Almighty Cletus.

One day Cletus was whining and crying about how long it takes to do recycling. He's bitching that Fridays are the worst day because he has to come in early (10am ain't fuggin' early) to do inventory, which he only does half of, (more on that soon) and then he has to jump right on 2 hours worth of recycling. Boo fuckin' hoo! It entails placing broken down boxes and bags of glass into a trailer, then driving it over to the recycling center where they unload it. I'm not sure where 2 hours comes from. Since he doesn't really do anything else, of course he gets this duty.

I am tired of his salty tears flowing so I tell him to ask the workers at the recycling center how to get on their pickup schedule. I explain to him that other business get their recyclables picked up every Wednesday. They don't even have to haul any of it as the city workers do it. Derp! He of course doesn't bother. So the next time I'm at the city auditor's office, I inquire as to why the city will pick up everyone else's but not ours. The auditor swears up and down that they are supposed to be collecting from everywhere and not just picking and choosing. I explain that I've seen them pick up from our neighboring businesses, then skip ours. She says she'll have that resolved within the day. Beautiful! Thanks! I even tell her that we'll have it all placed neatly outside the bar entrance by the road for their convenience.

I tell half-wit Cletus this the next time I see him. He doesn't really say much. I instruct every employee to break down boxes if you use the last of the product within. Super easy to store from pickup day to the next.

The days roll on and I notice not all of the boxes are getting disassembled. I run this by my mentor (yup) and he says he's the one not breaking them down because he'll just do it all when he does the recycling. Um, hello there tard? I told you just a couple of days ago that the city will now do pick up. He states again that he'll just make sure it gets done and acts like it's a huge chore. No way Jose. You bitched up a storm of how poor little you had to waste your immensely important time on Fridays because of this unbelievable burden. I fixed your dilemma by freeing up your precious time and now you still feel like you must do it? Something is not right here, like most things with him, as always. I let him know the arrangement and that pickup is by 11am on Wednesdays. Boom! Way easier than lugging all that crap over by yourself! Now you have 2 extra hours to do whatever you do in your meantime.

Wednesday rolls around and I'm finishing up bookwork for the day. I go on to do my daily duties of going to the bakery, bank, post office, etc. I come back to the restaurant and start my prep for the night's service. No Cletus per usual, but that's great because I don't have to be around his grumpy, poor me attitude. I have the kitchen all to myself. After a bit I notice it's coming up on 11am. This dumb piece of trash couldn't even haul his drugged out, drunk ass in to do the recycling. I just do it myself and place it all out nice and neatly by the road. What a waste of life. I saved you 2 hours on Friday but you can't even bring your dwindling bones in to do one damn thing.

I finish up my prep and make myself food to go. I do allow myself an hour or two per day to eat at home and relax a bit. Cletus finally arrives. I tell him, "I got all of the recycling outside, don't worry." His reply was precious. "I never asked you to do that. I really liked doing the recycling because that's when I took a break." Sweet Jesus, this egghead was just pissing and moaning about his horrible duty of recycling and how long it took every week. I fixed it for him and now he's more upset. I said, "Oh, my bad. You were just complaining how awful it was and how it took hours to do every Friday. I must have misunderstood your bitching." He has yet again, no reply. And that's when you took your break?! You are a crafty one sir! Make it seem like a huge chore when it's actually your relaxation and time off while you stay clocked in! Fuckin' brilliant!

Here's the other thing. Fridays were his longest day because I made him do inventory. It took 3 fucking months of being open before he started! Once he finally did, he was so mad because it took him 3 hours! OMG! 3 whole hours!? And that is every Friday?! The horror!!! You mongoloid twit!

The thing is that you do inventory after the kitchen and bar are closed and right before deliveries. We received our food truck on Friday morning around 4am. So, logical thought would be do food inventory after the restaurant closed Thursday night. Right? Nope! Not in Cletus' world. He insisted on coming in that next morning between 9am and 10am, then walking around all of the newly dropped off product to do his count. WTF? So he'd be climbing over boxes in the walk-in freezer and cooler to do it, rather than easily and unobstructed the night prior. Then he'd blubber about how long it took to rotate the food and OMFG SHUTUP!!!

Then he had to do liquor inventory!!! Waaaaa!!! After maybe a month, he couldn't handle it anymore. He asked that since I did all of the liquor orders, if I could just do that inventory. Fuck you! I do the liquor orders because you're either not here when the salesmen show up or we run out of something! How do you run out of Vodka or Whiskey? It's impossible! The booze will keep for a year at least and you get better deals ordering more cases. When the orders are once every 2 weeks, umm....You see my point? He would be ordering single bottles!!! Yeah, anyways.

