Gross!

Over the weekend the restaurant had some serious drainage issues. Before lunch service on Saturday many of the drains in the basement stopped working. Various means were used to solved the problem, but I never saw any outside service person called in while I was working. I did see some managers handling the sump pump a bit.

WELL, the next morning much of the basement (including the main prep kitchen and the pastry kitchen) was covered in inches of water. Absolutely none of the drains were working and therefore none of the sinks could be used. We also couldn't run our ice machine, because it steadily drains a lot of water directly into a drain. At 7am on a Sunday there aren't many people around -- a few cooks, a bunch of pastry people and a few porters who speak very little English. Naturally, no one in charge is around that early on a Sunday. One of the porters was on his knees using a small bucket to shovel all the water into every garbage can and 8 gallon tub available.

In the pastry kitchen there was a lot of work that we couldn't do because of the conditions. Oh, and in addition to that, a quarter of our non-walk-in refrigerator space broke down the night before. We need ice for a lot of things. All of our ice cream bases and many sauces and whatnot need to chill in a giant ice bath before being stored in our refrigerators. We also couldn't wash any of our tools and our hands. We did put the stopper in our sink so we could wash our hands and the water wouldn't drain out. You can only use so much water before the sink fills up though.

In the end, a manager didn't show up until nearly 9am. Of course it ended up being a manager who cannot handle problems calmly. A little after her arrival, I went to her office to ask her to keep the pastry staff updated on what was happening. I told her that right now we couldn't get a lot of work done due to the conditions. She actually asked, "What do you mean?" What do I mean? Does one really need to ask how no water and no ice may hinder pastry production? I quickly explained, but she already seemed annoyed that I was even talking to her. Much later when she told me no repair guy would be coming for our broken refrigerator units until the next day, I naturally didn't respond happily. I said something like, "What? Where are we supposed to keep everything until someone comes tomorrow?" You see, I know the truth. Maintenance visits on a weekend are expensive, and the general manager doesn't really care about pastry enough to shell out the extra money. The general manager was the one who told the lady manager that we would have to wait until Monday.

The lady manager was not pleased with my demeanor. She pulled me aside to tell me that I need to be more patient with her and that she is handling a lot of stuff right now. As the one in charge of pastry while the pastry chef and pastry sous chef were away (catering an event) I need to step up as a leader and a be an anchor in the pastry kitchen. She also did not appreciate the aggression she was getting from me. The whole interaction was odd. 1) I am not in charge. In fact, two of the three other Sunday morning people have worked in pastry longer than I have. 2) I believe a leader would point out what is wrong with a situation rather than accept the shit handed her. 3) Aggression? Really? If she thinks that is aggressive, she better stay clear of me when I am actually angry.

The lady clearly has some emotional issues and wanted to "hug it out". Frankly, she needs to step up as a manager and not care that some punk pastry cook is pissed off. Instead of worrying about how I feel, she needs to realize that it is acceptable for someone in my position to be annoyed with the situation. Accept my annoyance, don't take it personally, and get the damn drains working!

In the end, she gave us free movie tickets for our troubles. Which was really weird. I doubt she gave anything to the poor porter who spent a few hours kneeling in water trying to shovel everything up.

Frustrated

I haven't been much of a fan of work lately. There have been a number of menu changes over the last month and a half, and each change has only added to my workload. It is to the point that I can barely get any side work done before lunch service. My morning is pretty much solely dedicated to getting everything ready for the lunch crowd. I end up having a shitload of stuff to do after service, making my day last 12 hours long. To complicate matters, we are in the middle of Restaurant Week. We only participate in Restaurant Week during lunch service, so I am the one who gets fucked over the most. I had so much extra work to do over the past weekend (in preparation for Restaurant Week) that I had to pull 13 hour days on Friday and Sunday. Throughout the weekend no one ever asked me if I needed help with my added duties. Not once. To be fair, I usually hate when I get help because the quality of work ends up not meeting my standards. That sounds rather bitchy, doesn't it? Well, I am a bitch. A pissed off bitch. And Restaurant Week actually lasts TWO weeks. How retarded is that? I am going to be a pissed off bitch for a long time.