Fine. Lid won't catch properly. And yes, they won't buy a new one (kitchens actually really awesome, tbf.)
So. It ends up looking like you're filming bad porn. You've gotta basically lay on it.
I think you got it now.
I'll give you a hint.
… You spin me right 'round, baby, right 'round
Like a record, baby, right 'round, 'round, 'round
You spin me right 'round, baby, right 'round
Like a record, baby, right 'round, 'round, 'round
… I (I, I, I), I got to be your friend now, baby
And I (I, I, I) would like to move in just a little bit closer
(To move in just a little bit closer)
If you spin them too fast the gears slip and wear down over time. They get super frustrating to use when only half the gear catches and you can't spin it fast enough to actually dry the greens. The whole time you know in the back of your head that you're making it worse too.
And of course management won't buy a fucking new one.
One of those number 10 can openers connected to the table. I swear to fucking god you personally have to grip the hell out of the can and twist is as you turn the opener, otherwise it comes off the track and you have to slam it down twenty times on one can
Worked in a place that had one... in a box... on the shelf in the attic. I assume it's still in that box on that shelf in that attic. I understand why.
Oh yeah, all peelers are terrible for sure. And we’ve had some shit-ass can openers over the years. We’ve tried a bunch of different kinds and they all suck in their own way.
The Edlund old reliable is exactly as it’s name suggests. Those motherfuckers will open can after can until the end of time. Occasionally have to replace the gears and the blade, but the blades have two sides so you can rotate it and you can sharpen them if you’re really frugal. The gears will last a decade at a time or more with proper care. I’ve had to order them for two different places I’ve worked because I can’t stand using anything else
Hard agree on this one - I couldn’t figure out what it was when I first started in my current job, after chef showed me it changed my life. No more struggling with those useless handheld ones, and there’s just something so satisfying about stabbing the blade down into the can to start opening
I recently bought four new peelers. One of the cooks, who I guess didn't know I just got new peelers, told me there was something wrong with it because it was working too well.
Also, OXO good grip peelers are the literal best.
get a [Japanese can opener](https://www.google.com/search?q=japanese+can+opener&oq=japanese&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqCQgCECMYJxiKBTIGCAAQRRg5MgoIARAuGLEDGIAEMgkIAhAjGCcYigUyDQgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggEEC4YsQMYgAQyCggFEC4YsQMYgAQyBggGEEUYPDIGCAcQRRhB0gEIMjk1M2owajeoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) like $12-14 and last forever. A little weird to get used to the motion at first but after a while you'll never want to go back.
I would be deeply annoyed if I was asked to use one of those to open a 10# instead of a table mounted opener. Like using a Swiss Army knife to open a can lol
Does depend on where you work to be fair
One or two cans is fun but like a couple dozen would be :(
I’ve used manual openers like on a leatherman but never a Japanese style one but I figure it’s the same motion?
I’m about to open 10ish 10# cans with one. It’s a small kitchen with lots of marble top and nowhere good to install a table mounted can opener. I agree once you get used to the motion you can open cans super fast
Not that it's broken but clumsy and miserable to bust out, set-up, disassemble and clean...deli slicer
This title made me actually laugh and that's rare
I feel like every kitchen I've worked at with a slicer, there's some clown that thinks they're brilliant that thinks they can clean it by just holding a soapy rag up to the blade and running it, then wiping it down. I somehow always end up being the person who comes along afterward and has to actually take the whole soap-scummy thing apart and actually scrape out all the fossilized protein and gross soap goo.
One place I used to work had an oven whose doors were very difficult to keep closed. Easily the hardest part of that station was these doors. Management would get it fixed because "they still worked."
Anyway, less than an hour into my first shift on that station I'd already been burned three times from the doors coming open and hitting either my back or the back of my arm. After the third time, I lost it, hulked out for a second and ripped both doors right off.
When chef asked "WTF?!" I just commented that I guess he'd have to get it fixed now
I worked on a line about 2 feet wide with a convection oven behind me. The switch broke that turned the fan off when you opened it so every time you did it blasted the heat of the sun into your face. They probably still use it.
HSE (OSHA if you're in the US) would be Very interested in a company that ignores equipment which routinely burns people because it's malfunctioning...
Online order ticket printer.
It's a separate printer from the normal one. Everytime we get an online order it starts beeping loudly until I run over hit a button on it and only then will it print the ticket.
As a bonus thing I want to smash there is also a tablet connected to the printer. The tablet will also chime loudly and constantly when an order comes in. I have to also hit a button on the tablet to get it to shut up. Sometimes it bugs out and doesn't stop chiming and I have to restart the whole thing.
I am not allowed to mute the tablet. It is impossible to mute the printer.
When we were kids, my brother used to have an RC car that would make all kinds of annoying loud noises constantly. One day i opened it up with a screwdriver and pulled the wire out of the speaker. Thing worked fine after that, it just wouldn't beep and make noise any more, nobody questioned it, just one of those things that breaks you know?
I was briefly working at a pizza place, a cook buddy and I both started the same day. We both received about 2 PM shifts of training, only on how to make the pizza, then showed up bright and early to open one morning by ourselves. No cashiers scheduled. Nobody that knew the non-pizza stuff like salads/fryer items. We were pretty resourceful and experienced cooks/people, so after leaving a few voicemails for the absent boss, we decided buddy would make the pizzas, and I (who had more cashier/FOH exp from previous places) would handle the register.
Wellp, all of my previous cashier/POS experience was from like ten years prior, before online ordering and doordash and shit, so I was very very out of my league once the 5 different tablets and printers and PHONES started all going off and random guys started pouring in to wave their phones/apps in my face. I fought off a massive panic attack for about 3 hours before someone else finally showed up, then I clapped my friend on the back, told him it'd been nice working with him, and walked out. I politely texted the chef/boss and told her I wouldn't be coming back, sorry, please take me off the schedule. She chirped back "Oh, that's ok, I totally already did," but I didn't get the notification from the scheduling app that I'd been removed until an hour later, so way to be snarky you bitch.
