Crap, school's back in session

[bean]

Which means my department - deli/prepared foods - gets absolutely mauled on weekends.

Today was by far the busiest day I've worked in the pizza section outside of superbowl sunday - except now I'm a lot faster at what I do (I'd only been there a month when superbowl hit - I'm on 9 months now).

We're already a little shorthanded, since 3 out of 5 people that normally work in pizza are back to 32 hours a week so they can do school (but keep their F/T benefits). Another coworker who knows how to work pizza was helping me tonight, but he has a second degree burn on his arm (accident with the steamer yesterday - his whole arm is bandaged up thanks to the local hospital), so he can't make any pizza.. just serve it. Normally one of the department managers will cover my break, except... there weren't any scheduled tonight.

I was scheduled 3-11 (close), coworker 1-9 - it finally started dying down around 8:45, and all of the pizzas-by-the-slice were full and ready to go, so I told him I was ducking out for 5 minutes to sneak a quick snack and soda (ate half a ham sandwich and drank 2 store brand colas). I got back and he got ready to leave, but not before telling me "Dude, you kicked ass tonight", which brightened my mood a bit.

About 10 minutes after he left, one of the store managers came up to me and gave me a $10 store gift card - apparently my coworker went up to her and told her how slammed we'd been and that I was able to hold it together (though at times, barely - for a solid hour I didn't have anything but cheese pizzas available for sale by the slice because of all the full pizza orders). We can fit 4 pizzas in our stone oven, 5 if I want to burn the crap out of the bottom of one, and it takes about 10-15 minutes to cook them. It's a full time job just moving the pizzas around in the oven so they cook evenly (it has hot spots, both top and bottom - old fashioned hearth oven). Adding to the fun was the fact that I was roasting green chiles in the oven at the same time on a small sheet pan - we have a huge chile promotion going on and I've been finding ways to use them on pizzas.

Anyway... both a rant about how busy it was and an appreciation for above mentioned coworker. No way in hell could I have done it alone. I'm going to sincerely thank our scheduling guy for scheduling a 1p-9p person on fridays - we used to have 5a-1p, 8a-4p, 11p-7p, and 3p-11p (leaving the closer to deal with the brunt of the dinner rush alone). On fridays he changed 11-7 to 1-9.

[Becks]

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay you (and coworker)!!!!!!!!!

[bean]

Well, I didn't work pizza today - I was working in the back of the house - salad bar, packing up stuff for the meals to go cooler, washing dishes, etc.

Apparently it was almost as busy today. AND the boss forgot to schedule a midshift entirely - just an opener and a closer. When I got in, I was asking the opener why he was still there (he should have left by 1, it was 3). He tried to tear me a new asshole about my close last night.

#1: I didn't cook enough "blanks" (par-baked dough) for the small prepacked pizzas. I told him he didn't leave me enough small doughballs and I ran out of them long before close.

#2: I supposedly threw away all of his prep for the day before. No dumbass, you didn't do enough, once again, and I ran out of half of the toppings by 8pm. The day before, I ran out of almost everything by 4pm and spent the next 2 hours doing the prep he was supposed to do at 5am, leaving the poor midshift guy to fend for himself until I was done (thankfully dinner doesn't get too heavy until about 6:30).

#3: I stacked the cutting boards wrong. I had no real response to that, I didn't know there was a certain way to stack them... and I've been there 9 months.

Anyway, the poor closer got ripped to shreds, even with a manager who started out at pizza trying to help him (said manager is absolutely awesome in pretty much the entire department - said manager's roommate is the one who kicked so much ass for me yesterday). The few times I saw the counter after 5pm, it was pretty much empty and they had an oven full of pizzas for call-in orders. I'm not that mean, but I did have to laugh a little bit. At least having a manager working at the counter himself and seeing how insane it gets on weekends right now means I don't look nearly as bad.

[Becks]

#3: I stacked the cutting boards wrong.

See, that's just petty nitpicking.

You should've asked for a demonstration as to how to properly stack them.

[Pagan]

Awesome co-worker! Sometimes you feel like you're just sucking ass all day and it takes just one little thing like that to make you feel appreciated!

Adding to the fun was the fact that I was roasting green chiles in the oven at the same time on a small sheet pan - we have a huge chile promotion going on and I've been finding ways to use them on pizzas.

What do you mean, finding ways to use them on pizza? You roast them, peel and seed them, chop 'em up, and throw 'em on! BTW, what kind of chile do y'all have?

Of course, right now the whole valley smells like roasting chile....Which is nothing compared to what Hatch, NM smelled like last weekend! Speaking of which, I need to go get some, I'm about to run out! We can't have that! The horror!

[bean]

What do you mean, finding ways to use them on pizza? You roast them, peel and seed them, chop 'em up, and throw 'em on! BTW, what kind of chile do y'all have?

Of course, right now the whole valley smells like roasting chile....Which is nothing compared to what Hatch, NM smelled like last weekend!

You guessed it - Hatch chiles (otherwise known as really badass anaheim chiles). I LOVE good anaheims, and the crop from Hatch that we got this year has been particularly hot. Bean loves hot!!!! (though my anus does not agree).

I grew up less than 2 hours from Hatch (El Paso TX) - and grew up on really spicy food to boot. The cooks at work keep trying to find something that I can't eat, except they don't listen when I tell them I make my own habanero salsa at home, most of them are native Mexicans (a couple are from other parts of Latin America and can't handle hot food). Even today, we were "donated" a bunch of expired ground beef from the meat department (expired as in the sell by date - it was still very usable, though losing its color a bit). Normally we make a bunch of meatballs when that happens, so we can make a profit (at that point, we get the beef for free - it's been written off and basically thrown away by then). We made meatballs, then with the leftovers, about a dozen burgers with swiss and Hatch chiles were made for the kitchen crew. They told me to take my pick, I took the one that had the most chiles, piled more chiles on top, then sliced up some fresh jalapenos as well. Ate the whole thing without a drink of water or breaking a sweat, while half the cooks were guzzling water after half of their own burgers.

My ass is going to hate me in the morning. It was definitely spicy as all hell. But delicious.

Sidenote: When I order spicy chinese food, I always ask for "extra extra hot". So far only one place has delivered on that, the rest take that to mean throw a few extra peppers in it. *sigh* The one that did deliver on the promise of extra hot... my shirt was drenched in sweat by the time I finished that meal. SO GOOD!

Anyway, I'm going to stop rambling. I have about 5 pounds of those chiles in my fridge that are about to go bad unless I roast them ASAP, I'm going to get on that now.