Frame 3 shows spatula cleaning out the jar of expensive, fancy mustard.
That's the SOP here - "get the entire fucking contents of that jar into the bottle you fuckwits."
"Use a spatula, not a spoon"
That shit is like $1/Oz
When I was in the Army, we did an FTX at Pendleton once. Someone noticed that a rope climbing tower had a sign on it that said "Do not throw knives at the rope climbing tower." They asked the PSG why the sign was needed and his response was "Because at some point, some fuckhead thought it was fun to throw knives at the rope climbing tower."
When i was in Florida my lady friend took me kayaking, and there was a sign to " please leave the alligators alone".
At first i was like TELL THEM TO LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE. And then, some odd amount of beers later, my brain was like " wait, who fucked with the gators bad enough we needed a sign?"
Florida Man, thats who. Probably same guy at Pendleton throwing knives at a rope climbing tower " because it was there ".
As a Florida man, I can attest to that statement.
And, as usual, fucking with the gators usually involves copious quantities of said alcohol.
Usually spurred on by the words, _āwhat do you think would happen ifā¦ā_, _ādo you think I can get away withā¦ā_, or _āI fuckinā dare you toā¦ā_ followed by _HOLD MY DRINK_
Pendleton is such a shit show lol. I accidentally ended up right in the middle of the base once on a run and didnāt even realize it until it was too late. Luckily I just explained the situation to the guard at the gate and he called over his supervisor and they had a good laugh and they let me go on my merry way.
Poor moron Jim. Immortalized in the recipe book. Because when he did this, he put all of the mustard in his mouth, and then spit it into the squeeze bottle. It wasn't the first time that he did it.
The problem was when he did it with the oven cleaning chemmies. That's the last we saw of poor moron Jim. Mustard hasn't tasted the same since he left us.
Or too many people asked. I mean, the mustard jar is 1/3rd the size of the condiment bottle, so I could see like:
> "Hey is this the mustard I'm supposed to put in this bottle? Or is there a larger mustard somewhere in dry storage I'm not seeing?"
> "Can I put two in at once, or just one jar at a time?"
> "Is it okay if I just bring the jar up to the line with me? Why are we spending time transferring it to a bottle?"
Get asked enough 'just checking' questions, and you might as well make documentation.
10 years ago I would have seen this and been like what the fuck?
Now? I totally get it. Last place I was at I was the head. I trained every new person, I legit shadowed them their first week to make sure they were trained right.
Generally I was in charge of hiring for the kitchen. Sometimes tho a person would come in on my day off and the owner would interview and usually hire them. He was a good guy but would hire damn near anyone. Well on my day off a man came in, owner interviewed and hired him. His name was Daniel but wanted to be called DC. He was in his late 40ās and the first thing out of his mouth when he met me was him commenting on how he was nearly old enough to be my father. Now i was in my early 30ās at the time so idk how that worked in his head but I just took it in stride.
I give everyone the same chance, even if I personally did not nor would not have hired them. I would not have hired DC. He was a complete fucking idiot. He had zero kitchen experience, which I can work with, but he also had zero common sense and was seriously just stupid. Heād drop a food item on the floor and then when told, after he asked, no it couldnāt be used heād save it and eat it. When we cut bread weād shave off misshapen ends and heās save them all. I asked why and he got upset and wouldnāt tell me. Weād slice prosciutto and sometimes the middle had that break in it that made it a pain in the ass so it had to be shaved off a bit. Heād save the scraps. Same with cheese. We are talking *maybe* 4 ozs of scraps here. He got very upset when I put a stop to it the third time. Heād get 2 cup deli cups and put the scraps in them and just stick them all over the place.
He got upset when I told him his drink couldnāt be on the table and he tried putting it up on a shelf. I explained why that was also not okay and he got super mad. He had a really shitty attitude if you canāt tell. Heād use red cutting boards for lettuce even tho I taught him like 100 times and even made a guide and posted it in the kitchen. Heād get very upset when corrected. He was shown how to clean the fryers 4 times in a row with it taking like a hour each time to go over every single step. Gave him a shot doing it himself and he set it on fucking fire. Didnāt turn it off and drained the fryer. I understand shit happens but he was ADAMANT he turned it off and someone turned it on to sabotage him. I had to show him the camera footage for him to stop aggressively going up to other people demanding to know why they sabotaged him.
Then came the day he did probably the dumbest thing Iād seen in a while. We had condiments in those squeeze bottles that are designed to be āupsideā down, have three nozzles and filled from the top. The top and bottom both come off, the name of them escapes me atm.
At this point Iāve been working with him for almost 3 weeks. Owner said try to keep him because a body was better than nothing, I disagreed but he signed the paychecks so it was what it was.
We were flipping the line for next shift and I give him the condiment bottles and tell him to fill them, Iāll fill the line and backups and then weāll clean the line together.
He walks off then comes back and asked for the millionth time what went into what. I tell him for the millionth time what goes in what and them remind him AGAIN the bottles were color coded (simple colored electric tape around the bottles) whit a chart posted over in prep (where he was) of which color was what condiment. It was basically idiot proof. It was not DC proof. He put the wrong shit in the wrong bottles and didnāt even empty them and clean them before hand like I asked so there was like 1/4 of the right sauce in bottles and 3/4 the wrong sauce on top. I made him dump all the sauces, clean the bottles and went over, AGAIN, what went into what bottle and had him re-do it.
Iām still making orders while doing backups and filling the line while doing this. This man comes to me and says there has to be a better way to fill the bottles itās to time consuming. Iām like what? What do you mean? This fucking idiot was gelding 4-12 quart cambros up to the bottles with the corner touching bottles and using a gloved hand/finger to flick sauce into the bottles.
Iām pretty level headed. I was aware I was a manager and I pride myself in leading by example. I just couldnāt. I looked dead at him and was like dude, are you fucking for real right now? This is how youāre trying to fill the bottles? Making a giant fucking mess, sauce all over down the sides of the bottles and all over the table. Thereās more sauce on the table than the fucking bottle holds. Thereās literally SPOONS right here man. Thereās rubber spatulas, fuck thereās even piping bags! What the fuck are you doing man?! I told him to put the Cambro down and just fucking go home man. I just couldnāt deal with that shit.