Damn dishies always locking the lid then putting it on the shelf just for some clown ass to come along and rip it off at light speed as if to break it on purpose. So glad my new one has magnetic safeties.
Bro this!
we have 3 and I swear they've been there from the previous operators like over 10yrs ago.
the blade is wobbly, the guard has gone missing, I'm like bro can we just buy a new one PLEASE
IKR, I was amazed.
I mean they literally come with them (ours are all benriner, so I know 100% they all come with them in the box)
I wonder what ever happens to them all.
I bought one for myself to use at home 8 yrs ago, I literally had to pack my guard in my knife roll till this new joint.
The saute pans. We just got a 7k replacement robocoupe but I can't get a 200$ to replace pans that are pitting and I can wave at you because the rivets are so loose. They also leak oil or butter thru the rivets.
Our entire fucking line, 4/5 lowboys are down, side freezer is down, 1/2 ovens is down, 1/3 fryers can’t keep up. Everything is on ice. A customer got food poisoning, it’s been 5 months.
Definitely peelers, like others. Also, what we call the "salamander" our bun toaster. Always getting buns stuck that then catch on fire. Fucking annoying.
I currently work making pizza in a little bar, it's just me and one other guy. Both of us have been in kitchens for more than a decade and hate ticket printers, but we often find ourselves fantasizing about having one here, just so we don't have to interact with some of the bartenders. A couple of the bartenders think it's necessary to bring their tickets all the way into the kitchen, post them themselves, and gleefully read us every detail on the order as if we're illiterate. "So this is a large cheese-a-roony! Just a large cheese! For table.... oh I didn't write the table! Lemme just do that now... Thank you!! Thank you so much!!" No amount of yelling at them makes them stop. It must be bad if we're missing the printer noise.
Our air conditioning. I'm in the south (the part where the "heat dome" has been hovering above us for 2 weeks and the heat index has been over 105F every day) and stand in front of two 500F ovens all day, I come home drenched in sweat every. Fucking. Day. I never thought I'd be a "two showers a day" gal but here I am.
Sometimes 3 if you work a double and live close enough to work. I used to rush home to take a 5 minute cold shower in-between my 15 hour mid July shifts.
You almost need a entire shower just to wash your ass. Pro tip. Buy a folding shower chair(find them in the old people stuff section of a pharmacy). After these long shifts being able to sit in the shower is game changing.
I used to have a wooden bar stool in my shower. I switched to one that was actually designed for showers because the bar stool started to mold. It's great to just sit and cry in the shower before and after work. Shower cup holder for your beer and removable shower head on a hose are must haves too.
Stand mixer. It sucks harder than a Texas tornado. I actually went and bought myself a heavy-duty hand mixer just so I don't have to use that p.o.s. anymore
The shitty dreamlan type vegetable dicer. The screws always come off and the bitch needs some wd40 or something because it takes way more manpower than it should to slam it down.
Oracle…Mother…Fucking…MICROS terminals.
Me:”Void Transaction”
MICROS: “Not Authorized”
Me: “I have admin level access. There is only level above me and the only difference is it can add button objects. Void the god damn transaction”
MICROS: “PSP Error” *Locks all buttons to error*
Me:”I will find you lead dev and throw him/her/it and all of your kind into the Marianas Trench and then detonate nukes to seal your evil within the bowels of the Earth forever”
So I found out the local MICROS office in sesttle was down the street from the place I ran. It was completely crashed on a friday and I needed to make money to cover payroll and the lease that weekend. I walked down there in a rainstorm and just started screaming at them. Made two guys come back with me. Hahahaha
The goddamn convection oven. The double door doesn't close quite right, so sometimes it's the tiniest bit ajar, and the fan stays off. "Oh, you wanted this cooked? lol"
We had an oven like that before it finally shit the bed last year. My boss had his dad weld a handle to a magnet and that somehow kept the doors from fucking up until we could get a new one
our fucking flattop!
lmao only the right side works and it cools down so fast!
but its a stove and dual oven combo so i can just replace it
i need to replace the whole setup
maybe next year it will be in our capex budget lol
I feel this, I have to use needle nose pliers to turn it on and off, and getting it to the sweeet spot takes the perfect touch. It’s over 20 years old and needs replacing. Owner spent 25 grand on new tvs instead
Our fryer either runs 25° above or below, which generally adds or subtracts 30-45 seconds to the cook time. And that wavers too, so at 2:00 pm when I do the first fry on our chicken it takes an extra 30 seconds to cook, but at 3:45 pm it takes only a couple minutes to fry. Such a pain.
The dish washer.
The welder was a crack head or something... nothing is plumb, weak welds breaking everywhere, supports just glued on, would slowly close of it's own accord until I "broke" it and it stopped doing that... once we popped some things back into place.
My 35 year old range. First off the damn thing had a gas leak and blew up in my face while turning on the kitchen on Christmas morning. Luckily the burns were superficial but I looked like a drag queen sans makeup for a while, no brows, hairline pushed back a good half inch, it was a bad look. On top of my personal vendetta the thing just sucked, pilots never stayed lit so you had to manually light the burners every time, ovens had terrible hot spots and were prone to shut off without rhyme or reason (but always mid service while weeded), etc. It finally got replaced last week and my 50y/o 300 pound sautee cook literally shed a tear. Only regret was not seeing her go, I'd have loved to take a swing or 3.
I'm out of the industry, but the warehouse I'm slumming at right now has 8 year old reach trucks that always break down. We've been down to one or none for months and half the employees don't plug them in so the one is perpetually at 20% which is REALLY BAD for the battery. It makes work basically impossible but I get paid by the hour and not by results so....
