My conflicts with the food service department

10:14 AM 6/11/10

(I've had a drug residue exposure this morning, and so my emotions are more intense than usual).

There are a lot of things that I noticed when I came in in the evenings that bothered me. And there are things that bother me about that department in general. I have noticed these things since I first started working there. Since I have worked at many other restaurants and in fast food, gas stations, and other grocery stores, I have an idea of how it CAN be, how it can be different than it is.

Some of the things bothering me are differences between what I was taught and what they're doing now. Those are 'rule' differences. Rules are arbitrary, and if somebody says it's a rule, and that's why we're doing it that way, there's no argument against that. They can make whatever rules they want. Most of the rules aren't even written down - they're just given verbally by a manager. Not only that, but they change frequently. So if I disagree about what the rule is, I will probably lose.

But some other disagreements I have are 'the spirit of the law' disagreements. Weis - Where Freshness Matters! That kind of thing. You broke the Freshness Matters spirit.

When I make a pizza, I follow the piece of paper hanging beside the pizza station that says how much to put of all the toppings, but I have a few exceptions, and they are my own rules, and they're not written down. I make an exception with mushrooms, because in the beginning, we used fresh mushrooms taken off the shelf from produce, but then, we switched to using canned mushrooms, which are cooked and watery, and so their weight and volume is drastically different. When I used canned mushrooms, I use more than what the paper says to use. I don't feel like I can talk to anybody about this rule. It's just a personal opinion.

However, it offends me when someone else makes a pizza, and they use what I describe as a 'dainty little sprinkle' of mushrooms that you can barely even see, much less feel or taste when you eat the pizza. I don't think she even weighed them according to the list on the wall. I looked at yesterday's pizza, and I thought it was a cheese pizza, because it looked like there was nothing on it. But I looked closer, and there were a few mushrooms - I could probably count them on one hand - buried under the cheese, and the mushroom crumbs were so small that I could hardly even tell what kind of food they were - just some grayish-brown objects that had to be mushrooms because we didn't have many other things to choose from. They weren't even mushroom-shaped crumbs. They were tiny fragments about half an inch across. I mean, seriously.

Not only that, but I was told - and this is a 'rule' - that when we make a pepperoni pizza for the case, we are supposed to put on six pieces of pepperoni per slice of pizza. But yesterday's pizza had three pieces on each slice. I saw that, and I was about to sell a slice to a customer, so I added three more slices - and the lady who made the pizza was standing there watching me while I did this, and I had to take a deep, deep breath to de-stress myself, because I was angry - and she said, 'Oh, that one was a mushroom pizza - I thought you were looking at it trying to figure out what kind it was...' (Yes, you're right, it's hard to tell that it's a mushroom pizza. But no, I was looking at the three pepperoni pieces and deciding what to do about it, and how to be tactful while you're standing here watching me.) 'Oh - I only put three slices of pepperoni on those because they also had sausage on them.' (Implied rule: If you're using more than one topping, use less of each topping. I don't follow that rule, but she does.) I just quietly added three more pieces of pepperoni to the pizza before I gave it to the customer.

My rule: You use the same amount of each topping, even if you have many different toppings on the pizza. If there are six pieces of pepperoni per slice when it's ONLY pepperoni, then there are also six pieces of pepperoni on it when you also have sausage, peppers, mushrooms, and anything else, no matter how many toppings you have. That is my rule. That rule could be broken, if it were made into an official, quantified rule that says you read this piece of paper and use the following quantities under the following conditions. For instance, if a piece of paper said that I reduce it to three pieces of pepperoni IF we have two toppings, and reduce it to two pieces of pepperoni if we have three toppings, and so on - if it were quantified and written on a paper, I would follow that rule.

