I Spit in Your Food

Meet Bob. Bob is our dishwasher. Well, one of our dishwashers. Our kitchen has roughly eight dishwashers to help control the massive volume of pots, pans, silverware, and dishes that we go through every day. The majority of the dishwashers are people who are developmentally disabled, with the exception of a few people to help keep things flowing smoothly and the disabled workers from having too many meltdowns. Then, there is Bob.
Bob is the one full time, unionized dishwasher who has been working in the kitchen for more then ten years. I think that all of the steam has seeped into his brain and crossed a few wires. Upon first glance he seems like a great enough guy. Normal, able to function in regular society. Which he is. Though he has a habit of commenting on how much he hates certain people. Such as his assistant dishwasher. The assistant works slow and is annoying, but I don’t think he is annoying enough to mention to anyone that walks by that he wants to kill him.
I don’t know about the rest of the public, but I don’t like being told when someone feels the urge to kill.
Or, this was one of my first experiences with communicating with Bob. As I was putting something away in my locker I asked Bob how he was doing. He responded with “I’m doing good.”
Excellent! He is doing good!
“You know what I hate? Those f—— who say hi to you at work but then ignore you outside of work. Gah how I hate those people!”
Wait…where did that outburst come from? I didn’t ask for an extra portion of insight into my co-workers with that “How are you?” question.
Bob does this all the time. Random comments spurt out of his mouth at the strangest times. I should start writing them down.
Bob. Our “mostly” normal dishwasher.

God save us. He wants to kill again.

More about my coworkers. This time it’s about John. John is one of our cooks, a large, beefy man that looks like he could tear your arms off. The sort of man you show respect to, even if you don’t respect him at all. He is a great guy, cooking his food in a timely manner and always willing to do a little bit extra to make the day go by easier. His personality and sense of humor is, however, not so great.
One day I walked into the back to stop the annoying beeping of the deep fryer and “pull” some more food to the front. Pulling is the act of removing an item from an oven or warmer. The “front” is the area that the customers get to see, and place their order at.
John was in the middle of telling a story. I came in part way through, so I don’t know how the story came up but I was able to figure out that he was talking about a dream. And what a dream it was.
The first line I heard was “So there I was, knees on her chest, and hands wrapped around her neck, like this.” He then proceeded to form his hands in a mime of chocking someone. “And I was shaking her and shaking her till she stopped fighting. Then I woke up sweating. It was one messed up dream.”
So, John had a dream about beating his wife or a girlfriend, or some other sort of female company. And felt compelled to tell people in the kitchen about it.
I now affectionately call him “the wife beater” in my head.

I work with some interesting people. A few are fun, enjoyable, entertaining, delightful, attractive, intelligent…I could write more adjectives, but I’m sure you would find that boring.
On the other side of the spectrum are a few annoying coworkers. These people are idiotic, indecisive, unprofessional and lazy. Again I could write a few more adjectives, but then I would run the risk of boring you. Again.
I’ll start talking about my more annoying coworkers. I find them entertaining. In the “Let’s laugh at the idiot” way of entertainment. Zion. I find him to be the most amusing out of the group. He has this annoying way of ignoring his customers but butting in and trying to take over mine. I call it the envy syndrome. For example:
Customer: “What is in this unique looking slop?”
Me: “It is a cheese sauce poured over…”
Zion: (Speaking quickly to catch up to what I have already said.) “It is a cheese sauce poured over stuffed green peppers and garnished with deep fried okra shreddings.”
Often times Zion will ignore a customer that has just stepped up to the line ready to place their order and actually walk the fifteen feet to my end of the line where I am located to cut into my conversation and try to steal my customer. Meanwhile, I continue to serve my customer and hand them their plate. Zion, has now begun to try and begin a conversation with me, while trying to look busy by wiping away imaginary spills on the counter. I will then either direct Zion towards his waiting customer, or walk over and serve them myself, with Zion following in my footsteps. Either way he looks surprised to see a waiting customer at his station.
The envy syndrome in it’s complete cycle. And it repeats many times over throughout the day.
Entertaining coworker #1 out of the way.