Salad Bar and Dish Duty

Summer 2010

Two things have dominated my life this Summer: the World Cup in South Africa and work at Ruby Tuesdays. I just came home from work. I closed tonight which consisted of washing dishes for 7 hours.

This is the first summer I have not attended a music festival in 9 years. 2 summers in Sewanee, 2 in Greensboro, NC at EMF, 3 years in Winona Lake, IN at MasterWorks, and last year I went to the Aspen Summer Music Festival. During the school year I had school and music to worry about; plus, I didn't get my first car until my Junior year of high school. So this is my first job, at the ripe old age of 22.

Work has been a real eye-opener. I have learned a lot while being here. Ruby Tuesdays is a great place; the worst thing I've had to do is take out the trash, which is a story I'll get to soon. The people are friendly and good-natured, although I don't get much of a chance to talk to them. I usually tend to the salad bar, which basically means I run back and forth between the bar and the kitchen refilling serving plates of carrots, cucumbers, mushrooms, grapes, edamame, and various type of cheeses and pasta salads, among other things. One of the things I've learned is that people like beets a lot more than I do.

The job itself isn't very exciting, but it keeps me busy and I'm saving the money I'm earning for my semester abroad in Vienna. The one downside is that my hands are starting to hurt. After a few hours on my feet, sometimes they hurt a bit, but that's manageable. Carrying serving dishes around constantly is starting to wear my arms and fingers out. The salad bar is chilled, so half the time my hands are freezing. I think management made some changes so instead of taking back half empty trays to the kitchen, I'll bring out refills from the kitchen. This is nice because I won't have to carry frozen trays all day. It's not so nice because I need twice as many trays, one set to stay on the bar and a second set to bring out refills. Also, I have to remember which tray needs to be refilled and guess how much to bring out, and it takes me longer since I have to use serving trays so there's an extra step. We'll see how it holds up.

Washing dishes isn't as bad of a job as I expected. Most of the time it's pretty manageable. Again, it's rough on my hands, when I have to scrub dishes that have things burned and/or fried onto them. When I close, the kitchen basically feeds me everything that can be removed and sent through the dishwasher. The containers the cooks store mashed potatoes and spinach and artichoke dip are the worst to clean. I figured out today that if I fill them up with water I can just let them soak for 20-30 minutes while washing other dishes, and it's so much easier to clean.

I hate condiments now. I have to wash the ramekins they use for condiments. All the mustard and ketchup and mayonnaise and bbq sauce gets mixed together when the waiters throw them in a bin. All the ramekins stick to each other and I have to pry them apart. I'm surprised my hands don't smell of some sickening mix of condiments.

Anyway my hands are prune-y and my fingers are tired from gripping various dishes that needed to be scrubbed. So it's a decent first job. I like it for the most part, unless I'm tired that day. I work hard and feel good about it. Especially when I wash dishes. I aim for 'total victory' where I've washed everything I can before the servers can bring any more dishes. That was a Ninja Warrior reference, in case you are wondering why I put that in quotations. Haha.

Oh, I almost forgot my one actual story about work I have. Emptying the trash in the morning. Not my finest hour. So I went in yesterday morning for the early dish washing shift. I was told to go out back and throw all of last night's garbage into the dumpster. First, I didn't realize that the door out back locks when it closes. So I immediately locked myself out back. "Ok," I thought, "I can just go back around when I'm done." I open the next door which leads to the dumpster and prop it open with some random... I don't even know what it was. I dragged each of the trashcans out by the dumpster and pulled the door open. There was some room but clearly not enough. "Hmm. I'll just have to shove it in as best as I can." I threw some empty boxes in first. I got the first bag in okay. The second bag was filled with food and other random garbage like straws. This garbage can sits in front of the dishwasher and all the servers dump excess food and trash into this bin before putting the dishes down.

I realized that the bag would rip if I lifted it straight up. I tipped the can on its side and tried to pull it out, somewhat successfully. I bent down and try to get my arms around and under the bag. As soon as I start lifting it I can feel the bag tearing. I got the bag propped on my knees, leaning against the side of the dumpster. I had to lift it about a foot to push it in, and I saw the bag tearing all over the place. "There is no way I will be clean when this ends," I thought. The bag, at least what was left of it, was pinned between my chest and the garbage in the dumpster. About half the bag didn't fit until I shoved it in. "Okay, at least 90% of the garbage made it. I need to pick up all the stuff that rolled down my arms and legs and fell in a pile on the ground."

I walked back around and went back through the kitchen again, remembering to prop open the door this time. I brought out a trash bag to help pick up the loose garbage on the ground. I figured I was filthy already, I would just suck it up and scoop everything up with my bare hands. The lobster tail was disgusting. But I got everything I could.

When I was inside I asked Danielle, who, along with her brother Tyler, has shown me where everything is and how stuff works, that the dumpster was full. "Even after you used the compactor?" "I didn't know how to turn it on, it said I needed a key." "Oh, the key is in there, on the side. Just close the door and turn it."

Sure enough, when I reopened the door there was plenty of space. "Oh well," I thought, emptying the last garbage can. There was a separate bin just for grease, so I had to keep the trash in this can from falling into it. I tied it up and pulled it out, throwing it in the dumpster, but not before a bunch of grease leaked out. I turned around to find that the second door, which I had let shut, also locks behind you. Exasperated, I walked around and came back through the kitchen. I tried to rinse out the last garbage bin before putting in all the trash liners and started to wash dishes. And that has been the worst experience at work so far. Luckily, my apron absorbed the most garbage. I threw it in the dirty apron bin and got a new one. I definitely showered later that night.