As I was falling, I kept thinking, 'Not again, not again, not again, not again! No, no, no, no, nooooooo!' See, I had just fallen not two months earlier at work. That time it was the hose they use to clean the floor mats pulled out the back door with nor warning signs or cones up. I didn't see it at all and tripped, fell to my knees and bonked my head on the Brick wall. That time I was fine. Embarrassed, but fine. I filled out my incident report and moved on with my life. The time before that was about a year or so earlier. I was just walking across the front of the kitchen on what can only be described as lawsuit tiles. Super smooth and slick. A drop of water and the whole crew will go down. But no, just me, slipping in what felt like slow motion onto my hands. I roll forward and my forehead hits the ground briefly, gently. Happily.
A couple of Saturdays ago, our water heater broke at work. Now, the health department has a list of reasons to immediately close a restaurant. I copied these from the King county website.
- High score on the routine inspection*
- Sewage backing up in kitchen and/or bathroom
- No hot water/running water
- Electricity goes out
- Other imminent health hazards: broken refrigeration, damage caused by accidents or natural disasters, or when establishment is linked to a food borne illness outbreak
- Other: No permit to be operating (The permit assures that they have met all of the structural & equipment requirements for the menu items they are going to serve); the owner/manager interferes with the inspector's ability to do her/his duties.
- *The inspection is based on a 400 point system. The violations are added up between red and blue violations. If the total red critical violations is 90 or more, or the total of red and blue is 120 or more, then the establishment will be closed.
Now, I've experienced a lot of these over time in the industry and I'm here to tell you, it's unusual for a restaurant to just... close. I've not experienced all of these, but I have experienced a restaurant with sewage backing up into the kitchen/bathroom, but it was on small cruise ships. and let me tell you, you've never seen the engineer and all the deckhands work harder on a problem than sewage backup. Obviously, you can't close the cruise ship. I've worked restaurants during a blackout. All they did was put candles down the hallways, in the bathrooms, and in the kitchen. That's it. This experience was simply due to not having a plan in place for when it happened to us. But enough about all that. Back to falling and 'NONONONONO!'
I noticed, when I washed my hands at about 7:30PM that the water wasn't getting warm. It was about 30 minutes later that I noticed the dishpit was seriously backed up. Not unusual for a Saturday night, but this seemed excessive. Then we started noticing that the silverware was cold and not particularly clean. It was tacky with a thin film of oiliness to it. The managers were on the phone looking for guidance and Chef J was just beginning to get the kitchen organized. During all this time, we are still serving the folks that have orders in. I'm pretty much done with one table eating, so I grab my caesar tray and head for the kitchen walk in. I put the leftover cheeses, minced garlic, and mustard away. The small tins I take to the back side of the dish pit which is where our lead dishwasher likes us to place them, then I walk around to the front of the dish pit with my tray and dirty spoons to put where they belong. Easy peasy. When I go back to my section, I notice my neighbor, Kessa, still has her ceasar tray in her cart. A brief look at her tables tells me she doesn't need it anymore as we are done seating by now and all her tables are on entrees. I take her caesar tray and do the exact same thing as before. This time, though, as I walk around from the back of the dish pit to the front, there is a large bucket full of pleasantly warm water and dirty dishes. I, of course, don't see it and fall over it, knocking it over in the process. I feel the water wash over my shirt, my face (retching sounds here) and my hair. I land awkwardly on my right arm. I am immediately surprised, grossed out and pissed. However, I get myself together as people run over and help me up, dry me off and ask if I'm okay. At first I feel okay, but my right arm hurts a little bit. Then it hurts more. It swells. I'm embarrassed. One of the captain's has to finish my last table. It takes a couple of hours to get my accident report filled out and my paperwork done. It's Saturday night and there are a lot of things going on. My arm doesn't really hurt that bad. I know it's not good, but it is tolerable, so those couple of hours are not a big deal. I take the time to let my arm do whatever it's going to do and make some decisions. Eventually, I call DH and ask him to come get me and take me to the emergency room. I have a fracture of my radius by the elbow.
Why am I sharing this with you? It's a good practice piece. I haven't written in a while and I have a lot to say. This is really more of a warmup. To what? Not sure yet. I'll likely come back and add/subtract things and thoughts. It's a start.
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