When we charge them for the extra toppings, we don't charge them on a graded scale. It's a dollar per extra topping (on a whole pizza) up to three toppings. Up to three toppings, each extra topping is a dollar. I think that, therefore, you should use the same amount you always use, up to three toppings. Beyond that, it might make sense to reduce the amount of stuff per topping, because our label-printing machine doesn't even go higher than three toppings. 'Supreme' is the highest number of toppings - three or more - up to infinity. You could get seventeen toppings for the same price as three toppings. Go ahead - call them and ask for it. (Don't do it while I'm there.) Technically, I was told that 'Supreme' is a six-topping pizza that has pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, peppers, onions, and olives. But the label-printer doesn't say that, and so you could use it for more than six toppings, and it wouldn't have to be those particular topping. If you try that, then yes, it might make sense to reduce the amount of stuff per topping. But this lady was reducing it when we were still in the 1-3 topping range. I know it's hard to explain, but to sum it all up, it means you're being gypped. (On the other hand, you could argue that the free market is always right, and if customers are willing to buy it that way, then it's fine. As a libertarian, I can see that argument. But I want to be proud of what I sell. I want them to have clear principles and clear rules. I want to know how much stuff we put on, and how we charge for it. But it's vague.)

Okay, so there was that. Next there's the buffalo chicken wraps. I have complained about this before. The worst one I ever had was when Christina still worked in food service. I'm almost certain she's the one who made it, because I watched her making them later on, and she made them look like the one I had. Christina isn't working there anymore. She went to floral, and I sincerely hope she's happier there, and I wish her the best. But, I never buy the buffalo chicken wraps when anyone else makes them, because of her.

Here is the wrap that I had. There was a small amount of dried-up, tough, old chicken in it. (They take the fried chicken that sits in the yellow bags in the hot case, after it's been sitting there for a few hours drying out, and they use that when they make the wraps, because it 'saves money' when we don't throw that stuff away. That's the official way of doing things around here.) The chicken was so dry I could barely chew it. It's supposed to have buffalo sauce on it, but again, it was what I describe as a 'dainty little sprinkle.' You could see a few tiny spots of orange color in a couple places on the chicken, but most of it was dry, plain chicken with no sauce. Next, there is supposed to be romaine lettuce with bleu cheese dressing. They ALWAYS get the wrong dressing, instead of the one that the book says to buy, so they're substituting an inferior product for a nice product. They buy the el cheapo dressings instead of the good one, and so, it might have a bleu-cheese-flavored goo, without any real chunks of bleu cheese in it. The good stuff is thick, with lots of chunks of real cheese. My wrap had a tiny amount of flavored goo without any chunks of real bleu cheese, and not only that, but it was the, you guessed it, dainty little sprinkle again, just a dab here and there, with mostly dry lettuce. And there was hardly any lettuce. I mean, everything that you could possibly do wrong, they had done wrong.

We actually have a book, with written instructions, that says you are supposed to use a tablespoon of this, and a tablespoon-and-a-half of that, and it's supposed to be this particular brand of dressing, this particular type of cheese, this particular type of lettuce. I follow that book.

Not only that, when I make them, I cook the chicken fresh instead of using the dry old ones out of the case.

Yesterday I made buffalo chicken wraps in the presence of a co-worker. I usually do them alone, because I worked in the evenings. Actually, in reality, what I used to do was, I just refused to make wraps. If making wraps was on my list of things to do, I blew it off. They never knew why. Maybe they just thought I was lazy. But I almost never made wraps if they told me to. It was because I had seen other people making wraps - and they would substitute American Cheese instead of Muenster Cheese, because both types of cheese are square and yellow, so at a quick glance, it LOOKS like the same cheese (that was Christina again). These are the people who loudly brag about how QUICKLY they are able to do the wraps, get them all finished, and get the shelf filled up so it looks nice. These are the people who gripe and complain, make fun of me, call me 'slow,' and treat me like I'm inferior, because when *I* do the wraps, I take a long time to do it, because I will go running all over the store to collect the ingredients that we don't have, I'll go up to the front of the deli and slice the meats and cheeses we're supposed to use, I'll go do a produce department transfer to get the right kind of salad dressing, and so on. (We need a 'kit' of stuff all prepared in advance with all the ingredients ready for the wraps, in one location, but we don't have that. We also need a prep person - a person who does nothing but grocery shop - to collect all the ingredients, in the right amounts, so that we have them, and they're fresh and within the right dates, so that we can just use them when it's time to make wraps.)

