You kitchen crews might be able to identify with this. I don't find my work particularly gratifying. Sometimes I wonder what's going through my boss's head (When I say boss I mean owner). Luckily I don't define myself by that job. Yeah I don't like it, but I give it %100 becuase that is how I was raised. A lot of people love us, and those are the people I feel that I'm working for.
Let me mention the the owner runs the business; which consists of two cafes, from a trailer 15 miles from the us and about 2 miles from the other cafe. He rarely comes down to visit the cafes.
He is usually complaining about one thing or another concerning how we do our job. Let me also mention the he is the only one complaining. I rarely get guest complaints concerning food quality.
We are basically a high quality, glorified fast food, sandwich factory, cafe. We make food quickly, but it isn't nasty processed hamburgers or genetically modified chicken. Produce is prepped fresh daily, meat and cheeses are sliced fresh daily. There are hardly any preservatives in our core ingredients and there is none in our breads. We aren't organic, but we offer vegetarian options. Except for the fact that I'm tired of eating it; the food is good and a great alternative to fast food for lunch. We cater to yuppies and business people. Some construction workers come eat with us. It is very filling.
We really do make the owner look good with our efficiency and attention to detail. We are open Mon-Sat 10-5 and closed on Sunday. On most days we pump out $1500 worth of food for in store and delivery. A good friend of mine and myself, run the line. They used to need 3 people to run the line. Are attention to detail is high, and we rarely make a mistake. Food gets made right, and pretty I might add.
[rant]
When I left work at 2pm on Saturday the walk in cooler was functioning just fine. We show up on Monday to the temp alarm going off and the freon pissed out of the compressor and the temp in the walk in well above 60 degrees. Sometime on Sunday the walk in failed.
The freon was filed about 2 months ago when the same walk in failed due to a water line break. This thing is like 30 years old and I've told the owner it needs to be replaced, or he is just going to lose money on wasted food, and repairs. Some routine preventative maintenance would relieve some of the problem and wasted food, but really the whole thing, compressor, freon tank, condenser, lines and what ever else the thing has needs to be replaced.
If he paid his security bill, the temp alarm that was going off when we came in would have alerted him that there was an issue earlier and we could have prevented some food loss. Instead he stiffed the security company and the alarm just went off wondering if anyone was paying any attention to it. Note that the alarm is just a loud beeping from the keypad, not those sirens you'd hear from a break in alarm.
Anyway
The HVAC guys came down and replaced the Freon in the walk in, after we removed what was salvageable and placed them in to iced down coolers. Lots of stuff got tossed including meat, eggs, some produce (the nasty stuff like sprouts), a bunch of cheese. Luckily we got an order today and a lot of stuff that was tossed was replaced.
I'm surprised the HVAC guys even put any freon into it seeing as the owner stiffed them on the previous repair. I'm sure we'll have to call them in another 2-3 months. Hopefully they come out. Perhaps it was substandard HVAC work, but nonetheless, if the owner had paid a little attention; like a Preventative Maintenance Schedule, a freon leak like that could have been detected and possibly prevented.
All and All we faced the adversity and got through it relatively unscathed. We were put an hour behind in prep, but luckily it was a rare slow day. It felt good to get through the adversity.
Next Issue:
We have two sandwich units that are in relatively good shape, but that won't last too much longer. One of the units has a clogged water overflow line that backs up into the lowboy of the unit. It is a minor issue that could turn into a major issue if he doesn't have it taken care of as I've been asking him to do for the past five months. What else might be wrong with that unit. Again no Preventative Maintenance Schedule could lead to unit failure and more costly repairs. I'm sure he'll say it is our fault for some reason or another.
This is the most infuriating thing.
The open sign....
A FIFTY DOLLAR NEON OPEN SIGN....goes out and he is down there the same day fixing it......!!!!! I'm not sure how much these other 3 pieces of equipment are worth, but I'm sure in the tens of thousands of dollars range and he won't do anything to keep them properly maintained, but a fifty dollar neon open signs breaks down and he's down here the same day
. People don't pay attention to open signs. If they did we wouldn't have people tugging on the door at 10 minutes past 5pm or 1/2 an hour before we open. Besides it was one of two open signs. I just don't get it. I don't follow his logic at all.
GRRRRRRR
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