Sorry for the rant, but I needed to get this off my chest!

I've got a real job now as a cook/prep cook at the local hotel. It's a good job, I'm supposed to be a part-time employee, but some pay periods I get 9 shifts. So saying, I have this one co-worker who constantly gripes, bitches and complains about anything and everything. Well today she was grumpier than usual, she's the full-time morning prep cook and I do her job on her day's off, Friday's I'm always the 3'd person on and am there to help the cook and the prep cook get their work done before noon, which is when my Friday shift ends. I walked in this morning, say g'mornin' to everyone, and she looked at me and said "Yeah, whatever" in her grumpiest voice to date. So I'm thinkin' tomorrow when I'm playing the part of the cook, and she comes in an hour after I start I'll have this sign written up on the chalkboard.

What do you think? Good idea, bad idea, silly, what? Somehow though, I doubt that she'll get the joke. After all, there is not a thing I could do the other day to convince her that to unthaw food you have to put it into the freezer. We had a nice 1/2 hour arguement about it to be honest with you. Yep, you read that correctly, for a full 30 minutes I tried to explain how putting the prefix "un" in front of a word makes it mean the opposite of the word alone. I know you all know what I mean, but I'll try to put in most of the conversation anyway. Even if it doesn't help explain anything, it may give you as much of a headache as it did me, or it just may make you chuckle.

"Hey, S"

"Yeah, Skye?"

"Can you get some quiche out of the freezer to thaw for me please?"

"No, but I can unthaw it for you."

"It's already unthawed S, I need it thawed out as there is an order to go for 12 o'clock and they want quiche!"

"Skye, it's not unthawed until it's been out of the freezer and has had a chance to warm up to room temp. How many did you say you need out?"

"S, when you put on your runners, do you tie them up or untie them?"

"I tie them up of course Skye, why, what's this got to do with the quiche?"

"Ok, so you tie them up, good. When you go to take them off, do you untie your laces?"

"Of course I do. Where are you going with this?"

"Just play along with me here, S, just a few more questions. Do tie and untie mean the same thing?"

"Don't be dumb Skye, they are opposite of each other!"

"Good, I'm glad you said that! Now when food goes into the freezer, you freeze it, right?"

"Yes" said with a real quizzical look on her face.

"And you could say that to take it out of the freezer you're unfreezing it, right!?!"

"Ok, that sounds dumb, but yes, unfreeze would be the opposite of freeze, so it works."

"What does thaw mean?"

"I don't understand the question. To get back on topic, you want me to unthaw some quiche so it's ready for you for that lunch order, right?"

And so it went, on and on ad nauseum! If I hadn't been so startled by the stupidity of the whole thing, I would have been able to look at it as if it were the "Who's on first" skit of Abbot and Costello, it made about as much sense.

Anyway, back to today's episode! 

Today she was complaining she was tired and could do with some time off. Without taking time to stop and breathe, she goes on to say that she's broke and needs more hours so she can afford to pay her bills. We just got paid yesterday, how can she be broke already? Hmmm, how does one help with that? Play along with me here, you're the Chef and in charge of making up the schedule. In one hand you have the "I want time off", in the other hand you have the "I want more hours" that one employee is saying to you. What do you do? Do you give said employee more days off, or more hours meaning more shifts? Can't make her happy either way, can you? I tried to help her with this problem of hers, but to no avail, oh well, I tried :D 

Part of the job of being prep cook is making sure that the sauces we make from scratch are available for the cooks as needed. We also need to make sure there are enough sandwich meats cut along with all the lettuce and other vegetables for salads and so forth. I worked prep on Wednesday as she had the day off, the sauces were all good, there was lots of each, so I didn't make any. Yesterday she did prep, didn't need to make up anymore of the sauces. Today she notices that she needs to make a few sauces. Big deal, it takes only a few minutes for each one, none of them are cooked. What does she do though? She complains, "I have to make Honey Dill sauce, Tartar Sauce and Coleslaw dressing! All I ever do is cut meat and make sauces! This is rediculous!" It's all part of being in charge of morning prep. It's Friday, so I'm there just to help her and the cook with extra stuff and put away the stock that gets delivered on Friday's. It's standard operating proceedure, she knows this, I know this. Ok, so I've helped the cook, she has none of the side things left to do besides cook up orders as they come in. Good, that's all out of the way with. So, I go to help S get through her prep list. I ask her "S, is there anything I can do to help you out? Any jobs you really don't want to do?"

"No, Skye, nothing I can think of, as it is I'm going to be out of here by 1:30 there's so little prep to do today, I need to ask Chef for more hours!", and in her next breath "Dammit Skye, why do you get 2 weekends off in a row? I need time off!"

"I get 2 weekends off because we're closed Sunday and Monday due to renovations, you have those day's off as well!"

"It's still not fair Skye, you just had a 3 day weekend and now you get another one, J get's 3 days off this weekend. I better make sure that Chef knows that it's my turn next weekend."

"I'm part-time S, you and J are full-time, I get Tuesday off after the days we're closed so that you and J get your full-time hours. Chef is doing the best he can to keep it fair for the 2 of you to get your hours and still maintain a few hours for me. I only have 3 days of work both this week and next because you asked for more hours!"

And back we go into who's on first, so what do I do? Why I call on Apu from the Quicky Mart in Springfield of course!

"Oh what a cunundrum! I am owner of the Quickie Mart, I'm craving chocolate, but I have no money. I could just take a bar off the shelf and eat it but that would be stealing, and that's against my religion. But, the Quikie Mart belongs to me, therefore everything in here belongs to me, but if I take the chocolate, I can't sell it and then I don't have money to buy chocolate later, oh this is a horrible conundrum, what to do, what to do?"

  Then suddenly he's gone and the Swedish Chef starts to sing "Hm chebork de hmm chebork de boo, trow de shicken in de pot!", followed closely by Eeyore "Oh bother, I dropped my knife!"

While I was finishing up my clean-up and was getting ready to leave, who should come by? Well none other than Ernie of course, singing "Rubber Ducky, you're the one, you make my bathtime, lot's of fun..."

 By this time S is laughing so hard she's got tears in her eyes. Ah, I think to myself, my work here is finally done!

Sometimes having such famous friends can be a bonus :D