[Chad Aaland]

Originally Posted by Sleepy_Dragon

But any task can be made unpleasant if you're teamed with a co-worker who's sloppy or otherwise uncaring and/or not mentally present. That kind of thing affects my own morale. Of course I do my best not to let it affect me but it sucks and is distracting to have to fight it anyway.

I agree with you 150%...but let's not forget lazy...chatty...dissappears all the time.

[the_seraphim]

ok as a commie... ill tell you what i hate..

now depending on who im working with depends on if i get yelled at and no respect (i dont care if im bottom rung... i work hard too)

heres a 40lb bag of mussels... clean em, check em, once youve done that, theres 50kg of spuds... peel em, chop em, steam em... and by then there should be sufficient mess and low stock to hand for me to keep you busy all day while i chat and drink coffee around working...

or theres the guy who helps me peel, helps me wash the mussels, gives me real food to cook... sometimes i get left on the grill taking main courses all the way through from fresh to plate while its quiet and its a great confidence booster


fryers = easy... get yourself some industrial strength de-greaser, whack more than it says your supposed to in water, fill the fryer (over the max level and over the mess) turn your fryer on and up...

just dont let it boil over !!!! boss tried my way once, left it boil over, fire alarm, an hour of cleaning... what a twat.

cleaning enourmous pots that have had gravy simmering without stirring for 9 hours.

day dotting and cling filming i hate that... cleaning things you KNOW are gonna get dirty within 5 seconds of...

breadcrumbs... i hate them.. not as a task so much as they get everywhere you move some bread 4 inches and the whole table has crumbs on for an hour.

cleaning the char grill, the hood, i dont think we have grease traps... or if we do they are cleaned proffesionally. how do i know if we have grease traps?

[Fledgling]

I HATE unedible garnishes. I also hate mint and parsley sprigs. Unappetizing, unappealing, waste of money! And YET every day I must finely finely chop parsley, to the point my wrist becomes sore and I have to hit my knife to the stone again after I'm finished, and all that just to sprinkle on a salad plate. I HATE IT. I HATE...IT...

We do oysters at my restaurant, too, and those bastards take so much time. Especially the kumo motos! When you already have to roll seven rolls of sushi, make fifteen different items on the menu, and then receive an order for twenty oysters... well, let's just say I've gotten really really fast at shucking oysters!

[bizkit]

HOW ABOUT THE GUY OR GIRL THAT NEVER DOES THEIR OWN PREP BECAUSE THEY ARE TO SLOW AND (OR) CANT EVEN DO IT HIM SELF. BECAUSE THEY HAVE'NT LEARNED HOW, AND YOU'VE ALREADY TRIED TO TEACH THEM BUT THEY CAN'T, THEY DO'NT KNOW, THEIR TO SLOW AND BESIDES YOU DO IT BETTER AND FASTER. SO GET IT DONE AND KEEP HAVING THEM WATCH OVER YOUR SHOLDER AND ONE DAY MABE YOU'LL GET A SUPRISE.

[Tanasy]

Originally Posted by ChefInTraining

This forum will give us industry professionals a little time to vent about tasks in the kitchen that we generally hate doing because it is time consuming and monotonous. Or any reason is fine.

I personally hate breading anything (the flour to the egg wash, to the bread crumbs Ugh!!), peeling pearl onions, cleaning baby brussel sprouts, cleaning kale and chard, fine dicing raw butternut squash, ummm what else......

Sometimes we find ourselves having to perform kitchen duties or what you call consuming and monotonous tasks, however this is the profession we chose and if you want to succeed as a professional, you need to find pleasure in executing those jobs and move on to the next. If your shift project is grilling or marking a couple hundred chicken breasts, think of how good you’ll be at it afterwards. I guess all I’m trying to say is that you must find pleasure in any job or you’re not going to be very good at it. I have to agree with Erik, I also enjoy doing those monotonous jobs. Once you get them done you can then move on.

Ken

[Breton Beats]

• Peeling shallots and cleaning crab and baby artichokes(down to the hearts)

• Piping pate a choux

• Organizing the walk in freezer and cleaning the relief mats (old school style with the holes in them).

Oh yeah and mopping/cleaning etc.. up after the wait staff just because they don't want to get dirty.