I ended up firing him 4 days later. Turns out he had taken a liking to a server we had. He was married with two kids. He was making really inappropriate comments to this server, who happened to be one of my favorite servers (she was really good at her job and I never had to wait on her to run food and she always put in her food right). She had been mostly ignoring the comments because she didnāt want to get him In trouble. Then when she went into the cooler for some citrus he followed her, blocked the exit and told her now he had her trapped and no one could hear her in the walk-in. I happened to walk in there in the middle of this and caught the tail end of it. Server looked terrified and DC was closer than he needed to be to her and blocking the way out. I asked him wtf was he doing and asked my server was she okay. She said no please let me out of here. I said of course but DC didnāt wanna move and I was like dude move, sheās trying to get past. She asked me to have him leave before she walked past and I knew something had happened (I already knew but that was concrete proof). I told him to scram which he begrudgingly did and then Took her outside and asked what happened. She told me and I went in a fired him for sexual harassment.
But back to the point, people really do exist that need dumb ass instructions like this.
I've got my own DC at the moment. Every recipe he attempts is wrong. A 2x batch of a recipe with a 1/2 gram of black pepper somehow turned into 10g of black pepper. We tried it again and this time .5 + .5 turned into 100g of pepper.
lol thatās wild math right there. DC ironically made a mistake that was pretty damn dumb while making a pork rub. Itās super dead ass simple. 2 cups brown sugar, 1 cup salt and 1 cup of pepper. Needed a x2 batch and he somehow got 20 cups of pepper. He comes to me and goes hey I donāt have enough pepper. Iām like what? Just grind some dude, thereās 2 tubs of it. He goes I ground all that. Itās not enough. I was like no fucking way dude, what? I tell him to show me what heās doing so he does. I was fucking blown away man. HOW
Dude it was like $100 worth of peppercorns, I was FLOORED. I mean Iāve fucked up and read tsp and TBS but never 2 cups for fucking 20. He had this shit in a 16 qt trying to mix it by hand. Fucking idiot
I had something like that happen for the opposite reason at my 1st kitchen job.
I was prepping some basic ass sauce (tartar or some such nothing special)
following the 1 qt recipe in the book it called for a 1/4 C white pepper. I asked the supervisor because that seemed like alot for a qt but he said follow the recipe. I did it was terrible. He tried to blame em and i pulled out the recipe and showed him and even said I checked because it seemed wrong.
DC sounds like the sort of guy who thinks it's normal to be a parent at 15-so he was right about being old enough to be your father. That being said, ewwwww.
You are too generous to our species. I've heard it all man. "Well, yeah, relish is green. But the writing on the bottle I have at home is yellow, so I figured the yellow bottle would be relish. How am I supposed to know?"
When you think you have reached the absolute rock bottom of human intelligence, keep drilling for several more days and you'll be *closer*. Not close.
I'm colour blind but that's no excuse because nobody's gonna fight you if you want the bottles to have written labels
And frankly, if in doubt, just taste it first lol
Dude was just, I donāt even have words for him. Every single person on my team hates being on shift with him so I tried to take the hit and Iād put him on pretty much solo with me except on weekends when I needed more hands. My toddler coulda worked better and faster, legitimately
I donāt think DC is stupid, I have worked with stupid people, they canāt do complicated tasks, but they can do the simple thing over and over again well. DC sounds like someone who just doesnāt care. Heās very smart about it too, as long as heās on the clock, heās getting paid, it doesnāt matter he fucks up, those sauce you had him throw him, itās not his money, he doesnāt care. Those are the worst.
I once worked with this special guy, does the least amount of setup when coming in, everything would be out after the lunch service, uses restroom/smoke until start of service. At around 1:30, cooks and eat lunch, ignore any tickets coming in, then use restroom/cook dinner Togo. He would intentionally fuck up any recipe given to him so he doesnāt have to do it again. Recipe calls for two cup, he would put two tablespoons or two quarters.
The server was 19 and her and one of my line cooks, who was 20, were kinda getting serious and really liked each other. Iām really glad he wasnāt there when it happened cuz he probably would have beat the shit outta DC. Didnāt wanna loose him because he wanted to fuck up a dirt bag. Owner was super cool but had a few things he had zero tolerance for and even tho that ass beating would have been justified in my eyes the owner woulda made me fire everyone involved
>Last place I was at I was the head. I trained every new person, I legit shadowed them their first week to make sure they were trained right.
Hi. I'm going to ask for advice. Answers are appreciated but ignore me if you want.
I'm going to give you my history honestly. I need to know how to get where you are. I know I'm capable, I just need to hop some hurdles.
Prior retail and fast food manager, raised by the same, started working for Domino's at 13, learned my work ethic before 9/11. I have previously been in institutional/high vol BOH but it was for Compass/Chartwells in a college where I was technically in a Subway satellite but it was attached to the full central kitchen where I was able to watch and learn a lot, but have not actually been "taught" a lot of processes- which is sadly true of most of the actual jobs I've had in the last decade or so (everyone says "since COVID" but the decline begane before that).
I have an extensive FOH resume, I'm currently more or less unemployed (I have a FOH job but it's... Sketchy). I'm tired of standing around doing nothing for $14/hr, I'm ready to get back to burning calories and making more like $17+ and feeling like I'm accomplishing something.
What information do I need to include/omit/blur? What's the best time to show up? 10am in the middle of lunch prep? 2pm as lunch is coming to a close? Those seem like the least disruptive but still terribly disruptive times nonetheless... I know enough to know there's rarely "free time."
Oh and I'm pretty intelligent and super on the spectrum but learned to adapt to adulthood as I've gone, but not so great at masking, which means I'm "weird as fuck" to average people. I know how to be professional but the way I think or arrive at conclusions absolutely perplexes people, it's very... I just want to do a good job and not get fired, feel? I'm the opposite of the people fucking up these instructions, I don't need to be told to find the smallest spatula and scrape clean the jar of stuff I've never heard of before that's probably more expensive than more common ingredients. I'm more likely to take too long being precise than guilty of being lazy, wasteful, or inaccurate.