This lady who watched me yesterday was so upset she nearly had a stroke. She freaked out when I cooked new chicken instead of using dried-up old chicken. Now, granted: The chicken she pulled out of the hot case wasn't THAT old - it really was only about two hours old, and at that point, it's not too dry. Technically, it wouldn't have been THAT bad. However, on other days, they don't mind and don't notice if they use stuff that's six hours old, or eight hours old, or whatever - stuff that sat there all day. It's not supposed to sit there all day - it's supposed to be taken out every two hours - but if we did that, we would need extra help - more people. It's not possible to refresh all the food every two hours like we're supposed to, and also make sandwiches and stuff for the cold case.

I had to do the deep-breathing thing again. She was telling me we're SUPPOSED to use this stuff, and I used my long-ago assertiveness training (the 'FOGGING' technique) and I said, 'Yes, I understand we're supposed to do it that way.' 'I know that Louis is going to tell me the same thing.' She's going to tattle to Louis about Nicole's insubordination and Louis is going to agree with her, because that's what happened the last time I did something differently, and I don't even remember what it was - oh, I know what it was.

There was a customer and he was obviously from out of town. We get out of town visitors who mistakenly believe that our deli is able to do custom-made sandwiches, because in the city, that's what the deli does. (The in-town people know better, because they shop here all the time.) Not only that, but the store recently put up nice-looking signs above the deli that encourage them to believe that they can come to us and order custom-made sandwiches, like at Subway. In reality, this is a major inconvenience, and we all dread it when it happens. We HATE making custom-made sandwiches for individual customers. Usually, they want some weird kind of meat or cheese that we don't have, and, oops, you can't just substitute American cheese instead of Muenster because it's square and yellow, if someone asks for Muenster. You can tell them 'We don't have Muenster,' which is a lie, because we can go slice it. The truth is, we can do anything you want, if you're willing to wait half an hour for your sandwich. We can go slice anything for you, but we might not be able to reach the slicers, because the other people are using them at the moment, or whatever. But people mistakenly believe that they can order a sandwich and have it ready in less than five minutes while they watch.

So this guy comes up and asks for a Reuben. Nancy and I were there when this happened. I knew right away what he wanted. Nancy, however, decided that the best thing to do was give him a Reuben Pretzel Roll. I knew right away that this was very, very wrong. It makes me feel sick to think of it, and I want to laugh and cry at the same time.

The Reuben Pretzel Rolls are disgusting. I've eaten them. The bread nauseates me. The bread is cold, stiff, yucky-tasting, chewy, and too thick, and nothing like a real Reuben.  I don't know who buys those pretzel rolls, and I suppose SOMEBODY likes them, but that is NOT what an out-of-towner, from New York or somewhere, means when he asks for a Reuben. He wants a Reuben on seeded rye bread, hot, toasted with the cheese melted. And I talked to this guy, and after a word or two I knew this was exactly what he meant. He and I agreed about our mental picture of what the word 'Reuben' means.

Nancy, however, started getting ready to make a Reuben Pretzel Roll for him, because there is a 'rule' in the deli that we make these particular sandwiches, every day, called 'Reuben Pretzel Rolls', and that is on our list of Routine Things To Do. It's possible she's never eaten a REAL Reuben before and doesn't know what they're like. The only Reuben she knew of was that disgusting thing that they make every day for the shelf. I told Nancy: No, it's all right, I'll make this for him. So Nancy went off to do her own thing elsewhere, and I took responsibility for making this guy his sandwich.