So yeah, I HAVE to take over the liquor inventory if it's going to get done. I come in on Fridays around 8am to allow myself an hour to do it, which leaves him 2 hours to do food. Fuck that, how in the world can our food inventory take that long I wonder? But now he gets an extra hour and I lose one. Common occurrence here. Nope, he now comes in an hour later each Friday...so now...ugh.

So now after I do my share of inventory and am done with the bookkeeping and running around, I can only start prep for the night's service if I make note of everything I use. We're counting last week's food inventory, though this week's  truck is still sitting stacked in the freezer and cooler, and those products are things I need for today's prep. Fuck! Now I have to make a list of the products from this week's delivery that I use to get my items ready. All because this dummy can't wake the fuck up and come to work!!! Where he is an Owner!!! He was a sharing partner in the business though just couldn't ever seem to come to work when  it was necessary?!

I would have had no problem firing him the first month and progressing myself. I also would have had he been an employee. No work ethic what-so-ever, and no sign of true intellect. He brought absolutely nothing but minimalistic non-factors to the place. But nope, I couldn't. Everyone reading this has no idea the kind of garbage he was/still is. I could have grown that business exponentially had he not been around. I even refused to further create specials that brought customers from up to 50 miles away because of absolutely no reciprocation on his part. Bottom feeder and coat tail rider extraordinaire.

Too much for me tonight. Reliving this is not therapeutic, it's psychotic. And then there's Big Bertha after the fact. In another day in the life of a line cook.

Head Chef Cletus.

One of my most pleasant memories of Stanknasty Cletus was on a weekend when he actually had to do some baking at the restaurant. Big Bertha always made really good desserts for the place. Wow, who would have thought a morbidly obese woman with the body of a mushy potato like sweet treats? On a side note, I watched this Netflix special of a comedian named Tom Sequra. This dude was absolutely hilarious! One of his jokes had to do with a Starbucks worker who was trying to sell him a special coffee. He said something like, "Well, you're really fat, so you know when shit tastes good, I will have that." Spot on. Bertha knew when something was delicious so that was her specialty. That was one good aspect to her being around from time to time, other than attracting the flies.

Big Mama Bertha wasn't going to be in town to bake desserts so she left Cletus in charge. That was one thing I refused to do. It was the least of my worries, and frankly, I don't like or trust myself to dedicate time to pastries and whatnot. Anyways, she told Cletus to make a few different flavors of cheesecake. No problemo for an aspiring 4 star culinary expert. (yup, sarcasm again)

I remember him taking most of the early afternoon donating every single bit of time to those masterpieces. He made 4 in total, each of different variety. He threw them in the oven and off he went to another prep item for that night, but first, he stepped outside for a quick breath of fresh air. I know right? He must have been exhausted! When he steps out, that means he takes off in his car for 15 minutes to drive around and get high, now you know.

So he comes back in and starts to prepare pizza crusts. This is another thing I do not agree with. I don't feel pizzas should be on the regular restaurant menu. The reason I am a firm believer in this is because you can feed 4 people with a pizza under $20. Well, that doesn't work very well in a smaller restaurant because the cost of our meager pizza products outweigh the benefit we receive from payment. Just going to throw this out there as a rough and simple example. Our cost for pizza ingredients is $5. We get under $20 and it feeds 4 people. That means everyone ate for under $5 each. Um, no, that's not good.

I'd much rather have those 4 people order single items that amount to a lot more, even if it's only an $8 burger and fries. You see the math? Well, most of the time a single item is going to be more than $8, so there you go. Pizzas are great and work well when that's what you specialize in and can reduce your costs by a significant margin. I would be fine if they were only served after the kitchen closed in the bar, but I digress. One night Cletus even said, "Wow, $250 in pizza sales! It's nice to have that extra revenue!" It's not extra by any means, just the opposite you turd sandwich. We likely lost revenue because of you glorious pizzas.

Ok then. Back to the topic of this post. The cheesecakes are baking quite well I presume as he walks back in the kitchen door from his "bake break", and he's onward to those beautiful crusts. I see him messing around with the ovens out of my peripheral vision and think nothing of it. He's probably just checking those amazing desserts. About 15 minutes go by and he is done shaping pizza crusts. He walks over to the ovens and opens the first. A significant amount of smoke escapes when the door opens. He exclaims, "Fuck!" , and starts pulling out cheesecake with beautiful black tops on them all. I ask if something went wacky with the ovens, like before with the vaporizer thingy, and he doesn't say anything to me, just keeps swearing over his scorched masterpieces.