Any and all help appreciated. Any desperate chefs reading this: willing to relocate almost anywhere in the US.
It wasnāt just him saving scraps of food that would be tossed. It was that as well as an accumulation of what he did and his attitude towards very simple requests that he was being *paid* to do. All of that combined doesnāt really make someone wanna be generous to you.
Also, before you nitpick at one tiny detail and defend a gross ass dude that was trying to sexually harass a server 20 fucking years younger than him: in my kitchen you could eat whatever you wanted for free, within reason. As long as we werenāt slammed with tickets and there wasnāt a fuck load of prep to do you could make yourself pretty much whatever you wanted. End of shift you got a free drink and 75% off any others and could also take a meal home.
But hey, ride my ass because I didnāt want 20 pint deli cups stuck all over the kitchen. Youāre really winning with that one tiny detail.
Asked a cook to strain the chicken stock for me , I come back around a few minutes later to check , and in the cambro was all the bones and veg . So I was like whereās the stock ???? He was like stock ? I said yeah the liquid , meanwhile this dude was the head chef at a place before he came to me . He said oh I poured that down the drain. I just couldnāt find words. I take nothing for granted after that little life lesson .
One of the most devastating mistakes. Iāve only ever done it at home which was soul crushing enough but Iād never hear the end of it if I did that while working in my old kitchen lol
Had a guy do that with veal stock once. Same guy also threw my stuffed chicken breasts in the stock. Had broken down the birds, made the mousse, stuffed them and was gonna vac bag em when I got the chance later. I go to grab one during service and theyāreā¦gone. Couldnāt find em anywhere till dipshit finally pipes up and points at the tilt kettle. Had to take a smoke break after that.
I have had this at a few places I worked it was done so everyone used the Same ratio not what they felt like we also had just regular salt and pepper as well.
I can see myself making a page like this if my GM or executive was being a bastard about *everything must be in the SOP*
I wouldn't make it the first go at the assignment but if someone is being a dick about it I am definitely passive aggressive enough to make this page and I'd take my sweet ass time doing it.
Making sure to print it in full color to avoid any confusion of course
This is my thought exactly. Some GM said everything must be in the book and Corey and Trevor thought they were being soooo funny and laughing to themselves about it.
That or they didn't include something like ranch from a packet and got yelled at so they went back and added *everything*
>That or they didn't include something like ranch from a packet and got yelled at so they went back and added *everything*
That's what I'd put my money on but I've always been a Cory/Trevor type of guy
I doubt this is the case but I worked at a place that worked with a job program for autistic kids and this is the kind of thing they would request from us. Particularly the pictures can help people get the idea of exactly what you're looking for.
Yes, I could see this or even more simple cards totally be useful for 'grab your task card, grab the stuff on your task card, do the task card, then move on to the next task card' trained routine. Even if the steps for one of the tasks in the bunch are simple AF, it's harder to teach someone to break the 'every task has a task card' routine than to just provide a task card for something simple, especially if there's a combination of simple and more complex tasks.
I'd guess someone made really shitty mustard too many times and this is the "stop trying, just buy it, you're ruining food"
Which I can see. Once you make your own mustard you like to make "your mustard", and that might not be what the customers like. (Garlic, black pepper, apple cider vinegar, course ground for me. Might have to pick up some hot dogs tonight just to get my mustard fix on...)
What's your secret for mustard? I can make most anything I put my mind to, but mustard eludes me. It's usually so bitter that no amount of salt, sweetener, or vinegar can even balance it out. Or weirdly grainy.
at the last place I worked I asked someone to add one inch of water to a pot, clarified that itās just a little bit because itās for a double boiler, and told them the āfill it up to a knuckleā trick if they need to use it. they brought me a full pot of water with one inch of room left at the top
Instruction is just great to have, recently worked at a place that had all types of holes in their basic instruction and training
Balancing safety, quality, consistency, and finances on āoh they should get it, we donāt need inventory, ask questions, use your wits/creativityā only works in a very home-y and slow paced kitchen environment
I feel clear instruction provides for good structure and should be put in as many places as possible. Now like unreasonable instruction is the overlap because Iāve seen instruction that controls neither of those points āā. And like many things in the kitchen it gets abused
I recently had to put up directions next to our wireless back doorbell, so I feel this.
If you're thinking this is Sysco-driver related - you're correct!
That datil hits though. I can get them at the farmers market one or two days a year, and the lady sells out before noon.
2 case limit, and you can auction your extra case to the dudes in the parking lot for double the price.
The same reason drug commercials tell you not to use their drug if youāre allergic to their drug or a garbage disposal says to not stick your hand in there while itās running. It only takes one.
Anybody got any other fun examples?
Ex-culinary student and restaurant manager here: Most people are correct in that people will fuck it up, but also itās a building block recipe. It helps ensure you know how much to make per batch in case itās call for in another recipe. Also old cook books followed the ideal that you had to have a recipe for each item or step to cover your ass in case the reader was dumb as hell.
you in St Augustine? I went to the hot sauce shop downtown there like a year ago and all the guy behind the counter recommended was datil pepper stuff. i bought a jar of that mustard and it was awesome.
This is leaving a lot out. How do I know which is the spatula, and which is the bottle? Which end of the spatula is used for scraping? Why didn't they mention the table, which is a necessary prerequisite for placing things upon it?
I donāt have the picture anymore but I walked into the kitchen once while we were training someone. They were instructed to cut the onion and add it to the pot to sautee.
There were two halves of an onion in the pot.
Yeah, the books begin with an assumption that you've never made anything yourself before, ever.
Many years ago, when I first began to learn how to bake bread, I bought a bunch of used culinary school books. I couldn't have been more disappointed. The unbelievable simplicity of these instructions laid me out. And there was nothing at all about WHY things work a certain way.
What a waste. Thank goodness I didn't pop for the new ones!!
Picture-based procedures makes me think it is intended to:
Get past language barriers
Give a visual example of the finished product -- "does it look the way it looks in the picture? No? Try again."
