Confessions of a Hospitality Worker

Wow, that title sounds familiar, and is very apt for this story i'm going to share. You see, i work in a motel/restaurant in my local area. Recently, in my writing course, I did an exposé, a behind the scenes of the place where I work and Confessions of a Hospitality Worker was my title for it.

Anyway, at the moment my bosses are in Thailand for a holiday and our head chef has gone also. His second in command, we'll call her Kylie, is in charge while he is gone and that means that if anything goes wrong, it's on her head. Last night I was working with one of my supervisors (the one i don't really like anymore) and she made me feel, within an hour of being there, that I hadn't learnt anything in the past two years that I had been working for them.

My annoyance deepened when I was left to look after a function completely on my own (not that I couldn't handle it, quite the opposite, actually) but she didn't offer to help, just left me alone and that pissed me off. She came back to help take out the desserts and tea and coffee, but that was it.

Now we get to the good part. About halfway through the night, my supervisor, we'll call her Hayley, went into the kitchen and asked if Kylie could make her up a bowl of chips as she was hungry. Kylie immediately said that that was fine, and asked her if she would like some flathead tails as well as they had some ready that they could give her. She agreed fairly quickly.

I left the kitchen after that, but about twenty minutes later, Hayley came into to see me in the store room and offered me some of her dinner. I'm not a big seafood eater, I try to steer clear of it because I'm not a big fan of it, but Hayley asked me if I wanted some and my immediate reaction was to say no. Lucky that I did, as I was to soon find out.

Later on in the night, I went back into the kitchen to drop some cups off for washing and Michael was at the sink, washing up. When I entered, a huge smile crossed his face and he said to me, "Did you hear what we did to Hayley's food?" My immediate reaction was suspicion. Michael told me they had dipped the flathead tails in dishwashing liquid, then dropped them on the floor, then cooked them up for Hayley. I was shocked, but then I thought, 'no, they wouldn't have done that' so I told him I didn't believe him and left the kitchen.

Fifteen minutes later, I returned to put more things away and Kylie was at the dishwasher this time. As I was putting the stuff I was carrying down, she looked at me and said, "Did you hear what we did to Hayley's food?" I looked at Michael then back at her. I couldn't tell if they were serious, but it seemed like it.

Kylie gave me the full story. What happened was; they had soaked the flathead tails in water for a majority of the day, then they had soaked them in the water the vegies had been cooked in, then they had dipped them in the water the washing up had been done in (not the dishwashing liquid) and then they had accidentally dropped them on the floor. They then, of course, cooked them up and gave them to Hayley.

As far as I know, she wasn't sick from it. Funny though, very funny... Kylie doesn't like Hayley and it's not exactly a little known fact, so for her to do this was just hilarious. Yes, the prank may have been wrong, but I know the kitchen staff and they would never have done something like this if it would actually harm someone.

I was given a staff meal too, but it was the same food the function people had gotten, so I knew it was safe. They like me.