Finally he says, "The ovens were too high." I tell him that I haven't touched anything. He says, "Nah, I turned them up to bake the pizza crusts." AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Here's the breakdown. He put cheesecake in at 375 degrees to bake for 45 minutes. He then went and got high. He came back and obviously forgot he had cheesecake in the oven a mere 15 minutes after he put them in. He adjusted the ovens to 475 degrees to heat them up for the pizza crusts. He then burnt the shit out of the cheesecakes while he pressed and tossed the crusts. Amazing! All the cheesecakes went straight into the garbage, but hey, at least we can serve some super cheap pizza! It costs us roughly $4 to make that dessert and we could get 8 slices out of each with a tag of $4 on each slice. But hey, he didn't fuck up the our biggest money maker, the pizza! And I won't even get into this, but he burnt at least 30% of the crusts he made over the time I was there because he'd forget to set a timer or be out of the kitchen when the timers went off.

Of course it made me mad, so much unnecessary waste. The best part of his incompetence is when he'd gripe about me putting too much sauce on some wings or something equally stupid. All I had to do was point to a garbage with burnt pizza crusts in it and say, "1 ounce of this sauce costs us pennies. Those black pizza crusts cost us $2 each." You'd think after a year of that he'd get the picture, but nope! He always had something dumb spurting from his caved in face. Every incident I can recall will be discussed eventually, though this is enough for tonight.

See you all again...in another day in the life of a line cook.

Cletus: Part Deux.

One of my biggest pet peeves with Cletus was he would never run anything business-wise across to me before he made a decision. I honestly believe it was because he wasn't intelligent enough to even consider the necessity. It can cause unneeded conflicts and besides, it's just what you do with a with a business partner with equal shares in the company.

Case in point; we were open less than a month when Cletus lets me know that we have a big catering party coming up in a few days. Um, what? He goes on to say that he agreed to do it over a week ago and forgot about it until the gentleman just called him moments earlier with the final guest count that would be attending. It would consist of prime rib, potatoes, vegetable, bread,  and dessert, not including the beverages of liquor, wine, beer, sodas, coffee, and tea. Oh yeah, and the now verified guest count was 100. The gentleman was hosting an event for customers and had heard how awesome the prime rib during our premiere nights was. (a story for another time, perhaps) It was also outside of the restaurant in the city's event center. You stupid mother fucker!

It's not that I didn't want to do it, but it would be nearly impossible without the proper staff and preparation time. We still had never set foot in the event center as of yet and didn't even know what that kitchen looked like. But, go ahead and promise someone that it won't be a problem because you are this amazing big shot business man now, you fucking simpleton!

I am kind of laughing when I say to him, "I don't know how we're going to do that!" to which he replies, "I'll call my sister to help out in the restaurant that night while you are over there doing it." Uh, what? "What do you mean while I AM doing it!?" He goes on, "Well, I figure you can take care of that while I stay here and do that night's service. Don't worry, my sister will help out here." Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!!! I spurt out, "Do you have any idea how much goes into catering something like that even for only 100 people! It's a hell of a lot harder than slicing up some meat and calling it a night! And it's not even in-house!" I still remember his retort. "Well, we'll just have to figure it out." I said, "NO! Call him back and tell him you made a huge mistake!" to which he says, "I can't. I already told him we would do it over a week ago!" I said, "No, you said YOU'D do it over a week ago. I never agreed to it! So, have fun doing it, I'll stay here for service by myself. I don't need your sister." Boom! Now we're both pissed. Good! Fuckin' retard.

Before we leave for the evening, he stops me by the back door. He starts explaining why he agreed to it for the good of the business and apologized for forgetting about it. He meant to tell me the next day after he was approached but spaced it because we were working so much and had other things on his mind. Fuck you! I didn't say that but my eyes sure did. He apologized a few more times and basically begged me to do it, saying he was no where capable enough and that he's never even done catering before. Eat a bag of hell, no, I am serious!

What was I supposed to do at that point? Let people think we're idiots when it's only one of us? Fuck, I'll do it. It's going to be tough, but doable. I tell him point blank, "YOU find me a helper. I don't care if it's a server or a relative or bartender or someone I've never met. I need more hands." He guaranteed me that he would take care of it. Mmmhmmm.

Over the next 2 days I make a checklist of supplies and thoroughly view the event center. Most of the equipment is decent for holding, though not actually cooking for this volume. A lot of refrigeration, but one oven, and it was an electric like you would have in your home. Sigh. Guess I'll just use all of our warming equipment and cook everything at the restaurant. Then turf all of it over. So simple this is starting off to be.

Of course the shit I need comes in on truck day, which conveniently happens to fall on the exact day of the party. Well, that just fucking great! Now I can't do much of anything in terms of set up even the night before. Guess I'll just come in extra early tomorrow morning to begin. Thank you God that the truck arrives at 4am!