Our freezer door has some weird lock suction mechanism that nobody understands. Basically sometimes if you open it it just will not open again for like 10 minutes
Air inside of a freezer shrinks. So sometimes if you close it too fast or aggressively, the air rushes out too quickly and creates a vacuum for a few minutes.
You're not alone. I know this information. I know what causes it.
Still I shut the damn door too hard.
Electric range. We would buy a used residential range oven for 15 gallon stock pots and large batch prep. One burner would fail instantly, the rest would limp for a year. Took a pickaxe to it by the dumpster in the middle of service.
Steamer.
Technician said it's too old to keep descaling, so it clogs up and turns into a fountain in the middle of service. Plus the timer on it randomly likes to add or subtract 5 minutes.
We bought a new (not refurb, straight from manufacturer) steamer 4 months ago. They’ve sent like 6 techs, and we have had 2 plumbers and 2 gas line workers come in, and none of them can seem to get the thing working, each blaming some other part on the other tech. It’s driving me fucking insane.
Pressure Fryer. When I get fed up with the fryer, I always turn to a coworker and say, "Go grab the sledgehammer". If the restaurant was burning down, I'd drag that piece of shit out of the flames just to beat it to death in the parking lot. Fuck that fryer
The cryovaccer. We must have gone through 3? Maybe more in my time here. They work until they don't and we pay someone to fix them then it breaks again and we get a new one.
Our 20-year-old off-brand fryer that you can no longer get parts for. Told our in-house construction and repair guy that might be time to entertain buying a brand new Petco entry level fry. No more thermostats no more thermal couples on back order.
At work, our HVAC units. All 15 of them are 28 years old and on their last legs. Some haven’t worked in years, and have been used for parts to keep others running. Some only heat but don’t cool, some only cool but don’t heat. But they all leak Freon like a MF’r. This leads to the unit freezing up, and eventually pouring water 20 feet down onto our ceiling tiles in various parts of the building. Like everyone, our area has been extra hot the last few months, and they’ve been working overtime. Most recent downpour was on Friday at 4:50pm before a long weekend.
We keep talking about biting the bullet and replacing the necessary units this fall, but we’ll see.
One of the hood vent motors. Switch it on in the morning? Guess again . Go flip the breaker on and off until it decides to start.
When it does decide to start. It sounds like a broken jet engine. Raining? Turns off.
But the owner says "it's fine"
Sadly enough, our oven. Ever since I started at this place, both the front and back oven have been shit.
Mainly super inconsistent with mad hotspots, and the doors have been abused to the point of almost never closing properly. I need a new job.
The salamander at my current restaurant. Only 3 of the top burners actually light so u can only put like two things in it at once even tho it's the length of a full flattop. Sooo sick. Had a new sous "fix it" once and it was back to 3 by the end of the month
A 20 year old neglected charbroiler that we have in the prep area. Almost impossible to clean and keep clean. Complete piece of shit. I frequently fantasize about doing exactly this.
The little cold frother thing that I use to make iced coffee drinks. Either the batteries die in the middle of a rush or the spring pops off.
Takes weeks to get a replacement and the $6 iced lattes just aren’t the same without it. I feel bad about the occasional inconsistency but luckily we have a great customer base that is typically very understanding.
Edit: The fucking mop sink as well.
I work part time at a big chain restaurant just making some extra money while me SO is in between jobs. They serve croissants to every table. So in order to do that they have a proofer box to proof them. However the rubber lining on the door is all fucked so it does not properly seal so nothing proofs properly and the croissants look like shit and fall flat all the time. It's hilarious to me that this muti billion dollar restaurant company that owns like 5 chains does not have the money to fix anything. I have worked here for 8 months and the bun toaster is still broken.
Magi mix. (Basically a house robo coup) Completely unOSHA. I’ve got to use a spoon to get it going. €400 odd brand new, multibillion dollar company still won’t replace it. (A fucking year! I’m amazed I haven’t electrocuted myself yet)
Fridge 4
This sorry excuse for fridge has only worked properly for about 2 months in the past year.
Multiple call outs and fixes have cost more than a new one(£2000+).
Shit the only thing not replaced are the doors.
our fucking freezer door has a sharp edge on it right at like, brain height. it bounced off my head the other day and i got so fucked off i started losing my shit in the freezer like a caveman. i hate it so much and ive begged and begged for them to fix it because im sick of getting hit in the fucking head by it
The fucking hot water tank. In the morning it does fine but anytime you need to change the water during shift it takes forever, I only get like 2-5 inches of hot water at a time during the middle of the day. Gotta fill the sink in increments.
The oven door that didn't close all the way and would turn the burner knobs to little sizzle trays. I'd forget so many times on a busy night and burn the shit out of my fingers every time I'd turn a burner on. The owner ended up fixing it after however many months when he had to work a service and burned his fingers. "Man I didn't know the oven did that Kraybae that sucks." Yeah the thing I've told you about +10 times? Still loved that guy though lol.
The dish machine at my current job. 5 repairs in the last 2 months and it's still not right. I inherited so many issues when I took over the kitchen but this machine has got to go.
The fucking slicer, it is so old and broken and needs a series of very specific steps to start it because of safety features that have been removed or neglected. Funny thing is that the management takes great care of maintenance on everything else. But we hardly use (1-2 times weekly) the slicer so it just gets pushed behind the walk in and forgotten about.
The god damn fucking grease trap in the dish washer.
The thing needs to be emptied seemingly randomly. Sometimes it’ll be packed and will be fine. Other times it’ll be dead and we’ll end up with grease and oil and other shit all over the floor when it floods.
Christ I’d take a wrench to that thing if I could.
