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.......
.........
.........
........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.
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