I went and got rye bread off the shelf, and decided that if I had to be inconvenienced to make a custom sandwich for someone, I was going to be proud of it. I got the real seeded rye bread, because it has that special flavor that only seeded rye bread has. I used the corned beef and sauerkraut and the thousand island dressing and swiss cheese - all of those things go on our pretzel rolls too, but we just use the wrong kind of bread. Then I asked him if he wanted it toasted, and he did, and I ran it through the oven for him. (That would have been hard for Nancy to do, because the Pretzel Rolls don't get toasted, they just get packaged up and put on the shelf cold.)

And I'm not sure what I charged him for it. When I was hired, the guy who taught me was Dee's brother Matt. Dee is still here, but Matt is gone. Her brother Matt had a sort of, um, bad attitude about the job. (I understand. It's necessary for survival.) He showed me how to make labels for custom-made sandwiches, because even back then, custom-made sandwiches were a pain, and nobody really knew what to do if it happened, and so we sort of made up our own prices for things because the prices in the label machine had nothing to do with the real world if you're making a strange and unusual sandwich that somebody requested. I don't think we even have a label for a Reuben, so I probably based it on one of the existing sandwich labels in there.

The next day, I got hell from everybody about my mistake. I accidentally made a customer believe that he could ask for what he wanted, and get it! (What if the word got out??!) Everyone freaked out because, what are we going to do with the rest of this loaf of rye bread? It's all going to waste! (We should be able to find something to do with it, but the rules won't let us make things that aren't on the list of things we officially make, and nobody would know what to charge for it.) The manager told me that we don't make sandwiches for customers who ask for them anymore. But we have a SIGN up above that makes it look like we do.

My 'yellow hat thinking' says that we CAN do a lot more than we are doing. We could be more ambitious, and we could sell more than we do, and we could be more profitable. We could use this great opportunity of being in a grocery store and having all the ingredients in the world available to us right here. Not only that, but I know bookkeeping, and I know how to be realistic about the expenses and the revenues. I know how to find out if something is profitable or not.

So that was the other time when I stood up against them, broke the rules, and tried to do something that I thought was good, something I could be proud of.

Another thing that's been going on: Nancy and the rotisserie chickens. I have seen something Nancy does which is so bizarre it's unthinkable to me, but on the planet she came from, it's normal.

We're supposed to pull the rotisserie chickens out of the hot case after four hours, because when they sit in there longer, the fat goes rancid from the heat, and they smell like Play-Doh, and taste horrible, and get all shriveled up, and there's all this liquid in the bottom of the container. Now, I'm trying to decide how to tell this story, because there are SEVERAL things Nancy does that drive me crazy, and it's hard to focus on only one thing at a time. First, when she pulls them out of the case (IF she pulls them out... I'll get to that), she likes to let them sit at room temperature on the table. Not just for a few minutes. She will let them sit there ALL AFTERNOON. I would come in at 4:00 in the afternoon, and find that she had pulled chickens out two or three hours ago, and left them sitting on the table at room temperature 'to cool down before putting them in the cooler.'

There IS such a thing as letting food cool before you put it into the refrigerator. I know where she's getting this from. When you are using a small refrigerator, at home, and you have a very big piece of food, like a turkey or something, with tons of heat in it, if you put it directly into the refrigerator it will heat up the refrigerator so much that all of your other food will also get warm in the refrigerator. And the environmentalists will tell you that this wastes electricity, too. So people let food cool off before putting it into the fridge if it's something big enough to heat up everything.

However, we are using A WALK-IN COOLER. This thing is HUGE. NOTHING you could do would make this thing heat up, unless you lit a bonfire in there. When you put in an entire cartload of scalding hot chickens, it doesn't even feel it. In reality, the only thing that causes that cooler to heat up is if people don't push the door shut all the way, and that happens all the time. So there is no reason to cool the chickens off first.