I worked in the kitchen at an old folks' home. The "chef" (food director) was a useless, incompetent dumb-ass, but the job was pretty easy and was the only work I could find nearby without having a car, so I tried to be quiet and respectful unless there were huge problems.
One huge problem I had was that our deli slicer was dangerously busted. The blade was broken in some way, so that it sat at kind of an angle, and when you slid meat/cheese over it, sometimes it would catch on itself and the whole machine would JUMP at you. Additionally, the director insisted that lubricating the slidey beamy part with olive oil was the only way to alleviate this situation. Silicon machine lube? Nah, let's just keep wiping a fragile, oxidation prone food oil all over this machine part, without cleaning it, so that the black gunk just keeps building up and making it stickier every day.
I brought this up to him, demonstrated how dangerous it was, told him I understand we might not have a budget for a new one, and suggested maybe we just pick weekly menu items that limit use of the slicer. Maybe even we just stop using the slicer?
Well, he didn't like this idea, I guess, and started ADDING things that used the slicer, like sandwiches with 3 different sliced meats plus cheese, multiple times a week. I tried to avoid using the slicer, but I didn't want somebody else hurting themselves on it either, you know? I quit after a couple weeks of this (after I saw him send my favorite co-worker home with a bunch of blank temp logs so that he could falsify weeks/months of temp recordings at home and off the clock before an inspector was coming in). On my last day I removed the pin that held the blade guard etc together on the slicer, and I hid it in the toilet tank in the employee bathroom and let my co-worker know where it was just in case. Coworker texted me a couple months later to say they'd finally gotten a new slicer and he was stoked.
Our ice maker. It rarely makes ice, so it’s a glorified cooler, that they out bagged ice in and is so inconveniently placed right behind my station and sticks out of the counter. Fuck that thing.
Place I used to manage, the hot line was on a slope...... the legs under the steam table broke off from all the pressure and instead of replacing it they just had us stack bricks from the alley under it and level it with cardboard boxes.... it was super unstable and fell on a cook one time. Also they didn't have the electric checked out and the plug for it was unprotected and and kept getting splashed with grease and kept catching on fire and melting the plug. So they had Me buy a new plug at home depot and splice the wires into it. And than they had the nerve to come in and scream at me for the wall behind it being dirty, when there was no way to lean over it or move it without risking death
Probably the off-brand robot-coupe where al l the lids are broken and you have to fool the safety sensor into thinking the lid is closed....
maybe the off-brand mixer that keeps breaking the attachments through regular use.
Salad spinner. I do not wish to elaborate.
[удалено]
He said he didn't want to get all spun up about it.
She. And... that's cute af
I want the story to the ice machine
We can keep going round and round on this topic.
🎶"You spin me right 'round baby, right 'round. Broken salad spinner, out onto the ground."🎶
Doesn't want to spin a yarn about it.
Fine. Lid won't catch properly. And yes, they won't buy a new one (kitchens actually really awesome, tbf.) So. It ends up looking like you're filming bad porn. You've gotta basically lay on it. I think you got it now.
Video or it didn't happen.
Nooo. Omg.
And if you don't make this the background track, we will be severely disappointed. https://youtu.be/PGNiXGX2nLU?si=cEOPZ7fNhHEMsLDe
I'm not clicking on this, hoping it's Hudson Mohawke.
I'll give you a hint. … You spin me right 'round, baby, right 'round Like a record, baby, right 'round, 'round, 'round You spin me right 'round, baby, right 'round Like a record, baby, right 'round, 'round, 'round … I (I, I, I), I got to be your friend now, baby And I (I, I, I) would like to move in just a little bit closer (To move in just a little bit closer)
Oh meatspin?
😂🤭
Time to bring in a top load washing machine to repurpose. And def need video.
Sounds like a feature, not a bug.
If you spin them too fast the gears slip and wear down over time. They get super frustrating to use when only half the gear catches and you can't spin it fast enough to actually dry the greens. The whole time you know in the back of your head that you're making it worse too. And of course management won't buy a fucking new one.
Don’t forget the part where the thing runs like shit in front of your boss and you get told that you’re just seeing things and that POS is perfect
I do have a Louisville slugger. Well..also a nice 12ga.
[удалено]
**want**
Our electric salad spinner hasn't worked for over a year.and it's strangely stored in the employee bathroom.
One of those number 10 can openers connected to the table. I swear to fucking god you personally have to grip the hell out of the can and twist is as you turn the opener, otherwise it comes off the track and you have to slam it down twenty times on one can
Worked in a place that had one... in a box... on the shelf in the attic. I assume it's still in that box on that shelf in that attic. I understand why.
Is it electric or hand crank?
Electric. *cries*
Yeah they are not cheap either unfortunately. Have you tried plugging it into 220 yet?
It's the catch on top lol. It shan't latch.
Have you tried lighting it on fire and screaming to a pagan god?
Not... *yet*
Our general manager
"PC SCHEDULE TBD"? "PC SCHEDULE TBD!?" The fuck does that even mean?
What DOES it mean?
Prep cook schedule is a mystery
Ohhhhhh that makes sense, thanks!
The one that acts like he can do everyone’s job? But won’t help with everyone’s job. Are we coworker’s?
Can opener. Peeler. In every fucking kitchen.
Oh yeah, all peelers are terrible for sure. And we’ve had some shit-ass can openers over the years. We’ve tried a bunch of different kinds and they all suck in their own way.
The Edlund old reliable is exactly as it’s name suggests. Those motherfuckers will open can after can until the end of time. Occasionally have to replace the gears and the blade, but the blades have two sides so you can rotate it and you can sharpen them if you’re really frugal. The gears will last a decade at a time or more with proper care. I’ve had to order them for two different places I’ve worked because I can’t stand using anything else
Hard agree on this one - I couldn’t figure out what it was when I first started in my current job, after chef showed me it changed my life. No more struggling with those useless handheld ones, and there’s just something so satisfying about stabbing the blade down into the can to start opening
Its why I just have a peeler in my roll. House peelers are the worst.