There I am in at 5am the next day. Where is good ol boy Cletus? And where is the helper I was promised? They're both supposed to be here to assist. Big surprise. I call his phone and of course it goes to voicemail. Well, he'll seen I called at least. I start organizing the non-perishables to take over. Silverware, napkins, plates, bowls, utensils for serving, pots, pans, dry ingredients, condiments, warmers, chaffers, towels, cups, glasses, holy fuck you name it! Guess who also placed everything into his vehicle and lugged it over to the event center? You guessed it correctly! ME! And only me! I get back after several trips and begin to prepare and gather the things that could be held in the refrigeration over there. Salad, dressings, whipped topping, fresh fruit, garnish, sodas, again, you fucking name it! After dropping all of that off I head back to wash 50 pounds of potatoes, season and marinate 100 fucking pounds of rib roasts for as long as possible, because of course, Cletus told them 12oz. cuts, clean vegetables, pick up the bread from the bakery, etc. All of which could have been done the night prior, minus the bread, but fuck no, we didn't receive any of it until 4 fucking am that morning.

I then lastly travel over again to set up tables and miscellaneous items that can be done beforehand. It's now almost 1pm and I'm going back home for a few hours to mentally prepare for what will unfold. As I'm getting into my vehicle, guess who decides to drop in? Yup, Cletus! He's panicking and apologizing furiously. "What do you need from me?! What can I do?!"  "Nothing. I got it all done." , I calmly replied. I just wanted to take a break for what was to come and possibly take a small nap. I didn't want to argue or punch him in the face, well I did, but you know what I mean. Then this twat has the balls to ask me if I had time to do any restaurant prep for that night's service. Fuck man, you're about to receive a crushed skull. I just said, "Yeah, all of my stuff is ready to go." I didn't know if it was or not, but fuck you again. "By the way, where was my helper today?" He says, "Well, I asked Troy, and he doesn't get done with school until after 3pm." You inbred dicknose, you asked one of the 2 high school kids to help, not one of our staff that can actually be here. Not surprised at all. I leave feeling not particularly thrilled. On my drive home I thought that I should call him and tell him to put the rib roasts in the oven at 3:30pm, but why fucking bother, I'll just come back then and do it myself.

I arrive back at 3pm and begin the cooking process of prime rib and baked potatoes. Cletus had 2 of the 3 ovens full of shit!!! You have got to be kidding me, this has to be a dream. I don't even say a word and begin removing everything. He stops me in confusion. I plainly state, "How am I supposed to cook our event food with 1 oven and an alto sham?" He says, "Oh, I thought you were going to cook over there?" I had enough and lost my shit. After berating him briefly, he starts slamming the things I removed from the ovens on the prepping tables. Oh, is poor little baby mad? Has the 2 hours you've been here stressing you out? Here, come cry on my shoulder you fucking pussy. I had it with him and shout, "And where the fuck is Troy? Oh probably still in school. Yeah, let's get someone who can't be here to help!" Cletus doesn't say a word but oh my God is he pissed. Good! Troy hears his name and pokes his head into the kitchen. "I'm here, what would you like me to do?" I politely say hello and tell him to clock in. He says he's been here since a little after 3pm and has been clocked in. I just shake my head. So he's been dicking around for a half an hour or more and getting paid for it. Perfect. Way to manage, Cletus. He didn't even know he was here! I tell him to grab this, this, and this, put it into my vehicle and wait for me. I finish loading the ovens and go to leave. Before I do, I tell Cletus that I ABSOLUTELY NEED him to check the temperatures on every roast at 5:30pm. I want them right around 125 degrees. Of course he snarks, "Medium Rare should be at least 130 degrees." AAAAHHHHH! I spit back, "Wow! Good job! The meat continues cooking after you remove it from the heat, plus I have to hold it over there for who knows how long!" I give him a few claps of my hands to show how impressed I am with his brilliance and blast out the door.

We arrive and began finishing the final setups for serving. They wanted to go in a line cafeteria style which saved my ass because I sure as shit didn't bring any actual servers. We sliced the desserts, made sure everything was cooling and warming correctly, talked with guests as they arrived, etc. I was back at the restaurant around 5:45pm. Cletus is in a spazzing frenzy like the world is coming to an end. His sister smiles and says hello while she's working the fryers. He's got maybe 6 tickets hanging and they aren't big. I ask him how the roasts temped. He says he hasn't had time to check. I'm so done with you, blockhead. He's blabbing about something else and all I'm thinking is, "Yeah, $1000 worth of meat in the ovens, but hey, who has time?" The first 2 I check are just over the mark. Thank God I had time to come back when I did. The others are fine with 1 being underdone, but I can finish it over there if I need to. Troy and I load everything up and get ready for the final push. As I'm leaving I notice thick smoke barreling out of one of the microwaves. I yell out, "Microwave on fire!" He makes no attempt to rectify the situation and instead is flipping burgers and steaks like a madman. Shit, the broiler isn't even half full there Iron Chef Cletus.