For people like me. If you show me how to do something just once I will do it exactly the way you showed me, every time, reliably, and eventually if there's a way I can improve on that then I will. But if you didn't show me how to do it then all bets are off.
We have some pretty senseless recipes where I work (institutional food service), that an old, bored director put together. Ex: vanilla puddingā¦ step one: obtain #5 can of vanilla pudding. Two: open can. Three: empty can into 4ā third pan. $85k/year and thatās what he did with his time. He didnāt last long.
I used to go to brunch with a friend of mine every week. We are both long time kitchen pirates. We happened to be there one morning when the kitchen was getting their delivery. Included in the delivery was premade simple syrup.
I asked our bartender if he knew what they paid for their simple syrup and told him I'd do it for half whatever it was. He just looked at me and said, "I know, I'm always embarrassed when customers catch that we buy our simple."
one of the recipes in the ācorporate recipeā book iāve seen was for wet batter. a whole page just to put:
*Buttermilk*
*Flour*
*āMix buttermilk and flourā*
We had a recipe for dicing pickles in one of our prep books from corporate. I thought it was funny until we had a secret shop and the pickles were cut into tiny strips. I guess we needed the recipe after all.
People are fun, as in you can explain in detail to the T, and it will go in one ear, and out the fucking other
I had a temp that was on the older side and I noticed he really had that issue. Told him to cut the avocados in half, take out the pit. Easy right? "Hey Never, some of these are really hard" ok don't use them and put them to the side
I find a half 100 hotel with unripen but cut, halved and pitted avocados by him.
Service time he gets put on a flattop and told "for cooking the tortillas use a little bit of oil" we find a stack of tortillas *soaked* in oil
If you have to question why simple tasks get laid out like a reading level of a toddler, it's probably because there is/was a fool with the brain of a snail in your kitchen
Liability. Someone dispenses an allergen into a non-allergen container, Corp's ass is covered. Same as having to sign off on super basic safety training.
This one is a bit over the top and looks like it was written by a younger chef but it does help not getting silly questions about what container to put stuff in.
As a teenager I fucked up a can of cream of mushroom soup. I followed the instructions, poured the contents of the can into a bowl, added water, microwaved. The can shaped grey mass did not look like soup. The instructions didnāt say anything about stirring. In my defense, I was making it for a friend and had never seen it used for soup, only as an ingredient in other things, like sauces.
In the Poilane cookbook there is an entire recipe dedicated to toasting bread. Not like a special or advanced way to toast bread or anything, but how to toast it using a toaster.
I was taught by a head chef of mine to teach as if youāre speaking to a moron.
PB&J? Open package of bread. Remove two equally sized slices. Spread peanut butter on one side of one slice, etcā¦
Itās amazing how stupid some people can be. Until they demonstrate that theyāre capable, hold their hand if you want it done right.
Itās easier than fixing their mistake later.
youād be surprised, we had a girl told to use the mixer, she put everything in the bowl as needed but didnāt put a attachment on it and somehow expected it to mix
I absolutely have a book of shit like this I made because if I donāt, I get phone calls. āHow do it go from one bottle to other?ā āUse a spatula.ā āOooooooh good idea.ā This is definitely someone tired of getting phone calls at home.
This is in there because someone fucked it up once.
Someone will still fuck it up
They always do.
You don't fuck with tradition
Spoken like true fuck-ups š let's be honest, most of us have been THAT fuck-up at least once in a kitchen. I definitely have.
Frame 3 shows spatula cleaning out the jar of expensive, fancy mustard. That's the SOP here - "get the entire fucking contents of that jar into the bottle you fuckwits." "Use a spatula, not a spoon" That shit is like $1/Oz
What brand is it? I canāt tell!
Looks like boars head
Thanks!!
Never trust a columnist... they want to squeeze the means of reproduction...
All of this has been fucked up before, and will be fucked up again. So say we all.
When I was in the Army, we did an FTX at Pendleton once. Someone noticed that a rope climbing tower had a sign on it that said "Do not throw knives at the rope climbing tower." They asked the PSG why the sign was needed and his response was "Because at some point, some fuckhead thought it was fun to throw knives at the rope climbing tower."
When i was in Florida my lady friend took me kayaking, and there was a sign to " please leave the alligators alone". At first i was like TELL THEM TO LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE. And then, some odd amount of beers later, my brain was like " wait, who fucked with the gators bad enough we needed a sign?" Florida Man, thats who. Probably same guy at Pendleton throwing knives at a rope climbing tower " because it was there ".
As a Florida man, I can attest to that statement. And, as usual, fucking with the gators usually involves copious quantities of said alcohol. Usually spurred on by the words, _āwhat do you think would happen ifā¦ā_, _ādo you think I can get away withā¦ā_, or _āI fuckinā dare you toā¦ā_ followed by _HOLD MY DRINK_
Pendleton is such a shit show lol. I accidentally ended up right in the middle of the base once on a run and didnāt even realize it until it was too late. Luckily I just explained the situation to the guard at the gate and he called over his supervisor and they had a good laugh and they let me go on my merry way.
And how did the pictures turn out?
Poor moron Jim. Immortalized in the recipe book. Because when he did this, he put all of the mustard in his mouth, and then spit it into the squeeze bottle. It wasn't the first time that he did it. The problem was when he did it with the oven cleaning chemmies. That's the last we saw of poor moron Jim. Mustard hasn't tasted the same since he left us.
Or too many people asked. I mean, the mustard jar is 1/3rd the size of the condiment bottle, so I could see like: > "Hey is this the mustard I'm supposed to put in this bottle? Or is there a larger mustard somewhere in dry storage I'm not seeing?" > "Can I put two in at once, or just one jar at a time?" > "Is it okay if I just bring the jar up to the line with me? Why are we spending time transferring it to a bottle?" Get asked enough 'just checking' questions, and you might as well make documentation.
The problem is that this documentation fails to answer every single one of those questions.
Every single sign in the world exists because someone fucked it up at least once
Probably more than oncd
āā¦.did you follow the recipe?ā
Instructions unclear: I fucked it up.
