How fucked am I?
For context, I’m the PM Grill Cook (and “pm lead without the title” as described by my executive Sous - the one I’m talking with here) at the hospital cafe I work at. We strive to do pretty good quality food, and make it fun. We go all out for Mardi Gras, busting out two extra stations and running extra specials all day long. This is totally reasonable and doable during our lunch period, but after 2:30, it’s just me and a 58 year old cashier whose cooking skills amount to assembling a ham and cheese sandwich.
So yesterday, after pumping out several batches of beignet dough before heading out to run the cafe as the sole cook, I’m told “hey by the way, you need to take over king cake production.” I figure that’s fine, I can rock it while taking care of the cafe. Head out to find the cafe line in complete shambles. Flatty is black and crusted over, sticky and greasy counters, black fryer oil, nothing on the line is restocked and most items are 3/4 empty, and all the ice baths are completely melted. Morning crew just left all this shit, knowing I would have to clean it up. So I delay king cake production to lock in on making the line decent enough to cook out of again and not scare away our customers, because this is open concept and the doctors will not order food if the place looks like shit. Between cleaning and taking/cooking orders, I get to the time for my lunch without being able to run any of my usual pre-lunch cleaning that will let me close on time. Come back from lunch, start king cake production. As soon as I get one dough batch rolled out, 3 whole families of 4-8 come down and need service. After that wave, I keep ping-ponging between cake and grill and sometimes even the cash register because my cashier takes a whole 30 minutes to slice a ham and turkey. Finally finish king cake production at 7:10, 20 minutes to close. Nothing’s done. I’m veritably fucked.
Work as fast as I can, maximizing efficiency as much as possible. Prep cart is fucked. No labels on anything. Completely disordered, raw sausage on the top rack and lettuce right beside it. Wrap jobs are ass. Have to redo the whole thing, restructure it, and get it decent. Weigh out all our waste and food donations. Still haven’t cleaned a damn thing, and it’s 7:45.
So then, finally, I get to cleaning. Housekeepers come in and say that a banquet was left in one of the least used conference rooms over the weekend. So of course, I gotta go take care of that too. All told, I’m out by 10:25. My off time is supposed to be 8:30. Texted chef, and the above was his response.
“No more overtime.” Really man? What the fuck am I supposed to do, just leave the place a wreck? It feels so passive aggressive, and I can’t help but feel like there’s a write up waiting for me when I get there. How fucked do y’all think I am?
For context, I’m the PM Grill Cook (and “pm lead without the title” as described by my executive Sous - the one I’m talking with here) at the hospital cafe I work at. We strive to do pretty good quality food, and make it fun. We go all out for Mardi Gras, busting out two extra stations and running extra specials all day long. This is totally reasonable and doable during our lunch period, but after 2:30, it’s just me and a 58 year old cashier whose cooking skills amount to assembling a ham and cheese sandwich.
So yesterday, after pumping out several batches of beignet dough before heading out to run the cafe as the sole cook, I’m told “hey by the way, you need to take over king cake production.” I figure that’s fine, I can rock it while taking care of the cafe. Head out to find the cafe line in complete shambles. Flatty is black and crusted over, sticky and greasy counters, black fryer oil, nothing on the line is restocked and most items are 3/4 empty, and all the ice baths are completely melted. Morning crew just left all this shit, knowing I would have to clean it up. So I delay king cake production to lock in on making the line decent enough to cook out of again and not scare away our customers, because this is open concept and the doctors will not order food if the place looks like shit. Between cleaning and taking/cooking orders, I get to the time for my lunch without being able to run any of my usual pre-lunch cleaning that will let me close on time. Come back from lunch, start king cake production. As soon as I get one dough batch rolled out, 3 whole families of 4-8 come down and need service. After that wave, I keep ping-ponging between cake and grill and sometimes even the cash register because my cashier takes a whole 30 minutes to slice a ham and turkey. Finally finish king cake production at 7:10, 20 minutes to close. Nothing’s done. I’m veritably fucked.
Work as fast as I can, maximizing efficiency as much as possible. Prep cart is fucked. No labels on anything. Completely disordered, raw sausage on the top rack and lettuce right beside it. Wrap jobs are ass. Have to redo the whole thing, restructure it, and get it decent. Weigh out all our waste and food donations. Still haven’t cleaned a damn thing, and it’s 7:45.
So then, finally, I get to cleaning. Housekeepers come in and say that a banquet was left in one of the least used conference rooms over the weekend. So of course, I gotta go take care of that too. All told, I’m out by 10:25. My off time is supposed to be 8:30. Texted chef, and the above was his response.
“No more overtime.” Really man? What the fuck am I supposed to do, just leave the place a wreck? It feels so passive aggressive, and I can’t help but feel like there’s a write up waiting for me when I get there. How fucked do y’all think I am?