So I have to walk over and open the microwave. He's got a rack of ribs in it with the timer set for 30 minutes. First of all, why the fuck are you microwaving ribs? Secondly, no wait, why in the world are you microwaving ribs? And why for 30 minutes? I don't care. There is no actual fire so I am leaving.

Since this is getting long-winded, I'll try to wrap it up a bit easier. The event went over really well. There were a few hiccups along the way, but I pulled through satisfied. All of the guests enjoyed the meal and one even came back and gave me a $50 tip. I tried to refuse but he insisted. It was a great opportunity to meet people of and around the town. Could have been planned better, but yes, a silver lining. Troy ended up being fairly useless as he had to leave by 8pm for homework, but we were finished up serving by then. He tried to help me plate but was just slowing us down. He did hammer out most of the desserts by himself though, so that was a plus. I was glad to have his help even if it was meager.

The total commitment was over at 9pm so when the clock hit that beautiful digit, I began packing things up to take back to the restaurant. People lingered to drink and converse. No biggie as the host gets charged the difference of brought booze to what was left.

I get back at around 9:30pm and begin unloading. I happen to meet Cletus at the door. I put the first load down and he says, "You know, I'm really sorry we had that argument. I know you did a lot of work and thank you." I reciprocated mostly the same. I don't like fighting, but my God, how far can one get pushed before it's inevitable? We shake hands. He then asks me, "Well, I was on my way home. Did you need any help?" OMFG....of course I did. I just said no and that we both could finish up over there in the morning. Yeah right, morning and Cletus don't mix. Hell, seems up to this point work and Cletus don't mix, or common sense, or personal hygiene, or anything for that matter. He actually beats me to the restaurant in the morning! We finish up and I begin to make out a bill for the catering and also do sales for that evening for the restaurant and bar. Hmmm, I made the business over 3 times what he did that evening, though we sure split the profits just the same. Disgusting. This was just the first of many incidents where Cletus made equal money to me with half the work and effort.

Until next time...in another day in the life of a line cook.

Big Daddy Cletus.

I thought these tidbits were fairly comical, so here we go!

I think from hence forth I shall refer to my ex-business partner as simply Cletus and his very significant other as Bertha. Those names would fit their all around being rather well compared to their birth names.

This is the very first circumstance that really made me ponder what kind of an idiot Cletus truly was. We had been open for going on 1 month and I happen to notice a familiar remark on our comment cards. We sold a ton of burgers and that's where the criticism was allocated. Now I will say this, Cletus did come up with that recipe, well, rather took it from one of his old jobs where the actual chef created it. So, I guess he borrowed it, but it was good, however I always thought too seasoned. Well the complaints were just that, the burgers were too salty. Big surprise. From what I gathered, he just fucked up on the recipe and was adding too much shit since his brain was fried. Anyway, I brought this to his attention. After Cletus deliberated on this complex problem with apparently no easy solution (sarcasm there, just in case) he decided on the proper fix. The days passed on and I figured he adjusted the recipe.

A few days later, I notice were almost out of butter. I let him know because he just may miss it on order day and I generally have a habit of either writing things down or telling him that we are out or low. I honestly thought I was going to have to take that over too as we always ran out of shit. How the hell do you run out of fries? I mean really? He always overlooked things like that or flat out forgot. I digress. He confidently tells me that it will be in the next day on the truck. Coolio! Because I'm going to need a lot of it to do my prepping. I use it in basically everything from croutons to the Alfredo sauce. The next day I go to find a case of unsalted butter. WTF? Why is it unsalted? That dumb shit can't even order butter correctly. I go let him know.

Cletus claimed he solved our salty complaint problem. Jesus, really you brain dead fool? I told him, "The problem was the burger mix had too much salt in it. Where in the whole construction of a burger do we use actual butter?" He had no immediate reply. I prodded, "Well?" He said, "You told me that customers were complaining the food was too salty!" I replied, "I specifically said it was the burgers, so you could adjust your seasonings! If anything else is too salty it's certainly not because of butter!" He had no further comment. He couldn't even be bothered to read comment cards. Too many drugs and drinking to do and then sleeping in to recover the next day. Ahhh! Onward. The very next day I took over the duties of mixing and forming the burgers. Guess what I did? OMG you'll never guess! That's right, I cut the seasonings in half. I was up all damn night worrying and sweating over how in the world to make hamburger less salty (yup sarcasm again, just making sure). Thank God that shot in the dark worked! I never told him and we never had another salty burger complaint again.