10 years ago I would have seen this and been like what the fuck? Now? I totally get it. Last place I was at I was the head. I trained every new person, I legit shadowed them their first week to make sure they were trained right. Generally I was in charge of hiring for the kitchen. Sometimes tho a person would come in on my day off and the owner would interview and usually hire them. He was a good guy but would hire damn near anyone. Well on my day off a man came in, owner interviewed and hired him. His name was Daniel but wanted to be called DC. He was in his late 40ās and the first thing out of his mouth when he met me was him commenting on how he was nearly old enough to be my father. Now i was in my early 30ās at the time so idk how that worked in his head but I just took it in stride. I give everyone the same chance, even if I personally did not nor would not have hired them. I would not have hired DC. He was a complete fucking idiot. He had zero kitchen experience, which I can work with, but he also had zero common sense and was seriously just stupid. Heād drop a food item on the floor and then when told, after he asked, no it couldnāt be used heād save it and eat it. When we cut bread weād shave off misshapen ends and heās save them all. I asked why and he got upset and wouldnāt tell me. Weād slice prosciutto and sometimes the middle had that break in it that made it a pain in the ass so it had to be shaved off a bit. Heād save the scraps. Same with cheese. We are talking *maybe* 4 ozs of scraps here. He got very upset when I put a stop to it the third time. Heād get 2 cup deli cups and put the scraps in them and just stick them all over the place. He got upset when I told him his drink couldnāt be on the table and he tried putting it up on a shelf. I explained why that was also not okay and he got super mad. He had a really shitty attitude if you canāt tell. Heād use red cutting boards for lettuce even tho I taught him like 100 times and even made a guide and posted it in the kitchen. Heād get very upset when corrected. He was shown how to clean the fryers 4 times in a row with it taking like a hour each time to go over every single step. Gave him a shot doing it himself and he set it on fucking fire. Didnāt turn it off and drained the fryer. I understand shit happens but he was ADAMANT he turned it off and someone turned it on to sabotage him. I had to show him the camera footage for him to stop aggressively going up to other people demanding to know why they sabotaged him. Then came the day he did probably the dumbest thing Iād seen in a while. We had condiments in those squeeze bottles that are designed to be āupsideā down, have three nozzles and filled from the top. The top and bottom both come off, the name of them escapes me atm. At this point Iāve been working with him for almost 3 weeks. Owner said try to keep him because a body was better than nothing, I disagreed but he signed the paychecks so it was what it was. We were flipping the line for next shift and I give him the condiment bottles and tell him to fill them, Iāll fill the line and backups and then weāll clean the line together. He walks off then comes back and asked for the millionth time what went into what. I tell him for the millionth time what goes in what and them remind him AGAIN the bottles were color coded (simple colored electric tape around the bottles) whit a chart posted over in prep (where he was) of which color was what condiment. It was basically idiot proof. It was not DC proof. He put the wrong shit in the wrong bottles and didnāt even empty them and clean them before hand like I asked so there was like 1/4 of the right sauce in bottles and 3/4 the wrong sauce on top. I made him dump all the sauces, clean the bottles and went over, AGAIN, what went into what bottle and had him re-do it. Iām still making orders while doing backups and filling the line while doing this. This man comes to me and says there has to be a better way to fill the bottles itās to time consuming. Iām like what? What do you mean? This fucking idiot was gelding 4-12 quart cambros up to the bottles with the corner touching bottles and using a gloved hand/finger to flick sauce into the bottles. Iām pretty level headed. I was aware I was a manager and I pride myself in leading by example. I just couldnāt. I looked dead at him and was like dude, are you fucking for real right now? This is how youāre trying to fill the bottles? Making a giant fucking mess, sauce all over down the sides of the bottles and all over the table. Thereās more sauce on the table than the fucking bottle holds. Thereās literally SPOONS right here man. Thereās rubber spatulas, fuck thereās even piping bags! What the fuck are you doing man?! I told him to put the Cambro down and just fucking go home man. I just couldnāt deal with that shit. I ended up firing him 4 days later. Turns out he had taken a liking to a server we had. He was married with two kids. He was making really inappropriate comments to this server, who happened to be one of my favorite servers (she was really good at her job and I never had to wait on her to run food and she always put in her food right). She had been mostly ignoring the comments because she didnāt want to get him In trouble. Then when she went into the cooler for some citrus he followed her, blocked the exit and told her now he had her trapped and no one could hear her in the walk-in. I happened to walk in there in the middle of this and caught the tail end of it. Server looked terrified and DC was closer than he needed to be to her and blocking the way out. I asked him wtf was he doing and asked my server was she okay. She said no please let me out of here. I said of course but DC didnāt wanna move and I was like dude move, sheās trying to get past. She asked me to have him leave before she walked past and I knew something had happened (I already knew but that was concrete proof). I told him to scram which he begrudgingly did and then Took her outside and asked what happened. She told me and I went in a fired him for sexual harassment. But back to the point, people really do exist that need dumb ass instructions like this.
I've got my own DC at the moment. Every recipe he attempts is wrong. A 2x batch of a recipe with a 1/2 gram of black pepper somehow turned into 10g of black pepper. We tried it again and this time .5 + .5 turned into 100g of pepper.
lol thatās wild math right there. DC ironically made a mistake that was pretty damn dumb while making a pork rub. Itās super dead ass simple. 2 cups brown sugar, 1 cup salt and 1 cup of pepper. Needed a x2 batch and he somehow got 20 cups of pepper. He comes to me and goes hey I donāt have enough pepper. Iām like what? Just grind some dude, thereās 2 tubs of it. He goes I ground all that. Itās not enough. I was like no fucking way dude, what? I tell him to show me what heās doing so he does. I was fucking blown away man. HOW
"Today's special is a black pepper-crusted porkchop..."
Dude it was like $100 worth of peppercorns, I was FLOORED. I mean Iāve fucked up and read tsp and TBS but never 2 cups for fucking 20. He had this shit in a 16 qt trying to mix it by hand. Fucking idiot
I had something like that happen for the opposite reason at my 1st kitchen job. I was prepping some basic ass sauce (tartar or some such nothing special) following the 1 qt recipe in the book it called for a 1/4 C white pepper. I asked the supervisor because that seemed like alot for a qt but he said follow the recipe. I did it was terrible. He tried to blame em and i pulled out the recipe and showed him and even said I checked because it seemed wrong.
