I do not know how I missed your introduction but a heart felt welcome is in order from a very much RETIRED chef. 53 years of it was enough even though I do often wish I could simply dabble a bit. I’m not really familiar with hospital food preparation but are you involved in patient care, cafeteria or possibly a fast food area? Or, do you guys switch around from one type of preparation to another just to relieve a little boredom?
No worries as I didn't stay long the first round. I'm not a chef. I'm just a cook. There's a HUGE difference. LOL! I wish I was a chef. They make us wear chef shirts at work which bothers me because some of us are not chefs which makes people expect more from us than what we're capable of. I was hired on to cook for the patients but I'm also a relief person at present. I bounce around from shift to shift doing different jobs in different areas of the dept. In the 5 yrs I've been there I've mostly worked in the grill area either on the grill or on the fryer. I'm trying to get a permanent position as our fry cook as I no longer want to cook for patients. It's getting to be too much physically and the kitchen politics are annoying me to the point where I'm passing on a fat raise in order to reduce my stress level. I know 9 different positions in there and they have me working 5 of them on a regular basis. If they had they're way I'd be training for more and I'm getting pretty overwhelmed with it all.
So Bobby we have several folks in the kitchen who spend their day preparing food for at least a 100 patients a day as well as several hundred staff and visitors. I don't know the exact numbers on that. We have a cafeteria and we have the hot food side and then I'm mostly in the grill area where they do the "fast food" items. Our grill lead cooks up a daily special and we offer burgers and chicken sandwiches and whatnot along with fries and a fried chicken case. However we've been so short staffed that the grill has been closed a lot this past month or more.
That totally sounds awful, and frustrating, @Marci Miller , and I hope that you can get it worked out where you are not doing so much and so many different things. Cooking for large amounts of people/food, is difficult enough, without being moved around and having to do a bunch of different things.
I like being in the cafeteria. There's less drama and stress and we have music and people who appreciate having us there. We meet new people every day. Some of the visitors that return we get to know. It's a lot less work and less taxing on my body. I have COPD and asthma and all that running non stop in the kitchen is getting to be too much. Sometimes I have to work more than my 5 days and it's getting too hard on my body. Our new boss wants to get all of us into one position instead of everyone bouncing in and out of all these shifts. Right now the way it's set up they have me responsible for 5 different shifts that all come with cleaning lists. I'm not gonna be responsible for 5 cleaning lists that the full timers aren't even working on. Not at my age.
I’m not sure if a hospital setting would be my cup of tea even though I was offered a management position at one time by a CEO of a hospital system. As it is in nearly all kitchens without the right leadership, there’s a lot of preventable stress and egos flying around which is something I will not put up with. Whilst I like having all my people cross trained for each station, when I see someone who not only likes what they are doing but is good at it I’m inclined to lock that person into his or her preference of stations. By doing that each cook knows the station from prep to cleaning and has a grip on what has to happen at any given point. It’s tactical but a smart way of keeping the moral high, the place clean and the food quality where it’s supposed to be.
Exactly. I don't have a problem with being cross trained and helping in an emergency but constantly bouncing shift to shift is a pain in the neck. I get nothing accomplished because I have no set routine. I'm a very methodical worker so my day is planned down to the toilet times. LOL! I know what needs to be done and when and how much wiggle room I have for situations that arise. I can make split second decisions on how to handle certain things to achieve my daily goals. Out front in the cafeteria there's less time to fuss and it's just more pleasant. The people in the back are a bunch of egotistical, nitpickers who can't even do their own job the way they expect someone else to. And some are just obnoxious. And don't even get me started on the hostility in that place. LOL!
Hey there, Marci! Not trying to but in but would like to welcome you to the board. I don't remember doing it before. But, then, I'm old. ; )
In that case Mark, welcome to the Seniors only Club! The bathroom is down the hall to the left and if anyone has bothered to make coffee, it’s in the rec room.