Work: 1 - Barr: 0

[Captain Barr]

I woke up feeling refreshed and excited about my day, but ended the night pissed-off and with blisters on my feet.

Started off like most days, where I slept until 3:00PM, waking up to get ready for my walk to work at 4PM. I've always enjoyed the walk to and from work. Roughly 20 minutes long, through a safe neighborhood, and there's a pizza place on the way there where I can grab a slice after my shift on the way home.

The moment I woke up is when things started to go downhill.

I hopped in the shower and stuck my face right under the spray. Felt good and woke me up...especially when the water went super hot and fried me like a chicken!

I survived my harrowing experience in the shower and moved on to getting dressed and packing my uniform. I'm a line cook at a local restaurant and I wear a chef's jacket, pants and apron, as well as one of those floppy chef's hats. Because I work with food all day, my uniform gets soiled rather heavily and smells pretty bad after a shift, so I have to wash it every day. I usually wash it right when I get home so I don't have to worry if I sleep late. Well I went to the dryer this morning only to find that it tripped the breaker at some point the night before and didn't dry my uniform at all. Oh well, it would only be wet for about half an hour into my shift so I could manage. It's uncomfortable, but I'm partially to blame so I'll deal.

Got to work at about five to four, plenty of time to change, grab a set of tongs and clock-in. I walk into the back of the house and as I pass the line my supervisor chews me out saying that I should always be fifteen minutes early so I have enough time to change without signing in late. I listen to him rant for a few minutes and proceed to tell him that if he had left me alone I would've been ready in time. He didn't take that too well and I lost my tip-out for the week.

I suit-up in my wet uniform and head to the line. My supervisor tells me I'm going to be working the broiler tonight so I get my station ready for the suppertime rush, making sure everything's stocked, cleaned, in place, etc. The broiler is a very tough station to handle on a Friday night due to the obscene number of steaks, burgers, and chicken that get ordered on weekend rushes, but I'm prepared and pumped for the night. Where I work there's a time limit on how long we have to prepare and cook certain orders. We have an alotted time to get each order cooked and up in the window for the servers to take to the tables. Fifteen minutes for entrees, eight minutes for appetizers and five minutes for desserts. This makes things even more difficult on the broiler simply because a well-done steak is damn tough to have ready in just fifteen minutes. No worries though, since I'm experienced and ready for action...or so I thought.

Just before the rush begins he switches me over to the pans station!

Now I'm stuck with a station that's hardly been stocked, that I'm just not ready for at the time being. Wouldn't be so bad if I'd had a short time to set myself up for the night, but I was pretty well thrown into the fray without warning. The pans aren't extremely tough, but that station often gets hit with dozens of orders at once and you only have six gas burners and a small flattop grill to work with. The orders themselves are pretty damn simple, but you have to be very organized to survive a busy night. Well, despite a few fuckups on my part, I got through things without any serious trouble. It was so bloody hot up on line tonight though, that it just sucked all the strength out of me working in front of six blazing gas burners all night.

After the supper rush was finished I took my break and got back on line only to find that the rush had begun again...after we'd sent some of our staff home for the night. Short-manned and not prepared, we got rocked all night until fifteen minutes before close at midnight. This pissed me off to no end because several large parties, including a group of seventeen, we're still ordering full meals at 11:30pm! I didn't even get to start my closing procedure until very late, and that frustrated me beyond belief knowing that I would be stuck at work all damn night. On top of that, a friend of mine whom I work with was unable to get to a show he had tickets for because I couldn't let him leave. Had he left, I would've been swamped and never gotten through the night. I offered to pay him half the ticket value to help make up for it, but I still feel like an asshole asking him to stay late.

Other high points of the night included running out of a few things, telling the servers that those orders were no longer available, and then having them ask me why they couldn't order them. Gee, I don't know, maybe because WE DON'T FUCKING HAVE ANY LEFT!

I also got various food items and drinks spilled on me when I was getting a drink for myself. I had my back turned to the dining room entrance and was pouring myself a glass of water when a server smashed into me with a tray full of half-eaten meals, splattering the back of my jacket with sauces and liquids. The worst part was that I wasn't even moving. I was standing completely still and she barreled into me full tilt!

After work I walked over to the bank to cash my check since it's been a real nice night outside only to get there and find that every ATM is out of service...

What a night.

[CableMonkey]

That reminds me of the old days when I was a cook at Carl's Jr.

I never worked so hard for so little pay.

Why did you sleep until 3PM?

[Captain Barr]

I'm usually out until late, 4 or 5AM, so I sleep late all the time.

I don't go to school, and anything I need accomlished during the day I can get done on my days off if I need to.

Also, if none of the above applies, it just feels damn good to spend my afternoon lazing around, lying in bed listening to the radio.

[WillRiker]

I once helped a mate out working in the kitchens of a Pizza Restaurant for a couple of weeks. It was without a doubt one of the hardest damn jobs I'd ever done.

Bearing n mind I come from an office environment and I was used to sitting at a desk dealing with people on the phone all day, (and getting paid a whole lot more than I got for the pizza work), I took it pretty badly.

[Bones]

Thank God I rarely work a line anymore. It can be pure Hell sometimes. Nowdays I do Banquets and now exactly how many people I have to feed ahead of time. The only time it gets hectic is if I work a pasta bar. That's five giant Sternoes with foot high flames for cooking and 20 people coming at you all at once. I feel for you man.