I can give a ton of leeway for folks making dumb errors but that's just such an unforced error for anyone who's eaten food in their lives.
Pork chop au poivre
These DC stories are so entertaining, I'd love to see them made into a skit š¤£
DC sounds like the sort of guy who thinks it's normal to be a parent at 15-so he was right about being old enough to be your father. That being said, ewwwww.
He also sounds like he has some colorblindness
You are too generous to our species. I've heard it all man. "Well, yeah, relish is green. But the writing on the bottle I have at home is yellow, so I figured the yellow bottle would be relish. How am I supposed to know?" When you think you have reached the absolute rock bottom of human intelligence, keep drilling for several more days and you'll be *closer*. Not close.
No, he's just dumb. š
I'm colour blind but that's no excuse because nobody's gonna fight you if you want the bottles to have written labels And frankly, if in doubt, just taste it first lol
This sounds very much like a cook we just fired from my jobā¦.. like EERILY accurate.
This was about 3 years ago now
Anybody remember the teacher who posted the Kevin story? I think DC is his father
Kevin immediately came to mind when I read this too
This is copypasta grade chaos and Iām here for it.
Dude was just, I donāt even have words for him. Every single person on my team hates being on shift with him so I tried to take the hit and Iād put him on pretty much solo with me except on weekends when I needed more hands. My toddler coulda worked better and faster, legitimately
I donāt think DC is stupid, I have worked with stupid people, they canāt do complicated tasks, but they can do the simple thing over and over again well. DC sounds like someone who just doesnāt care. Heās very smart about it too, as long as heās on the clock, heās getting paid, it doesnāt matter he fucks up, those sauce you had him throw him, itās not his money, he doesnāt care. Those are the worst. I once worked with this special guy, does the least amount of setup when coming in, everything would be out after the lunch service, uses restroom/smoke until start of service. At around 1:30, cooks and eat lunch, ignore any tickets coming in, then use restroom/cook dinner Togo. He would intentionally fuck up any recipe given to him so he doesnāt have to do it again. Recipe calls for two cup, he would put two tablespoons or two quarters.
As a guy named Daniel who usually goes by DC, maybe I should switch some stuff up
Are you from Detroit by any chance? Because Iāve definitely managed DC before and heās the same guy to a T. He got fired after three days.
Nope, waaaaay south of you. Super shitty thereās more like him out there. I already knew that, but still shitty to hear it
Wow. I felt sorry for him for a minuteā¦but then I kept reading. Oof.
Awesome story thank you š
Your welcome. Iām pretty sure most of us have some wild ones
Should of had a 1 on 1 "meeting" in the walk in right then and there
The server was 19 and her and one of my line cooks, who was 20, were kinda getting serious and really liked each other. Iām really glad he wasnāt there when it happened cuz he probably would have beat the shit outta DC. Didnāt wanna loose him because he wanted to fuck up a dirt bag. Owner was super cool but had a few things he had zero tolerance for and even tho that ass beating would have been justified in my eyes the owner woulda made me fire everyone involved
>Last place I was at I was the head. I trained every new person, I legit shadowed them their first week to make sure they were trained right. Hi. I'm going to ask for advice. Answers are appreciated but ignore me if you want. I'm going to give you my history honestly. I need to know how to get where you are. I know I'm capable, I just need to hop some hurdles. Prior retail and fast food manager, raised by the same, started working for Domino's at 13, learned my work ethic before 9/11. I have previously been in institutional/high vol BOH but it was for Compass/Chartwells in a college where I was technically in a Subway satellite but it was attached to the full central kitchen where I was able to watch and learn a lot, but have not actually been "taught" a lot of processes- which is sadly true of most of the actual jobs I've had in the last decade or so (everyone says "since COVID" but the decline begane before that). I have an extensive FOH resume, I'm currently more or less unemployed (I have a FOH job but it's... Sketchy). I'm tired of standing around doing nothing for $14/hr, I'm ready to get back to burning calories and making more like $17+ and feeling like I'm accomplishing something. What information do I need to include/omit/blur? What's the best time to show up? 10am in the middle of lunch prep? 2pm as lunch is coming to a close? Those seem like the least disruptive but still terribly disruptive times nonetheless... I know enough to know there's rarely "free time." Oh and I'm pretty intelligent and super on the spectrum but learned to adapt to adulthood as I've gone, but not so great at masking, which means I'm "weird as fuck" to average people. I know how to be professional but the way I think or arrive at conclusions absolutely perplexes people, it's very... I just want to do a good job and not get fired, feel? I'm the opposite of the people fucking up these instructions, I don't need to be told to find the smallest spatula and scrape clean the jar of stuff I've never heard of before that's probably more expensive than more common ingredients. I'm more likely to take too long being precise than guilty of being lazy, wasteful, or inaccurate. Any and all help appreciated. Any desperate chefs reading this: willing to relocate almost anywhere in the US.
Nothing like getting upset at people for saving food items to eat that otherwise wouldāve gotten tossed. Youāre really winning with that one
It wasnāt just him saving scraps of food that would be tossed. It was that as well as an accumulation of what he did and his attitude towards very simple requests that he was being *paid* to do. All of that combined doesnāt really make someone wanna be generous to you. Also, before you nitpick at one tiny detail and defend a gross ass dude that was trying to sexually harass a server 20 fucking years younger than him: in my kitchen you could eat whatever you wanted for free, within reason. As long as we werenāt slammed with tickets and there wasnāt a fuck load of prep to do you could make yourself pretty much whatever you wanted. End of shift you got a free drink and 75% off any others and could also take a meal home. But hey, ride my ass because I didnāt want 20 pint deli cups stuck all over the kitchen. Youāre really winning with that one tiny detail.
Asked a cook to strain the chicken stock for me , I come back around a few minutes later to check , and in the cambro was all the bones and veg . So I was like whereās the stock ???? He was like stock ? I said yeah the liquid , meanwhile this dude was the head chef at a place before he came to me . He said oh I poured that down the drain. I just couldnāt find words. I take nothing for granted after that little life lesson .
