Today was a rather strange day at work - not just because all the wait staff were wearing costumes. (My favorite was the woman who dressed like a cat, but that's beside the point).
For one thing, it really was an easy day ... for me ... for the most part. We generally have two cooks on the line, but for some mysterious reason my partner was getting about 80% of the orders. Everybody wanted eggs today for some reason, instead of French Toast and pancakes. As a result, I spent most of my day taking it easy and watching him work.
I did, however, face two really odd events that I just wasn't able to handle.
We have two griddles at work - one for pancakes and French toast that holds approximately 9 cakes, and another for meats (bacon, sausage patties, etc.) and potatoes (home fries). Usually there's no reason to cook any item anywhere except its designated grill, but occasionally one needs to start cooking pancakes on the meat grill. It's a theoretical no-no, but practical needs outweigh theory here.
So today I got blasted with back-to-back pancake orders. The first order had 6 pancakes and 4 pieces of French toast. The second order had 12 pancakes. I literally had no place to cook. I had no idea how to handle this, got my timing all screwed up, and got buried.
I needed rescuing.
When the kitchen staff supervisor game over to dig me out of my pancake hell, she immediately recognized the problem. In her worlds, I "got pancaked." Apparently this happens often enough that we have a term for it. Unfortunately, I did not get an explanation on how to survive this in the future.
Now, I don't really feel bad about this. I was clearly in over my head and just didn't know how to deal. I'm not going to feel bad about something that I didn't know how to cope with and wasn't prepared for. (I do feel bad when I screw things up that I should know how to deal with).
The second strange thing that happened to me today - again, I couldn't deal with it - was when we got slammed with a take-out order for 18. Seriously, think about it. Would you like cooking for 18 people all at once? An order for 18 people is just a really scary magnitude. To add injury to insult, it was a take-out order, meaning that this order was above and beyond the seating capacity of the restaurant. We had to make that order on top of all the orders that were coming in from seated folks!
And some how, even though my partner got 80% of all the other orders that day, that 18 items take out was mostly me: 3 rellenos plates, 3 chicken clubs, 2 BLTS, 2 cold sandwiches, at least 3 grilled sandwiches, and after that I fricken got lost. OK, I know I also had to grill chicken for a salad - that was half him, half me - and somewhere in there was a side of bacon. Counting the 3 chicken clubs and 2 BLTs, that's 6 orders of bacon. Somehow, at LEAST 15 items were mine exclusively, and 2 were shared.
Yeah, I don't know how to prepare 17 meals at once. I probably should, but I don't really feel bad about not be able to handle this one either. Again, I was in waaaaaay over my head and needed to be bailed out. In fact, this time I needed to be bailed out by 2 people - maybe 3. Since that whole order was more or less all me, my partner shifted over as well, so there was basically 4 people all working in my station.
Again, I really don't feel bad about not be able to handle any of this, but ... wow... it's just craziness. A take-out order for 18 is probably a once-per-year event. (At least I hope it is). It needs to be recorded for posterity.
