Cookery: life in a kitchen

Hail to the career applicators, the job hunters, and minimum wage workers because for the past three summers I have been working as a dishwasher. Isa akong tagahugas ng pinggan!

I have never gotten respect from the wait staff, the cooks, the chefs, pizza men, salad girls, hosts, bartenders, or managers.

The dishwasher works the hardest, but gets paid the least.

Take those thoughts back to that sink and wash them clean.

Backbreaking - finger cutting – bleach stinging – arm burning profession.

As the dishwasher I am the peace keeper of the restaurant - relied on by all to recall and supply.

If I don’t do my job correctly the entire dining experience is ruined. Imagine someone else gum stuck to your coffee cup.

I wash every single burnt pan, grill, grease vents, every single dish and plate, tea cup - eating utensil - cutting board – knife – mixer – blender – bowl – tong - floor mat

And trashcan. Don’t get me started on the dozens of ladles, those stupid ladles, that seem to collaborate and degenerate my life; congregating into loud exasperating masses of clinging sliding and suctioning clusters of serving spoons. You can learn a thing or two from those things.

Cheese is a concentrated mass of reconstructed proteins, fats, and sugar coagulated and denatured from milk. It’s a hydrophobic peptide and that’s why it’s so difficult to wash off.

There are six solids in dishwashing. Metal, Wood, Glass, Ceramic, Plastic, and Stone. This distinction  serves no purpose it’s just interesting to think of dishes like that. 

Feebly scraping the backside of an old trash shoot dumpster with a metal shovel in the hot sun while wearing an all black uniform is a depressingly dismal disposition.

Ten dollars and hour and only a mile from my house -  struggling to voluntarily  remain employed is like waiting in line to pay four dollars for a bottle of water at a concert of your parents’ choice - you’ll do it, but you won’t like that you have to and you’ll wonder how you ended up there in the first place.

A warning to those thinking that working in a restaurant will be a better way to spend your days then making your couch your second bed.

The ambivalence I hold towards my restaurant job strips me of my sense of rewarded responsibility.

I’m a peacekeeping, pruned finger bleeding, undercompensated kitchen lackey. 40 hours a week. No tips.