The point is not about the unsalted butter. I used it up with no problem. It's the fact that anyone with a little bit of competence should not think that way. If the complaints had been that all the food was too salty, even then it wouldn't mean it was because of salted butter. It would be that we were using too much fucking salt in and on items!  I mean I wonder if his gas light comes on in his vehicle and he immediately stops to put air in the tire and then is confused why he ran out of gas. The conversation should have been, "Hey, we're getting some complaints on salty burgers." "Okay, no problem." That's fucking it! Nothing more ever needs to be talked about in that situation ever. In a world of normal people, they would just cut back on the seasonings added to the burger mix. The end. Everything no matter how small was like pulling teeth with him; ah shit, I can't even use that idiom.

The next brief tale has to do with a weekend where we figured we'd give out free hors d'oeuvres for our loyal patrons in the bar. We had a lot that came in during football season to watch and I wanted to at least give something back for their support. I don't even remember what we prepared but that's not the point of this excerpt.

We had some nice chaffers we purchased so I decided to use one for ease because they don't use electricity so we wouldn't have to place it anywhere specific. For anyone who doesn't know what a chaffer is, it's usually just a stainless steel container with a lid. There is a pan underneath you fill with water which then holds another single or compartmentalized pans that have the food in them. You place a little sterno (like a candle) under the pan filled with water for heat and it keeps the food in the top pans warm. Easy concept, for most. Well not for good ol' Cletus. Apparently the notion is more complex than salted butter vs. unsalted butter.

I had set up the chaffer and filled the pan with water and fired up the sternos. I placed 2 half covers on top because we were doing 2 different goodies, therefore we'd use 2 half pans, plus so the water heat wouldn't escape. So simple! He's in charge of making them since both were deep-fried, and that's in his section. I tell him the fire is going and there is water in the pan. I see him take the finished food and head to the bar. I follow with some small plates and napkins, etc. We get there and it's packed. He heads over to the chaffer and I follow. I notice he has the free morsels in two separate steel bowls. Ah fuck, the idiot was supposed to place the food in the half pans and then just plop said pans in the water bath. Before I can stop him, he yells out at the top of his voice, "FREE MUNCHIES!!!", and then lifts one cover and dumps the hors d'oeuvres straight into the water! He looks at me in horror when he realizes what he's done. I fuckin' burst out laughing uncontrollably and so do all the people around me. He storms out of the bar mad and embarrassed. I grab the soup concoction he has now created and head back to the kitchen gasping for breath as I try to explain to patrons what has just happened on my way out.

I get back to the kitchen and he is livid, and I am still trying to recover from that epic disaster. I have tears streaming down my face. He starts slamming the fryer baskets with the redo of goodies and tries to blame me for his stupidity. All I said was, "Hmm, if I had seen water, I sure as hell wouldn't have dumped the food in it." I then said, "You know damn well, had it been me that did that (never happen, I'm not a mongoloid) you'd be laughing your ass off too." He knew I was right and it lightened his mood. He then begged me to take the food in the second time around as he was too ashamed. I told him to just go and have a good laugh on yourself, everyone thought it was funny and it's the best way to regain your composure. Show people you have a sense of humor. He did and when he came back he was laughing and all was well. The point; oh my God he is so dumb.

I'll post one more then save the rest for another time. This one pertains to equipment failure and who's responsible for such.

Just another weekend evening and things are going normal. We're almost full and rotating table quite well. Nothing overwhelming but a real steady pace. About half way through service, I happen to notice my steaks seem to be taking longer than normal to cook. When I flip one, the broiler isn't marking them very well. I immediately check the flames. They are flickering and dancing around, almost spitting. I inform super intelligent Cletus and tell him to check the fryers and oven burners. You see, everything runs on gas. He exclaims that both fryers and the chicken broaster are out and I can visibly see the burners are acting just like the broiler flames. After about 1 minute, everything goes kaput. I run to the circuit breakers to see because there is an electrical failsafe. If something goes wrong with the tank outside, it will cause a trip in the circuit and cut the gas. Something to do with a regulator or vaporizer, I don't really know, but I was told to always check that first.

All of the circuit breakers are fine so I call the landlord. He tells me to check the breakers, yadda yadda, and gets the heating and refrigeration guys on the way. I go back to the kitchen and inform the staff to relay the message to our customers. Cletus is missing. About 5 minutes later he resurfaces in the kitchen. He is laughing. Yeah, this is real fucking funny dumb ass. He said he went outside to check the fuel gauge on the tank but it was too dark outside. He used his lighter to get a better view of said indicator. Not bad thinking as we may have run out of fuel as he's the one in charge of making sure we are scheduled for fills. But, and I'm just going to pause here for a second so you all can really absorb what I just wrote.......

