Gossiping about the Cooks: The Cody Special Disaster
There is really not time to update this blog, but hey, there is TOO much gossip not to.
It's spring and business is cranking up as the oil field unfreezes and dries out. The drill rigs come back, the U.S. Forest roads open up, and the highway gets busy. Tourists and fishermen wander in and realize they found something special. Waitressing is all about being ready. It's easy when the silverware is rolled, the menus are clean, the condiments are on hand, the tables are clean, the lemons are sliced, the glassware has the water spots polished off, and the coffee is fresh and hot. It's hell when these things are not ready.
We have a new cook. Unlike the last few, he is clean and sober. I turn in the order and his response is, "Great! Have it right out!" Wow!! I love him. My faith in cooks as human beings has been restored.
Cooks are usually the root of most gossip. Let's start with the last one: the owners brother. Nice guy when he was sober, but he liked to keep the kitchen in total chaos. All the foods stacked up amidst the scattered hashbrowns and cheese particles. He wouldn't wash his dishes, he'd just stack them on top of everything else. His claim to any level of cleanliness was his strict maintenance of his bleach water bucket. The food he turned out was good, except for his predilection for making the eggs crispy. One thing our customers don't like is an "over-easy" egg with crispy edges. You put it on the table and they look at you with eyes, that like reflections of their eggs, are hard, which totally stresses me out. The boss spoke to him about his eggs, but nothing could change the pattern. Since we have our new cook, the breakfast customers are especially pleased.
The brother-cook had a drinking problem. If you looked down in the refrigerator next to the burgers in the middle of the day, you might find a beer or a coffee cup full of red wine. The owner was trying to ignore this situation because he's his brother-in-law, but everyone else saw the disaster coming.
About two weeks ago, the cook came to work at 6 a.m. totally drunk. Eggs got crispier than normal. It was looking grim. The owner was working the register. I was minding my own business, but when every order was messed up, I sure wanted to find a reason to leave. The owner called his wife for emergency backup. The wife is an outdoors-woman and doesn't have much tolerance for drunks. This set the stage for more drama than Navajo City sees on a regular basis.
Cody is one of our regular customers. He likes chicken strips and white gravy. But he likes them with green chile and cheese on his french fries. He orders this meal every day. We call it the Cody Special. Well, there are a few women in the oil field, about 3 of which are vivacious intelligent women. Needless to say, they never have to eat lunch by themselves. Sue is one of these ladies. Sue and Cody don't work together, but they know each other and Sue knew of the existence of the Cody Special. On that fateful day, she made the mistake of ordering the Cody Special with no green chile. I wrote it down like that. I should have written "chik strip". Big mistake.
Sister and inebriated brother were back at the stove trying to patch up the orders and get things out. No one was talking about the fundamental problem of the brother being totally drunk. They were just trying to work around it. The sister didn't know what the Cody Special was, so when they rang the bell and I went back to pick it up, I couldn't really be upset with her. She didn't know. "No Green Chile", I pointed it out on the ticket. They took it back. There were 9 guys sitting with Sue at that table (Did I say she never gets to eat alone?) and maybe a dozen other customers at other tables. A bunch of orders were in preparation and the bell rang again for the Cody Special. It still had the green chile on it. The Boss was helping me get the food out and sort out the messed up orders, he looked at the ticket and turned the plate back to the cooks since it was still covered with green chile.
The cook started cussing and told the Boss he could come back and cook himself. The Boss said, "Okay, that would be fine." The cook said he was quitting. Fine. Fine with me especially! But it didn't work out so smoothly. The cook stormed out the back door, but in just a few seconds was in another door into the dining area with the customers making an ugly scene. His sister grabbed him and she and the Boss drug him out the back door. It would have been so much better if the drunk cook would have just minded his own business, but he was determined to cause a scene, so he kicked in a couple of the doors and threatened to do some serious damage to whatever he could. We called the police, but this far from civilization, you can't really expect them to help you in a crisis.
The customers stood up and tried to help. Most of them would have run from a real fight because of their jobs, but they at least were a bit threatening. One of the customers, Travis, was in a fightin' mood though and took the cooks challenge to step outside and go a round. They never had an opportunity to get it done, because the sister stepped up and, with one blow, decked her brother. She took him down and some customers helped drag him into the walk-in cooler we don't use. She parked her jeep up against the door and we all breathed a sigh of relief.
The first state cop arrived about 20 minutes later, but he called for reinforcements and the other one showed up a bit later. We were still busy serving food and the owner was getting the kitchen cleaned up, so we had to give our statements between customers. I watched them try to get the cook out of the cooler. Cuffed and stuffed, he still was mad enough to break the window in the cop car. Alkies bleed easy and he was a bloody mess so they took him to the hospital for stitches before they threw him in the drunk tank. The boss did not press charges, but the cook was charged with destruction of state property for the cop car.
We decide that next time we are going to charge the customers for the floor show. The Boss posted a notice:
Hey, I gotta get off of this keyboard and get some napkins rolled. We'll have to save the rest of the gossip for later.