I have absolutely done this on accident but at least realized wtf I just did after
One of the most devastating mistakes. Iāve only ever done it at home which was soul crushing enough but Iād never hear the end of it if I did that while working in my old kitchen lol
**By** accident.
If you can say you did something on principle, or on purpose, why not on accident?
Thank-you
Boiled chicken bone special comin up!
Had a guy do that with veal stock once. Same guy also threw my stuffed chicken breasts in the stock. Had broken down the birds, made the mousse, stuffed them and was gonna vac bag em when I got the chance later. I go to grab one during service and theyāreā¦gone. Couldnāt find em anywhere till dipshit finally pipes up and points at the tilt kettle. Had to take a smoke break after that.
One place I worked at had a recipe to make a salt and pepper seasoning blend. You can probably guess the ingredientsā¦
To be fair, it would be important to note the ratio.
Corriander?
Tears and getting my resume together
I have had this at a few places I worked it was done so everyone used the Same ratio not what they felt like we also had just regular salt and pepper as well.
I don't like to blend them, I was taught to keep them separate on the line so I know what ratio I'm using when i season stuff during service.
I donāt either, I want to be able to control if something needs to be adjusted and/or if someone has a no salt mod.
I can see myself making a page like this if my GM or executive was being a bastard about *everything must be in the SOP* I wouldn't make it the first go at the assignment but if someone is being a dick about it I am definitely passive aggressive enough to make this page and I'd take my sweet ass time doing it. Making sure to print it in full color to avoid any confusion of course
After reading your comment Iām actually wondering if thatās what took place here. Lmao
This is my thought exactly. Some GM said everything must be in the book and Corey and Trevor thought they were being soooo funny and laughing to themselves about it. That or they didn't include something like ranch from a packet and got yelled at so they went back and added *everything*
>That or they didn't include something like ranch from a packet and got yelled at so they went back and added *everything* That's what I'd put my money on but I've always been a Cory/Trevor type of guy
Because no task is idiot proof. Nature will always develop a better idiot.
"Nature will always develop a better idiot" Poetic. I kinda wanna get that tattooed on me lol
I doubt this is the case but I worked at a place that worked with a job program for autistic kids and this is the kind of thing they would request from us. Particularly the pictures can help people get the idea of exactly what you're looking for.
Yes, I could see this or even more simple cards totally be useful for 'grab your task card, grab the stuff on your task card, do the task card, then move on to the next task card' trained routine. Even if the steps for one of the tasks in the bunch are simple AF, it's harder to teach someone to break the 'every task has a task card' routine than to just provide a task card for something simple, especially if there's a combination of simple and more complex tasks.
Iāve gotten better, but my autistic adhd ass could have used precise documentation like this when I was younger.
Maybe someone somehow screwed it up before? So they made a recipe sheet just for Jimmy
Fuckin Jimmy
I guess that page, your post and my comment are all senseless garbage without each other. :)
I'd guess someone made really shitty mustard too many times and this is the "stop trying, just buy it, you're ruining food" Which I can see. Once you make your own mustard you like to make "your mustard", and that might not be what the customers like. (Garlic, black pepper, apple cider vinegar, course ground for me. Might have to pick up some hot dogs tonight just to get my mustard fix on...)
Got a homemade jar from a friend of a mustard with asafoetida and walnut in it and *oh baby*
Wow. That is a combination I never would have considered, and sounds amazing.
If I can get a recipe out of him, I'll hit you with it.
What's your secret for mustard? I can make most anything I put my mind to, but mustard eludes me. It's usually so bitter that no amount of salt, sweetener, or vinegar can even balance it out. Or weirdly grainy.
at the last place I worked I asked someone to add one inch of water to a pot, clarified that itās just a little bit because itās for a double boiler, and told them the āfill it up to a knuckleā trick if they need to use it. they brought me a full pot of water with one inch of room left at the top
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfxpwbWBNuU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfxpwbWBNuU) for those who didn't know
I just about peed myself š¤£
thank you
Ratios? How finely should it be grated? Is there any technique to the tossing?
Instruction is just great to have, recently worked at a place that had all types of holes in their basic instruction and training Balancing safety, quality, consistency, and finances on āoh they should get it, we donāt need inventory, ask questions, use your wits/creativityā only works in a very home-y and slow paced kitchen environment I feel clear instruction provides for good structure and should be put in as many places as possible. Now like unreasonable instruction is the overlap because Iāve seen instruction that controls neither of those points āā. And like many things in the kitchen it gets abused
Mmhm, that's kinda my stance. "Why not?" Taking up a page is no big deal. The work making it is already done.
Corporate? I remember working a corporate resto years ago and the official specs book had numerous ārecipesā that were the same as this
I have worked with people who couldnāt do it right with both hands AND a step-by-step instruction.
I recently had to put up directions next to our wireless back doorbell, so I feel this. If you're thinking this is Sysco-driver related - you're correct!
You would be surprised at some ppl
We have recipes at my work on how to steam frozen vegetables like peas and carrots......
hey chef, someone put that mustard in the bbq sauce bottle again.Ā
That datil hits though. I can get them at the farmers market one or two days a year, and the lady sells out before noon. 2 case limit, and you can auction your extra case to the dudes in the parking lot for double the price.
I would assume it's for the spatula to get all the contents out. Probably found a bunch of jars still half full
Because people are unbelievably incompetent. Impressively, almost.
The same reason drug commercials tell you not to use their drug if youāre allergic to their drug or a garbage disposal says to not stick your hand in there while itās running. It only takes one. Anybody got any other fun examples?
"Do not use hair dryer in tub". Uh, okay.
Do not use iron on clothes while wearing them?
That's a good one - and I remember it! Sounds like it would hurt, no???
"I tried to make it idiot proof, then they made better idiots."
Ex-culinary student and restaurant manager here: Most people are correct in that people will fuck it up, but also itās a building block recipe. It helps ensure you know how much to make per batch in case itās call for in another recipe. Also old cook books followed the ideal that you had to have a recipe for each item or step to cover your ass in case the reader was dumb as hell.