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........he checked the gauge of a 1000 gallon liquid fuel tank with a LIGHTER!!! My brain almost exploded in disbelief. There is just no way. He was laughing because there was a gentleman outside when he did this and the guy said, "Well, at least you know there isn't a fuel leak." He could have killed people. Who care about him because Darwinism and whatnot, but other innocent people. I mean, I'm still to this day mesmerized at his, dare I even say, lapse in judgment.

The mechanics come and fix it just before closing time and we call it a night. I call the landlord and tell him I would like to discuss this in the next board meeting. There is a board that oversees the building, we just rent the space and a majority of the equipment. So, in my eyes, this needs to be addressed because we potentially lost thousands of dollars due to equipment failure. I just wanted to get my point across and required no compensation as they did their due diligence and fixed it as soon as possible. Cletus was just the opposite. He thought they should reimburse us thousands of dollars of lost business. Here we fucking go again. I explained to him that if it had been a reoccurring thing, then yes, I would agree. However this was not. As we were cleaning up I was still trying to make him understand it wouldn't happen and we don't want to sour our relationship with the board. There was no negligence that I could see, it was just an unfortunate circumstance of a part malfunction. I made the mistake of working the phrase "Act of God" into the conversation. Everyone knows that's when it's out of everyone's hands; like a tornado, power outage due to an electrical strike, flood, etc. I wish I wouldn't have been that thorough and I was actually dumb enough to assume he knew what it meant.

The next meeting we go in and he still believes we should be compensated. Fine, he can argue with the members all he wants but I will not support his claims and remain silent on the accusatory part. The president of the board already told us that the vaporizer couldn't keep up with all the fuel the equipment was drawing, and that they were putting on a larger capacity vaporizer that week. They reassured us that they had the pressure tested and all should be well from there on out. Excellent! Perfect response to the dilemma. I was happy with the response and no need to even bring it up in our meeting now. Nope, not for Cletus. He tried to flex his muscle, I guess. Maybe he just wanted to feel important, I don't know but he most certainly does not have my support if I'm asked.

He starts his amazing speech by saying, "As you know we had to shut down the restaurant and couldn't serve any food on Saturday night after 7pm. Here is a report showing our last 3 months of sales during those hours." and he looks at me. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! He had originally asked me if that was possible and of course I said yes. We can see exactly what we sold down to the second on any given day. And of course we could do a total sales report by the hour for the last 3 months and average it. I could do it, he couldn't. All I replied with was, "Why would I have it?" Fuck, he was once again pissed and embarrassed. Good, you retard. He goes on to say something like having to close down for things like that took away food from his kids, yadda yadda. Cry me a river. He then goes on to state, "That even though this was an Act of God, he still thought the board was liable." Ugh, I slink down in my seat and just look at the floor. Now I'm embarrassed beyond belief that I even know this guy, let alone am in business with him. It wasn't an Act of God, tardpants, it was a mechanical malfunction. Now hopefully they all know how big of a dimwit he is.

Now their lawyer, who happens to be on video chat, goes on the defensive. The attorney plainly states that the pressure was checked before hand and the vaporizer was deemed faulty. We would only be able to get compensation from the manufacturer. I still was looking down just utterly mortified at his total ignorance. Cletus had no ammo and got served hard so he finally shut the fuck up. The lawyer said to me, because I honestly believe he knew I had no part in it at this point, "I can draft a letter and send it the manufacturer on your company's behalf if you'd like." I retorted, "That will not be necessary, but thank you. We'll just chalk it up as one of those unfortunate things." That point was done and on with the meeting.

After the meeting was over I went back on my way. Cletus stops me and wants to know why I didn't have the reports ready. I told him he never asked for any, only wanted to know if it was possible. I figured he would do it. He then states, and I knew this the whole time, that he doesn't know how to work the point of sale system. HAHAHAHAHAHA! Why would you, you're a co-owner. (yup sarcasm)

Still the tip of the iceberg I tell you! I'll save the rest for another time. Until then, in another day in the life of a line cook.

The sun rises again.

Well I figured I'd try to hammer out another story dealing with my drugged out business partner and his beast of a drama queen wife. Let's see if I can return to some kind or regularity once again. First, I felt I had to edit my last rage posts to try to keep some anonymity.

Let me get this out of the way first.

This guy looks basically like this internet sensation, except 20 years older.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Toz4YGyV2II

I am being completely honest, no bullshit what-so-ever. He's like 6'2" and 150 lbs, and again, toothless. Even the way he moves around is a spitting image of that "rapper". When I first witnessed that video clip on Tosh.0, I was like, "OMG, that is so him!" I remember when my buddies came to visit on a holiday and they were both laughing when they seen him. One even remarked about how much he looked like a coke addict. Pretty damn close good sir! I would try to give you an image of the Mrs. , but will save everyone from that disgust.