It's spring and business is cranking up as the oil field unfreezes and dries out. The drill rigs come back, the U.S. Forest roads open up, and the highway gets busy. Tourists and fishermen wander in and realize they found something special. Waitressing is all about being ready. It's easy when the silverware is rolled, the menus are clean, the condiments are on hand, the tables are clean, the lemons are sliced, the glassware has the water spots polished off, and the coffee is fresh and hot. It's hell when these things are not ready.
We have a new cook. Unlike the last few, he is clean and sober. I turn in the order and his response is, "Great! Have it right out!" Wow!! I love him. My faith in cooks as human beings has been restored.
Cooks are usually the root of most gossip. Let's start with the last one: the owners brother. Nice guy when he was sober, but he liked to keep the kitchen in total chaos. All the foods stacked up amidst the scattered hashbrowns and cheese particles. He wouldn't wash his dishes, he'd just stack them on top of everything else. His claim to any level of cleanliness was his strict maintenance of his bleach water bucket. The food he turned out was good, except for his predilection for making the eggs crispy. One thing our customers don't like is an "over-easy" egg with crispy edges. You put it on the table and they look at you with eyes, that like reflections of their eggs, are hard, which totally stresses me out. The boss spoke to him about his eggs, but nothing could change the pattern. Since we have our new cook, the breakfast customers are especially pleased.
The brother-cook had a drinking problem. If you looked down in the refrigerator next to the burgers in the middle of the day, you might find a beer or a coffee cup full of red wine. The owner was trying to ignore this situation because he's his brother-in-law, but everyone else saw the disaster coming.
About two weeks ago, the cook came to work at 6 a.m. totally drunk. Eggs got crispier than normal. It was looking grim. The owner was working the register. I was minding my own business, but when every order was messed up, I sure wanted to find a reason to leave. The owner called his wife for emergency backup. The wife is an outdoors-woman and doesn't have much tolerance for drunks. This set the stage for more drama than Navajo City sees on a regular basis.
Cody is one of our regular customers. He likes chicken strips and white gravy. But he likes them with green chile and cheese on his french fries. He orders this meal every day. We call it the Cody Special. Well, there are a few women in the oil field, about 3 of which are vivacious intelligent women. Needless to say, they never have to eat lunch by themselves. Sue is one of these ladies. Sue and Cody don't work together, but they know each other and Sue knew of the existence of the Cody Special. On that fateful day, she made the mistake of ordering the Cody Special with no green chile. I wrote it down like that. I should have written "chik strip". Big mistake.
Sister and inebriated brother were back at the stove trying to patch up the orders and get things out. No one was talking about the fundamental problem of the brother being totally drunk. They were just trying to work around it. The sister didn't know what the Cody Special was, so when they rang the bell and I went back to pick it up, I couldn't really be upset with her. She didn't know. "No Green Chile", I pointed it out on the ticket. They took it back. There were 9 guys sitting with Sue at that table (Did I say she never gets to eat alone?) and maybe a dozen other customers at other tables. A bunch of orders were in preparation and the bell rang again for the Cody Special. It still had the green chile on it. The Boss was helping me get the food out and sort out the messed up orders, he looked at the ticket and turned the plate back to the cooks since it was still covered with green chile.
The cook started cussing and told the Boss he could come back and cook himself. The Boss said, "Okay, that would be fine." The cook said he was quitting. Fine. Fine with me especially! But it didn't work out so smoothly. The cook stormed out the back door, but in just a few seconds was in another door into the dining area with the customers making an ugly scene. His sister grabbed him and she and the Boss drug him out the back door. It would have been so much better if the drunk cook would have just minded his own business, but he was determined to cause a scene, so he kicked in a couple of the doors and threatened to do some serious damage to whatever he could. We called the police, but this far from civilization, you can't really expect them to help you in a crisis.
The customers stood up and tried to help. Most of them would have run from a real fight because of their jobs, but they at least were a bit threatening. One of the customers, Travis, was in a fightin' mood though and took the cooks challenge to step outside and go a round. They never had an opportunity to get it done, because the sister stepped up and, with one blow, decked her brother. She took him down and some customers helped drag him into the walk-in cooler we don't use. She parked her jeep up against the door and we all breathed a sigh of relief.
The first state cop arrived about 20 minutes later, but he called for reinforcements and the other one showed up a bit later. We were still busy serving food and the owner was getting the kitchen cleaned up, so we had to give our statements between customers. I watched them try to get the cook out of the cooler. Cuffed and stuffed, he still was mad enough to break the window in the cop car. Alkies bleed easy and he was a bloody mess so they took him to the hospital for stitches before they threw him in the drunk tank. The boss did not press charges, but the cook was charged with destruction of state property for the cop car.
We decide that next time we are going to charge the customers for the floor show. The Boss posted a notice:
OFFICIAL NOTICE
The Cody Special cannot be ordered without Green Chile.
Hey, I gotta get off of this keyboard and get some napkins rolled. We'll have to save the rest of the gossip for later.
posted by The waitress at 5:01 AM
2 Comments:
That was so-o-o funny!
We have missed your always entertaining blogs. Please don't abandon us again.
If you were there, you would know it was not too funny!!!
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