Not only that, but when you leave them sitting ALL AFTERNOON, that's too long. Food sitting at room temperature spoils and grows bacteria. I have a sensitive stomach, and I have observed that if I eat food sitting out too long, it makes me so sick I can barely choke it down, I can barely swallow it without feeling like it's going to come back up. I watched one day, and Nancy didn't even flinch at leaving the chickens on the table for THREE HOURS, until finally, *I* put them into the cooler. She wasn't going to.

So that's the first thing. The second thing is, rule-following Nancy can't be bothered to FOLLOW THE RULE that says we are supposed to use the yellow TIME GUN and make a label saying FOUR HOURS and stick a label on the rotisserie chickens that she puts in the case. She says, it's all right, we can look in the book to see when they came out. But I usually come in in the afternoon, and several different batches of chicken have already been made. How can I know which is which? (By smelling them and seeing which ones smell like rotten Play-Doh and are shriveled up the most?) You can't look in the book to figure out WHICH chickens in the case came out at WHICH time.

A customer recently complained to me about the chickens not being fresh. And it broke my heart because I agreed with her. The chickens are disgusting when you leave them out longer than four hours. But Nancy, and also Louis, can't be bothered to put a label on any of them, and they will leave them out as long as they want to, because they're busy doing other things, making sandwiches for the case and all that, so the case looks full, and 'at first glance' everything LOOKS pretty. If a manager walked by and gave it a quick glance, it would look like everything was full, so everything is okay, and nobody gets in trouble. The sandwich case is full, and the chicken case is also full - yippee! everything's perfect!

The thing is, our chickens really are something to be proud of. We have a special way of cooking that cooks the chickens better than the other places in town. If anybody says this to you, yes, it's actually true. I've seen the way the other stores cook theirs. They use a hanging basket. It's hard to explain why without showing a diagram, but, in those baskets, the chickens don't cook very nicely. We use skewers that poke through the chicken, and it cooks them very well, and they are brown on the outside. Once in a while, we have to use the baskets for something, and I hate using the baskets, because the chickens are cooked very differently in those. Customers - lots of customers - have come up to me and told me that they like the Weis chickens better than the ones from any other grocery stores in town.

So I decided that when I started working my earlier shift at Weis, after my schedule change, the 'chicken shenanigans' would stop. Yesterday I went around with the label gun and I put '2:15' on all the chickens, showing what time they should be removed from the hot case.

I know I'm going to hear about it when I go in again. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I could try talking to Vicky about these things. She's a higher-up person who tells us what to do. She tells us which rules to follow and how to follow them. I don't always agree with her, but it's nice to have one clear rule that we are all supposed to follow. If I am going to be defeated and destroyed by someone, it ought to be Vicky, instead of the low-level people. I'm not sure how to find her, because she doesn't really work there - she just visits once in a while. I would at least respect the judgment call that SHE made, and we would all have something official to go by instead of just these informal rules that aren't written down anywhere.

It made me think about the enneagram five, 'withdrawing to seek power.' That's what I usually do. When I feel powerless, I get away from people and go someplace where I can do it my own way. That's how I ended up on evening shift, a shift nobody else wants, a shift where I can work alone without being supervised and managed. And I fantasized about starting my own business, all these years, except that I've been incapacitated by chronic fatigue and electronic attacks.

Now, I will be in direct conflict with people all day long at both jobs. This is going to give me more stress, and also more opportunities. People are going to complain about my grooming habits - in the evenings and the overnight shift, I'm alone most of the time and nobody notices - and people are going to complain about my breaking the rules to follow some ideal like 'Where Freshness Matters' and 'Where Customers Matter' and that kind of thing.

If you said to me that I think I'm smarter than everybody else, I'd get all flustered and I'd be falling all over myself to apologize and say, 'No! I don't think that! I would never think such a thing!' But the angry part inside me is thinking exactly that. It's really true that I'm thinking I could run this department with my hands tied behind my back, blindfolded, in my sleep, and do it better than it's being done right now. I don't say those things to anybody.

If I'm going to get fired, I should at least get fired for doing something honorable that I'm proud of.

So, let's hope I don't get fired. Wish me luck.