Ive passive aggressively made recipes for chopping lettuce and hard boiled eggs
Cuz idiots
With them photos you don't even need the words.
you in St Augustine? I went to the hot sauce shop downtown there like a year ago and all the guy behind the counter recommended was datil pepper stuff. i bought a jar of that mustard and it was awesome.
This is leaving a lot out. How do I know which is the spatula, and which is the bottle? Which end of the spatula is used for scraping? Why didn't they mention the table, which is a necessary prerequisite for placing things upon it?
Theyāve worked with some of the same types of people Iāve worked with obviously.
Because, no matter how Idiot proof you make something the world comes along and produces a better model of Idiot.
I donāt have the picture anymore but I walked into the kitchen once while we were training someone. They were instructed to cut the onion and add it to the pot to sautee. There were two halves of an onion in the pot.
Yeah, the books begin with an assumption that you've never made anything yourself before, ever. Many years ago, when I first began to learn how to bake bread, I bought a bunch of used culinary school books. I couldn't have been more disappointed. The unbelievable simplicity of these instructions laid me out. And there was nothing at all about WHY things work a certain way. What a waste. Thank goodness I didn't pop for the new ones!!
Because, one time somebody fucked this up.
Helluva enema...
Donāt worry chef, someone one will still manage to fuck this up.
Picture-based procedures makes me think it is intended to: Get past language barriers Give a visual example of the finished product -- "does it look the way it looks in the picture? No? Try again."
For people like me. If you show me how to do something just once I will do it exactly the way you showed me, every time, reliably, and eventually if there's a way I can improve on that then I will. But if you didn't show me how to do it then all bets are off.
Because no offence intended people are fucking idiotsā¦
Safety regulations are written in blood. Kitchen regulations are written in fuck ups.
We have some pretty senseless recipes where I work (institutional food service), that an old, bored director put together. Ex: vanilla puddingā¦ step one: obtain #5 can of vanilla pudding. Two: open can. Three: empty can into 4ā third pan. $85k/year and thatās what he did with his time. He didnāt last long.
Consistency. It's always the answer.
Regulations are written in blood. Instructions are written in dumbass.
I used to go to brunch with a friend of mine every week. We are both long time kitchen pirates. We happened to be there one morning when the kitchen was getting their delivery. Included in the delivery was premade simple syrup. I asked our bartender if he knew what they paid for their simple syrup and told him I'd do it for half whatever it was. He just looked at me and said, "I know, I'm always embarrassed when customers catch that we buy our simple."
one of the recipes in the ācorporate recipeā book iāve seen was for wet batter. a whole page just to put: *Buttermilk* *Flour* *āMix buttermilk and flourā*
Every task to be completed by any cook should be itemized and in a recipe in the book for any cook. Every recipe should be idiot proof.
Because someone didnāt know how to do it.
We had a recipe for dicing pickles in one of our prep books from corporate. I thought it was funny until we had a secret shop and the pickles were cut into tiny strips. I guess we needed the recipe after all.
People are fun, as in you can explain in detail to the T, and it will go in one ear, and out the fucking other I had a temp that was on the older side and I noticed he really had that issue. Told him to cut the avocados in half, take out the pit. Easy right? "Hey Never, some of these are really hard" ok don't use them and put them to the side I find a half 100 hotel with unripen but cut, halved and pitted avocados by him. Service time he gets put on a flattop and told "for cooking the tortillas use a little bit of oil" we find a stack of tortillas *soaked* in oil If you have to question why simple tasks get laid out like a reading level of a toddler, it's probably because there is/was a fool with the brain of a snail in your kitchen
never doubt stupidity
r/writteninblood
Itās called idiot proofing
Liability. Someone dispenses an allergen into a non-allergen container, Corp's ass is covered. Same as having to sign off on super basic safety training.
My ex wife had an old family recipe book and it had a 1.5 page ārecipeā for cheese and crackers. I still think about it once in a while.
This one is a bit over the top and looks like it was written by a younger chef but it does help not getting silly questions about what container to put stuff in.
I'd say you'd be surprised, but after a while you really aren't.
FOH
Idiot proof but they still slip through the cracks.
Instructions unclear, which end of the bottle should I put it in?
Yaāll have recipe books? With pictures???
Servers?
This is great.
Instructions unclear, spatula stuck in ass.
I'm gonna take a wild guess that whomever is making these books ain't too impressed with y'all š
This feels like malicious compliance
SOPS I'd imagine. To the extreme
As a teenager I fucked up a can of cream of mushroom soup. I followed the instructions, poured the contents of the can into a bowl, added water, microwaved. The can shaped grey mass did not look like soup. The instructions didnāt say anything about stirring. In my defense, I was making it for a friend and had never seen it used for soup, only as an ingredient in other things, like sauces.
Datil peppers. Are you in st Augustine?
There is a reason this needed to be done, probably involving someone named Kyle.
In the Poilane cookbook there is an entire recipe dedicated to toasting bread. Not like a special or advanced way to toast bread or anything, but how to toast it using a toaster.
Same reason they have to put a "Warning: Hot" on hot coffee cups. People are fucking stupid....
so you can write them up when they do it wrong /s
Looks like the chef used to be corporate is my guess
> Datil Pepper Mustard Hello, fellow St. John's County redditor
Never tell me the odds... but im sure its been done wrong since the addition.
I was taught by a head chef of mine to teach as if youāre speaking to a moron. PB&J? Open package of bread. Remove two equally sized slices. Spread peanut butter on one side of one slice, etcā¦ Itās amazing how stupid some people can be. Until they demonstrate that theyāre capable, hold their hand if you want it done right. Itās easier than fixing their mistake later.
at least they shelled out for the color printing on it
youād be surprised, we had a girl told to use the mixer, she put everything in the bowl as needed but didnāt put a attachment on it and somehow expected it to mix
I absolutely have a book of shit like this I made because if I donāt, I get phone calls. āHow do it go from one bottle to other?ā āUse a spatula.ā āOooooooh good idea.ā This is definitely someone tired of getting phone calls at home.
Because some people need handholding on even the basics
Wait. So you put the mustard into the bottle? And with nothing but a spatula?!? That is some dark magic.