[katiebour]

Coming in two hours before the start of my shift on Sunday (for which I am not paid) so that I can get those 6 trays of chicken breaded, those 3 roasts cut into single servings (fat removed), 2 pans of gravy and 3 pans of mashed made, 1 pan of southern-style taters cooked, eggs, sausage, french toast sticks, white gravy, cleaning all the pans/trays/wire racks that these items get cooked or prepared in/on, oh yes, and preparing 4 lbs of pasta, dicing 16 tomatoes, setting up for waffles (waffle irons weigh 50 lbs- think cast iron), getting all the veggies set out, buffet completely set up, kitchen mats/utensils all put out, everything turned on, line restocked, items for the catered jail meal set up, more dishes, prepping salads, restocking the bags of chicken in the cooler, making 2 lbs of our wild rice/white rice/veggie mixture, more and more (that's about half of my assigned tasks on Sunday)...

And getting yelled at when I get behind.

Or getting yelled at because I forgot to put a ladle in the salsa- go get it yourself, you friggin' lazy kitchen manager! It's a ladle! You've done nothing but drink coffee for 15 minutes since you got here!

I love the tasks, I just wish people would stop saying "well, it didn't take ME more than 3 hours to get everything done..."

And I wish I could get paid for those extra hours.

Other than that I hate washing all the buffet pans.

[cookie mama]

Cleaning graters after grating citrus peel and rind.
Burnt suger in the oven when forgetting to protect it from a spitting pie.
Cleaning bowls too big for the sink.

[mattyb]

Hey there,

I have to say its cleaning mussels because they just take so long and some of them are just so dirty grrr lol

But I know its worth it but oh my god

[Bigblue250]

I didn't read the whole thread, but I despise potato baskets(if you have ever made them you know what they are). I was 16 working the broiler at a CC and we were doing a wedding tasting. The Sous got these pot basket makers(basically juffrett pots arranged in a basket shape and fried, piped full of mashed) and we were using it with the Fillet and Lamb. To make a long story short we sent one out to the bride, and she had to have them for the wedding (250 people ). I got stuck making them one at a time over a hot fryer, and my hand is still numb to this day from 2 boxes of pots on a mandoline(cris cross cris cross, etc.....)

[breakfasteatre]

lobster, lobster, lobster

hahahaha, i have no problem doing the killing, cooking and removing of shell, but since im the new guy learning, i have everone else asking me to do even the smallest things while im in the process of doing the lobster, wherein i have to take my gloves off, wash up (dont want cross contamination) just to fetch some eggs, or a litre of water, or something like that.

no wonder all the lobster piles up, im never given the opportunity to just get at it and finish it all in one go

[Blueicus]

Teaching and supervising people who don't want to learn or too stupid. I'm sorry, but for two consecutive nights I just wanted to scream at this one person who just didn't seem to get it... I felt I was being very patient and understanding and trying to guide her through everything and she disappears every hour to God knows where... but when you feel like you need to hold their hand while telling them how to check food temps and they can't spell lettuce correctly... well, it really got to me. Fortunately, she admitted that she couldn't handle it and will be quitting, and since I'm neither the chef nor the sous, I felt powerless.

[Headless Chicken]

I hate doing other people's jobs as if I didn't have tasks of my own to do.
Much of my staff are aging and can't reach certain things, or do things outside what they've done for the past 10+ years. I mean, cookies are easy to do especially when we order them already in 2oz portions, all you gotta do is tray them, bake them, and time it, then take them out to cool. Or how about cutting your own **** vegetables. I don't know how many times I have left my station partially unattended because I gotta look up onions and peppers for the pizza station, gee how about not chit chatting so much and DO YOUR FREAKING JOB!

I pulled a double today training in the new chef and as usual, I have to cover everyone's break without having my own. Well, the 2 manning the pizza station always go on break together...don't ask me why. Because they couldn't go on break earlier together, they went late, at the same time other people go on break, when I look after their job...so now I'm doing 3 people's jobs instead of 2. Well instead of hiring more people, heres a cheaper and much simpler solution...GO ON BREAK SEPERATLY!

[i_can_c_u]

Cleaning.....

[powers]

People who don't respect food, they just cook as a job and there's somehow at least one everywhere I go. The rest I love, even if I hate it at that particular time, at the end of the day, when I'm reflecting, I know that I got better, and someday someone will come around that thinks they can pop oysters faster, clean garlic better, or even down to scrubbing the floors better....well I beg to differ If my chef can't do MOST things better or faster or whatever, I want to go somewhere else.