So anyways, his pork chop of a wife is down visiting one weekend. She helps out in the front from time to time when she comes. We are cooking just like any other typical night when she comes over to the window pass. There is one waitress, let's call her Clarissa, who was joking around with crack head. Nothing out of the ordinary as we always tried to keep the mood light and often joked around with employees. Methy is totally head over heels for her. He even told me that he would cheat on his wife with her if he had the opportunity. Wow, standup fella. First you tell me how much you love being away from your kids and how it's a "vacation" and now you boldly state your wishes of infidelity.

Anyways, Heifer Mama sees this and fucking freaks out! Like totally loses her shit. When the waitress walks away, her demon eyes narrow and this grotesque scowl takes over her pudgy face. She points her sausage finger at her husband and says, "What the fuck was that!" He's standing there with a look of surprise on his face, as was I. No big deal there my little pork tenderloin.

Now this waitress is a solid 8 - 9 on the beauty scale, so I can see why a hog beast would feel insecure, but Christ, she doesn't need to cause a scene amongst employees over her shortcomings. How unprofessional can one be. After ripping into him a bit she turns her focus to me. ME! She spouts off on how I should be more perceptive of things happening like this. Um, what?! She then calls me a "fucking idiot" because I can't see that something is going on. I am speechless and in total disbelief. I let it sit for a few minutes and then tell druggy supreme that if she doesn't calm down and apologize, I am booting her ass out, period. She has nothing to do with the business and no power at all. I however do and am not taking this absurd abuse from Mrs. Boombalatty.

She is out front, from what I gather, accosting the poor waitress. I roll up post haste and say, "We are going to do this once, and one time only, and then it's done. Clarissa, are you messing around with <insert derogatory name here> ?", to which she quickly replies "Um, NOOOOOOO!!!" She even had this big smirk of disbelief on her face like she couldn't believe someone thought she would troll the trough like that. Damn girl, a simple no would have sufficed, but I like the demoralizing gesture as well.

Drama Mama rolls back into the kitchen where stinky lets her know what I said. Her anger immediately turns into big ol puppy dog tears. Jesus Christ on a cracker, is this chick bipolar too? She opens her greasy, saggy arms and grabs me in a hug. WTF lady?! She starts to blubber how she's so sorry and overreacted. Well, no shit piglet. I, of course, say that's fine and let's just put it behind us. If she only knew how her hubby acted when she wasn't around. But that is entirely not my place to intervene.

Well, that was a quick and dirty one to get things rolling once again. Nothing too exciting I know, but at least I put something down for a change. It's just the tip of the iceberg  with how much total bullshit I had to deal with from this family the whole damn time I was there. Maybe next posting I will try to delve deep into how this business partner was truly like after having to live with him for 2 months and work (well, I worked while he slept in most days) together every day. Not necessarily a horrible human being, just complete garbage when and where it counted while opening and managing a restaurant and bar, like in every aspect.

With that, I will see you again...on another day in the life of a line cook.

Finally.

I finally found a new home. I purchased the building, property, and equipment in an established restaurant/bar. It took forever, I know. It is in a major city, though the financials look promising.

All righty. I'll be posting many updates as time goes on.

First, and foremost, I'd like to give a shout-out to Cletus and Bertha for making this possible for me. Without your constant drug abuse, drinking, drama, and well established hatred for one another, I would have never left that cesspool you two have managed to bring it down to. You are very welcome for the success you have because of my menu, management skills, superior work ethic, bookkeeping, and all around business smarts.

Cletus lacks teeth from the age of 25, hmm, wonder why, and Bertha lacks any self control from a Twinkie, even though they are now done. RIP Twinkie! I used to know you well as a child, and now Bertha will have to realize that you're not supposed to be her ass. Damn, that bitch is so fat. I'm not talking fat as most people would know that adjective, but like morbidly fat. She had D boobies and her gut sticks out WAY more than that. Plus, she tries to wear jeans. Why? Do you really think your tank ass looks good in them? Just wear a moo-moo you fat pig.

Cletus, lol, umm, the first party we did was for broasted chicken. Seems easy, no? You put the chicken in the broaster and let it cook. When it comes out, you temp it. It came out and he served it. 4 pieces came back raw!!! Then this toothless methhead tried to blame it on me because I had changed the broaster grease earlier in the day because he was too busy sleeping in from a hangover and smoking his sweet meth/pot mix. He said I filled it too full with oil and that's what caused raw chicken. Fuckin' Epstein! That was my first clue that he was borderline retarded. He's 6 foot 2 inches and 150 lbs., has no teeth, and hates his wife and kids. Shame on me for being optimistic.

Anyways. Until the next time in the life of a line cook.