it does---ouch. The homemade pepper gas made with a smoking hot black steel pan and ground white pepper. We all do lots of STRANGE things to cope with the pressure and hours.

Last Sunday I started building a village out of wooden skewers and other kitchen stuff, I think it's time for therepy! And yes, Lobsters are pets.

Today, I gave the mice names--you know the ones that live in dry storage.. I have abandonded the skewer village...I am planning a vacation, if it happens, HA THAT WILL remain to be seen.....

[shahar]

I Never studied cooking. I was wondering do they teach advance foodfigting classes at the CIA?

I always enjoyed cleaning the fryers. The stuff that collects at the bottom has always amazed me.

Joe

Ever see those commercials for the rubber band exercise thinga-ma-jig? Well I take a long piece of serran wrap and do those exercises when I have a break.

i work in one of the newest arenas in the nation...big and pathetically organized for any type of food production...i find myself reorganizing on a daily basis, but before i will move anything i have to clearly mark where the equipment was with a marker so i can somehow remember where it was before...my floors are slowly turning black...they do look sorta phsycadelic by now...

[Nicko]

I new I needed to get more of a life when I started reading my state sanitation manuals over.

Funny topic, I remember that one of the funniest things we used to do was squash bowling. Late at night when we had nothing to do accept wait for the party to end so we could clean up we would do squash bowling. Basically we would set up 12 zuchnni or yellow squash bowling pins, pick out the firmest, roundest canteloupe and go to town. One time I got 5 strikes in a row