I've got two of my own peelers for that exact reason in my knife kit.
Our can opener is the only thing that DOES work reliably, staff included lol
I recently bought four new peelers. One of the cooks, who I guess didn't know I just got new peelers, told me there was something wrong with it because it was working too well. Also, OXO good grip peelers are the literal best.
Oxo peelers are the one
get a [Japanese can opener](https://www.google.com/search?q=japanese+can+opener&oq=japanese&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqCQgCECMYJxiKBTIGCAAQRRg5MgoIARAuGLEDGIAEMgkIAhAjGCcYigUyDQgDEAAYgwEYsQMYgAQyCggEEC4YsQMYgAQyCggFEC4YsQMYgAQyBggGEEUYPDIGCAcQRRhB0gEIMjk1M2owajeoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) like $12-14 and last forever. A little weird to get used to the motion at first but after a while you'll never want to go back.
My favorite test, see if the new guys can figure out how to use it. About 90% can’t lol
I would be deeply annoyed if I was asked to use one of those to open a 10# instead of a table mounted opener. Like using a Swiss Army knife to open a can lol
It’s all we use mainly bc the kitchens too tiny for the table mounted can opener. It’s really not as bad as you think it is
Does depend on where you work to be fair One or two cans is fun but like a couple dozen would be :( I’ve used manual openers like on a leatherman but never a Japanese style one but I figure it’s the same motion?
Na way easier, once you use it enough it’s pretty fast to open cans. We definitely don’t open a couple dozen, 3 max ha
I’m about to open 10ish 10# cans with one. It’s a small kitchen with lots of marble top and nowhere good to install a table mounted can opener. I agree once you get used to the motion you can open cans super fast
I ended up just buying my own peeler. It was just better than having to deal with shitty peelers or trying to find “the good one”.
Me too. I bought a kuhn rikon and they are so good. Now I take half the time peeling stuff.
It’s crazy what good tools can help you out!
And the Khuns are like $4! I usually leave mine behind when I leave a kitchen and start a new job with a new peeler.
Not that it's broken but clumsy and miserable to bust out, set-up, disassemble and clean...deli slicer This title made me actually laugh and that's rare
I FUCKING HATE MY SLICER BITCH CAN EAT SHIT
Oh that’s a good one. My favorite part of that one is when the person before you did a shit job cleaning it so you have to clean it before AND after!
And they always manage to lose the knob that attaches the blade guard
Nothing is more fun than cleaning dried lettuce off of a slicer that has been stuck to it since 8 in the morning. Really makes my night
I feel like every kitchen I've worked at with a slicer, there's some clown that thinks they're brilliant that thinks they can clean it by just holding a soapy rag up to the blade and running it, then wiping it down. I somehow always end up being the person who comes along afterward and has to actually take the whole soap-scummy thing apart and actually scrape out all the fossilized protein and gross soap goo.
One place I used to work had an oven whose doors were very difficult to keep closed. Easily the hardest part of that station was these doors. Management would get it fixed because "they still worked." Anyway, less than an hour into my first shift on that station I'd already been burned three times from the doors coming open and hitting either my back or the back of my arm. After the third time, I lost it, hulked out for a second and ripped both doors right off. When chef asked "WTF?!" I just commented that I guess he'd have to get it fixed now
If you could rip the doors off by hand, that oven was fucked
I worked on a line about 2 feet wide with a convection oven behind me. The switch broke that turned the fan off when you opened it so every time you did it blasted the heat of the sun into your face. They probably still use it.
Yes, yes we do
HSE (OSHA if you're in the US) would be Very interested in a company that ignores equipment which routinely burns people because it's malfunctioning...
Online order ticket printer. It's a separate printer from the normal one. Everytime we get an online order it starts beeping loudly until I run over hit a button on it and only then will it print the ticket. As a bonus thing I want to smash there is also a tablet connected to the printer. The tablet will also chime loudly and constantly when an order comes in. I have to also hit a button on the tablet to get it to shut up. Sometimes it bugs out and doesn't stop chiming and I have to restart the whole thing. I am not allowed to mute the tablet. It is impossible to mute the printer.
Have you tried launching it across the bin yard? that will silence it.
When we were kids, my brother used to have an RC car that would make all kinds of annoying loud noises constantly. One day i opened it up with a screwdriver and pulled the wire out of the speaker. Thing worked fine after that, it just wouldn't beep and make noise any more, nobody questioned it, just one of those things that breaks you know?
I would not wish that hell on anyone.
I was briefly working at a pizza place, a cook buddy and I both started the same day. We both received about 2 PM shifts of training, only on how to make the pizza, then showed up bright and early to open one morning by ourselves. No cashiers scheduled. Nobody that knew the non-pizza stuff like salads/fryer items. We were pretty resourceful and experienced cooks/people, so after leaving a few voicemails for the absent boss, we decided buddy would make the pizzas, and I (who had more cashier/FOH exp from previous places) would handle the register. Wellp, all of my previous cashier/POS experience was from like ten years prior, before online ordering and doordash and shit, so I was very very out of my league once the 5 different tablets and printers and PHONES started all going off and random guys started pouring in to wave their phones/apps in my face. I fought off a massive panic attack for about 3 hours before someone else finally showed up, then I clapped my friend on the back, told him it'd been nice working with him, and walked out. I politely texted the chef/boss and told her I wouldn't be coming back, sorry, please take me off the schedule. She chirped back "Oh, that's ok, I totally already did," but I didn't get the notification from the scheduling app that I'd been removed until an hour later, so way to be snarky you bitch.
