6-10-04

This place is BUSY, over a thousand lunches today; thank God I was here yesterday to make all of my preparation. During lunch, the busiest part of the day, I am summoned to the tossers office to sign the papers. “Cant it wait”? I ask. “No he wants to see you now”. I am already having second thoughts about this job. Anyone who waits until the middle of a busy service to see the chef deserves a swift death. That goes for managers, representatives from companies, suppliers, delivery drivers, supermodels and anyone else that is either shortsighted or egotistical enough to disrupt the service. It is considered akin to walking into an operating theatre and asking to talk to the surgeon about his overdraft whilst he and his team perform a heart transplant.
So I leave the kitchen to see the tosser who wants me to accept the job on the condition that I lie to the agency that introduced me and say that I answered an advert in the local paper. That way he doesn’t have to pay a fee to the agency and his years end bonus stands more of a chance of remaining intact. As I said I was already having some serious second thoughts about working here so I declined. He wants me to reconsider where my loyalty lies and to have a rethink to see if it is misplaced. I think for ten seconds and walk out to go back to my busy service. In my mind he has just been relegated from tosser to asshole and despite my liking and respect of my Zimbabwean brothers and sisters I resolve to exit the building post haste and try not to return.
There has been a garbage can overflowing in the staff toilets now for the past three weeks so I take a picture of it in anticipation of writing this story. What a shit hole.

The music has now changed to a mixture of The Doors and The Beatles with a smattering of The Rolling Stones and Elvis Costello. At least the guy has some taste, too bad it doesn’t extend to his palate.