Life In The Fast Lane

I just can't believe some people! It's been ridiculously busy at work lately mainly because of hockey tournaments every weekend. Trouble is the management (henceforth to be known as "Manager") of the place couldn't be bothered to tell the kitchen staff let alone the Chef that all the teams had booked differing times for meals and all wanted buffet's! So now, this last weekend we've had 2 lunch buffet's for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 4 breakfast buffet's each day as well, along with full suppers for these teams. Do you have any clue how hard it is to set up and rip down that many buffet's, not to mention prepare the food for all of them while cooking for the coffee shop, restaurant and bar? No, I didn't think so, but let me tell you it's not easy and makes for a lot of work and hot tempers for everyone involved! And lucky us, this will be going on every weekend for the rest of the month!

The good part is that Chef and Manager gave me some blog fodder today!

I don't know about you, but I find it much easier to cut meat and veggies with a sharp knife as opposed to one no sharper than a butter knife. So saying, I get Silv to sharpen my knife on a regular basis and to just give it a touch up every night. It makes work much quicker and easier and my arms and hands don't get anywhere near so tired as they did when I used dull useless knives.

Now to get to my point. Today I was doing prep work and was busy cutting up a pail of green onions when Chef came into the prep area needing to cut some stuff up. Seeing he didn't have a knife handy and I was just finished with the onions, I offered him the use of my knife. He said "no thanks, I'll use one of S's instead!" and proceeds to take one of her knives out of it's little hiding place behind me. I couldn't believe it! He'd rather use a knife that is disgustingly dull instead of a sharp one! Anyway, I just shrugged my shoulder's and said "Ok". Really, it was no skin of my nose if he wanted to work harder, not smarter.

A few minutes later another one of the cooks came into the back and explained to me exactly why Chef didn't want to use my knife. It also made clear why he wasn't having Silv sharpen his knives anymore. I didn't laugh or say anything about it at the time, but I sure did when I told Silv about it!

What had happened was that Chef was used to using dull knives. Used to being able to take a knife and a raw potato and cut said potato in his hand. This is not something you can do after Silv has gotten a hold of your knife! His knives are sharp enough to shave with and that's how he sharpens knives for everyone who asks him to sharpen theirs. I warned Chef that his knife was scary sharp when I returned it to him, I guess he didn't believe me. Remember how I said he likes to cut things? Well he did that with his knife after Silv got it nice and sharp. NOT a good idea at ALL! He had cut his palm quite badly and almost blacked out from the pain and the site of blood apparently. Of course I don't know that for fact, but that's the story anyway. Now really, who, once warned, takes said warning and throws it out the window and does exactly what he was told not to!?! Someone without two braincells firing, that's who! I don't feel even remotely sorry for him, he knew what my knives were like, it's why he had me get his sharpened, so he knew not to do that which he did.

Now for Manager. Not only is he pathetic at passing on information and keeping doors of communication open so that everyone knows what's going on with good warning, but he doesn't think either!

When you want ice on your sidewalk broken up and removed, what do you do? Do you sprinkle salt and/or sand on it making it easier to walk and help break it up for quicker clean-up? Most people would!

Or would you take 5 gallon buckets of hot water and pour it on the ice in order to melt it? Keep in mind that the sidewalk in question is full of holes, dips and cracks, and that it's the low part of the yard and so has no place for water to flow away from it. Now, is that what you would do? I thought not!

I couldn't believe it when Manager came into the kitchen and to the area where I was working and proceeded to do just exactly that! I started to ask him if he thought that may not be such a good idea, when I decided I should just keep my mouth shut. So, now in an area where we've been fighting to retain our footing all winter long, where the ice was finally starting to break up due to beautiful temperatures, we can rest assured that the ice is there to stay for a while longer! Did Manager honestly think that melting the ice during the heat of the day would be a good idea? Did he not think that once the sun goes down and temperatures go back down to -10 Celsius for night that the water would not re-freeze? I'd wager to guess that he had not, I'd also wager that he won't be too happy when he has to skate his way to the door tomorrow morning. Probably would be even more pissed when I ask him if he enjoyed the slipping and sliding that his ice-melting project created. Somehow I don't think that will go over very well, but I will wager one more thing, and that is that I won't be able to go without saying something!