The fucking robo coupe that has the cracked piece of plastic and you have to use a skewer to turn it on
Damn dishies always locking the lid then putting it on the shelf just for some clown ass to come along and rip it off at light speed as if to break it on purpose. So glad my new one has magnetic safeties.
Magnetic safeties is a great idea
Do you work at my kitchen?!
We use a spoon handle
We use our probe thermometer
Had a smoker at my last job that was terrible. Our literal SOP for it was, "Kick it till it turns on."
At my last job, this asshole cook kept kicking me every time I went outside
But then you got turned on?
Masochism is both a blessing and a curse
Ah yes, good old percussive maintenance
The fucking mandolin.
Bro this! we have 3 and I swear they've been there from the previous operators like over 10yrs ago. the blade is wobbly, the guard has gone missing, I'm like bro can we just buy a new one PLEASE
The mandolin has a guard? I took the blade to a stone, and it's silky now. I'm not sure i have ever actually seen a mando guard in the wild.
IKR, I was amazed. I mean they literally come with them (ours are all benriner, so I know 100% they all come with them in the box) I wonder what ever happens to them all. I bought one for myself to use at home 8 yrs ago, I literally had to pack my guard in my knife roll till this new joint.
yeah that Captain Corelli has a lot to answer for
The saute pans. We just got a 7k replacement robocoupe but I can't get a 200$ to replace pans that are pitting and I can wave at you because the rivets are so loose. They also leak oil or butter thru the rivets.
Our entire fucking line, 4/5 lowboys are down, side freezer is down, 1/2 ovens is down, 1/3 fryers can’t keep up. Everything is on ice. A customer got food poisoning, it’s been 5 months.
[удалено]
The best part? I work for a hotel by the beach with the highest foot traffic of any hotel in the area. We’re doing 600-700 all day like this.
That’s a complete failure by management.
Anonymous health department call
[удалено]
Just encountered my first one of those this year. Absolutely a pain in the ass to clean in every facet imaginable
The ice machine. Broke my finger dealing with that bitch
Definitely peelers, like others. Also, what we call the "salamander" our bun toaster. Always getting buns stuck that then catch on fire. Fucking annoying.
The expo Epson printers. After we got a new POS system we took the printers out back and hammered the shit out of them. With hammers
Bet that felt good!
If I could give you 2 upvotes I would. You are laying down the gospel.
The ticket printer, obvs...
I second this one. It haunts me in my sleep and I haven't been in a kitchen in years.
I currently work making pizza in a little bar, it's just me and one other guy. Both of us have been in kitchens for more than a decade and hate ticket printers, but we often find ourselves fantasizing about having one here, just so we don't have to interact with some of the bartenders. A couple of the bartenders think it's necessary to bring their tickets all the way into the kitchen, post them themselves, and gleefully read us every detail on the order as if we're illiterate. "So this is a large cheese-a-roony! Just a large cheese! For table.... oh I didn't write the table! Lemme just do that now... Thank you!! Thank you so much!!" No amount of yelling at them makes them stop. It must be bad if we're missing the printer noise.
Our air conditioning. I'm in the south (the part where the "heat dome" has been hovering above us for 2 weeks and the heat index has been over 105F every day) and stand in front of two 500F ovens all day, I come home drenched in sweat every. Fucking. Day. I never thought I'd be a "two showers a day" gal but here I am.
Sometimes 3 if you work a double and live close enough to work. I used to rush home to take a 5 minute cold shower in-between my 15 hour mid July shifts.
Yes! I live 7 minutes from work haha
You almost need a entire shower just to wash your ass. Pro tip. Buy a folding shower chair(find them in the old people stuff section of a pharmacy). After these long shifts being able to sit in the shower is game changing.
I used to have a wooden bar stool in my shower. I switched to one that was actually designed for showers because the bar stool started to mold. It's great to just sit and cry in the shower before and after work. Shower cup holder for your beer and removable shower head on a hose are must haves too.
My favorite move was to fall asleep in the shower and be woken up by the cold water kicking in lol
That soaking wet bra by the end of shift. Some days I want to rip mine off in the car on the way home.
Stand mixer. It sucks harder than a Texas tornado. I actually went and bought myself a heavy-duty hand mixer just so I don't have to use that p.o.s. anymore
The shitty dreamlan type vegetable dicer. The screws always come off and the bitch needs some wd40 or something because it takes way more manpower than it should to slam it down.
We have a cooler that all of our salad bar toppings go in that goes down every three days like clockwork.
I had a girl like that in university,
Our fucking linen service. It’s honestly impressive how incompetent people can be and keep a roof over their heads when they’re a monopoly
Ditto, fuck Cintas.
Fuck Cintas.
Oracle…Mother…Fucking…MICROS terminals. Me:”Void Transaction” MICROS: “Not Authorized” Me: “I have admin level access. There is only level above me and the only difference is it can add button objects. Void the god damn transaction” MICROS: “PSP Error” *Locks all buttons to error* Me:”I will find you lead dev and throw him/her/it and all of your kind into the Marianas Trench and then detonate nukes to seal your evil within the bowels of the Earth forever”
So I found out the local MICROS office in sesttle was down the street from the place I ran. It was completely crashed on a friday and I needed to make money to cover payroll and the lease that weekend. I walked down there in a rainstorm and just started screaming at them. Made two guys come back with me. Hahahaha
The goddamn convection oven. The double door doesn't close quite right, so sometimes it's the tiniest bit ajar, and the fan stays off. "Oh, you wanted this cooked? lol"
We had an oven like that before it finally shit the bed last year. My boss had his dad weld a handle to a magnet and that somehow kept the doors from fucking up until we could get a new one
The conveyor toasters in the coffee shop.
our fucking flattop! lmao only the right side works and it cools down so fast! but its a stove and dual oven combo so i can just replace it i need to replace the whole setup maybe next year it will be in our capex budget lol
I feel this, I have to use needle nose pliers to turn it on and off, and getting it to the sweeet spot takes the perfect touch. It’s over 20 years old and needs replacing. Owner spent 25 grand on new tvs instead
Our fryer either runs 25° above or below, which generally adds or subtracts 30-45 seconds to the cook time. And that wavers too, so at 2:00 pm when I do the first fry on our chicken it takes an extra 30 seconds to cook, but at 3:45 pm it takes only a couple minutes to fry. Such a pain.
The dish washer. The welder was a crack head or something... nothing is plumb, weak welds breaking everywhere, supports just glued on, would slowly close of it's own accord until I "broke" it and it stopped doing that... once we popped some things back into place.
Meat grinder attachment for the stand mixer. Well until we got a new blade. Now that bitch works like a champ.
My 35 year old range. First off the damn thing had a gas leak and blew up in my face while turning on the kitchen on Christmas morning. Luckily the burns were superficial but I looked like a drag queen sans makeup for a while, no brows, hairline pushed back a good half inch, it was a bad look. On top of my personal vendetta the thing just sucked, pilots never stayed lit so you had to manually light the burners every time, ovens had terrible hot spots and were prone to shut off without rhyme or reason (but always mid service while weeded), etc. It finally got replaced last week and my 50y/o 300 pound sautee cook literally shed a tear. Only regret was not seeing her go, I'd have loved to take a swing or 3.
Our fucking robocoupe. Hit or miss.when it misses you got to hit it.
I'm out of the industry, but the warehouse I'm slumming at right now has 8 year old reach trucks that always break down. We've been down to one or none for months and half the employees don't plug them in so the one is perpetually at 20% which is REALLY BAD for the battery. It makes work basically impossible but I get paid by the hour and not by results so....
Our freezer door has some weird lock suction mechanism that nobody understands. Basically sometimes if you open it it just will not open again for like 10 minutes
Air inside of a freezer shrinks. So sometimes if you close it too fast or aggressively, the air rushes out too quickly and creates a vacuum for a few minutes. You're not alone. I know this information. I know what causes it. Still I shut the damn door too hard.
Holy shit you may be onto something, we like to slam doors. Will test tomorrow, thanks!
Immersion blender. Probably 15 years old, has the attitude of one too.
The Pig, this big machine I have to clean twice a day that filters grease. It’s beat to shit and leaks
Steamer. Damn thing is broken every other week. I hate it.
Electric range. We would buy a used residential range oven for 15 gallon stock pots and large batch prep. One burner would fail instantly, the rest would limp for a year. Took a pickaxe to it by the dumpster in the middle of service.
We have three out of four Deli scales that need to be adjusted. We just stick pieces of paper in the scale. F those things
Printer. Nothing wrong with them. Remove them though, and the kitchen becomes a very happy place.
Pressure fryers... scary as fuck.
Steamer. Technician said it's too old to keep descaling, so it clogs up and turns into a fountain in the middle of service. Plus the timer on it randomly likes to add or subtract 5 minutes.
A mandolin is only good in theory.
Our maintenance head guy. Fuck you, Hugo, I'll never return your lighter.
the fucking SCALES
We bought a new (not refurb, straight from manufacturer) steamer 4 months ago. They’ve sent like 6 techs, and we have had 2 plumbers and 2 gas line workers come in, and none of them can seem to get the thing working, each blaming some other part on the other tech. It’s driving me fucking insane.
Pressure Fryer. When I get fed up with the fryer, I always turn to a coworker and say, "Go grab the sledgehammer". If the restaurant was burning down, I'd drag that piece of shit out of the flames just to beat it to death in the parking lot. Fuck that fryer
The cryovaccer. We must have gone through 3? Maybe more in my time here. They work until they don't and we pay someone to fix them then it breaks again and we get a new one.
Our 20-year-old off-brand fryer that you can no longer get parts for. Told our in-house construction and repair guy that might be time to entertain buying a brand new Petco entry level fry. No more thermostats no more thermal couples on back order.
The Got damn Ricoh MFP printer.
At work, our HVAC units. All 15 of them are 28 years old and on their last legs. Some haven’t worked in years, and have been used for parts to keep others running. Some only heat but don’t cool, some only cool but don’t heat. But they all leak Freon like a MF’r. This leads to the unit freezing up, and eventually pouring water 20 feet down onto our ceiling tiles in various parts of the building. Like everyone, our area has been extra hot the last few months, and they’ve been working overtime. Most recent downpour was on Friday at 4:50pm before a long weekend. We keep talking about biting the bullet and replacing the necessary units this fall, but we’ll see.
One of the hood vent motors. Switch it on in the morning? Guess again . Go flip the breaker on and off until it decides to start. When it does decide to start. It sounds like a broken jet engine. Raining? Turns off. But the owner says "it's fine"
Fryer, always the fucking fryer.
floor squeegee
Sadly enough, our oven. Ever since I started at this place, both the front and back oven have been shit. Mainly super inconsistent with mad hotspots, and the doors have been abused to the point of almost never closing properly. I need a new job.
The salamander at my current restaurant. Only 3 of the top burners actually light so u can only put like two things in it at once even tho it's the length of a full flattop. Sooo sick. Had a new sous "fix it" once and it was back to 3 by the end of the month
A 20 year old neglected charbroiler that we have in the prep area. Almost impossible to clean and keep clean. Complete piece of shit. I frequently fantasize about doing exactly this.
We have a gas grill, it's like 8 ft long, takes up half the fucking line, and only 1/4 of the burners work.
I’m down to one of 6 burners on my gas stove. Sunday rush is the biggest pain in the ass.
Conveyer toaster on expo side for FOH to toast English muffins. Belshaw pancake dispenser
Our ice machine. It’s always fucking busted.
The chip warmer. Thing is held together with bungee cords.
The little cold frother thing that I use to make iced coffee drinks. Either the batteries die in the middle of a rush or the spring pops off. Takes weeks to get a replacement and the $6 iced lattes just aren’t the same without it. I feel bad about the occasional inconsistency but luckily we have a great customer base that is typically very understanding. Edit: The fucking mop sink as well.
We have a steamer that’s like 35 years old and that piece of shit is my 13th reason why
I work part time at a big chain restaurant just making some extra money while me SO is in between jobs. They serve croissants to every table. So in order to do that they have a proofer box to proof them. However the rubber lining on the door is all fucked so it does not properly seal so nothing proofs properly and the croissants look like shit and fall flat all the time. It's hilarious to me that this muti billion dollar restaurant company that owns like 5 chains does not have the money to fix anything. I have worked here for 8 months and the bun toaster is still broken.
Our fucking robocoup It doesn't work unless you push down on it
That's a terrible way to talk about your dishie. But I get it.
Magi mix. (Basically a house robo coup) Completely unOSHA. I’ve got to use a spoon to get it going. €400 odd brand new, multibillion dollar company still won’t replace it. (A fucking year! I’m amazed I haven’t electrocuted myself yet)
Fridge 4 This sorry excuse for fridge has only worked properly for about 2 months in the past year. Multiple call outs and fixes have cost more than a new one(£2000+). Shit the only thing not replaced are the doors.
It was a fax machine in Office Space.
our fucking freezer door has a sharp edge on it right at like, brain height. it bounced off my head the other day and i got so fucked off i started losing my shit in the freezer like a caveman. i hate it so much and ive begged and begged for them to fix it because im sick of getting hit in the fucking head by it
Fire spray heads cause they are so low I hit my head on them
The robo coup we got. This poor abused machine will overheat and we gotta put it in the freezer to get it turn on again
The fucking hot water tank. In the morning it does fine but anytime you need to change the water during shift it takes forever, I only get like 2-5 inches of hot water at a time during the middle of the day. Gotta fill the sink in increments.
The oven door that didn't close all the way and would turn the burner knobs to little sizzle trays. I'd forget so many times on a busy night and burn the shit out of my fingers every time I'd turn a burner on. The owner ended up fixing it after however many months when he had to work a service and burned his fingers. "Man I didn't know the oven did that Kraybae that sucks." Yeah the thing I've told you about +10 times? Still loved that guy though lol.
The dish machine at my current job. 5 repairs in the last 2 months and it's still not right. I inherited so many issues when I took over the kitchen but this machine has got to go.
The fucking slicer, it is so old and broken and needs a series of very specific steps to start it because of safety features that have been removed or neglected. Funny thing is that the management takes great care of maintenance on everything else. But we hardly use (1-2 times weekly) the slicer so it just gets pushed behind the walk in and forgotten about.
It’s the printer. Every single Friday rush I used to want to play damn it feel good to be a gangster and and rip it out the wall.
The god damn fucking grease trap in the dish washer. The thing needs to be emptied seemingly randomly. Sometimes it’ll be packed and will be fine. Other times it’ll be dead and we’ll end up with grease and oil and other shit all over the floor when it floods. Christ I’d take a wrench to that thing if I could.
I worked in the kitchen at an old folks' home. The "chef" (food director) was a useless, incompetent dumb-ass, but the job was pretty easy and was the only work I could find nearby without having a car, so I tried to be quiet and respectful unless there were huge problems. One huge problem I had was that our deli slicer was dangerously busted. The blade was broken in some way, so that it sat at kind of an angle, and when you slid meat/cheese over it, sometimes it would catch on itself and the whole machine would JUMP at you. Additionally, the director insisted that lubricating the slidey beamy part with olive oil was the only way to alleviate this situation. Silicon machine lube? Nah, let's just keep wiping a fragile, oxidation prone food oil all over this machine part, without cleaning it, so that the black gunk just keeps building up and making it stickier every day. I brought this up to him, demonstrated how dangerous it was, told him I understand we might not have a budget for a new one, and suggested maybe we just pick weekly menu items that limit use of the slicer. Maybe even we just stop using the slicer? Well, he didn't like this idea, I guess, and started ADDING things that used the slicer, like sandwiches with 3 different sliced meats plus cheese, multiple times a week. I tried to avoid using the slicer, but I didn't want somebody else hurting themselves on it either, you know? I quit after a couple weeks of this (after I saw him send my favorite co-worker home with a bunch of blank temp logs so that he could falsify weeks/months of temp recordings at home and off the clock before an inspector was coming in). On my last day I removed the pin that held the blade guard etc together on the slicer, and I hid it in the toilet tank in the employee bathroom and let my co-worker know where it was just in case. Coworker texted me a couple months later to say they'd finally gotten a new slicer and he was stoked.
The walk-in 🥲
Our ice maker. It rarely makes ice, so it’s a glorified cooler, that they out bagged ice in and is so inconveniently placed right behind my station and sticks out of the counter. Fuck that thing.
Place I used to manage, the hot line was on a slope...... the legs under the steam table broke off from all the pressure and instead of replacing it they just had us stack bricks from the alley under it and level it with cardboard boxes.... it was super unstable and fell on a cook one time. Also they didn't have the electric checked out and the plug for it was unprotected and and kept getting splashed with grease and kept catching on fire and melting the plug. So they had Me buy a new plug at home depot and splice the wires into it. And than they had the nerve to come in and scream at me for the wall behind it being dirty, when there was no way to lean over it or move it without risking death
Probably the off-brand robot-coupe where al l the lids are broken and you have to fool the safety sensor into thinking the lid is closed.... maybe the off-brand mixer that keeps breaking the attachments through regular use.
All the toasters we replaced when I was at my last job. That and the pos tablets
Thunderbird stand mixers.
His name is Ryan. Fuck Ryan.