me again
one of my mates used to work in a large pub on the kingskerswell main road on the right as you come from the torbay ringroad towards the penn-inn roundabout in newton-abbott.

this pub came into a conversation we were having....
mate "i wouldn eat there if i were you lot"
me "why not?"
mate "nothing ever gets cleaned properly, the worktops and grill pans etc are all filthy"
me "ok, and how the hell do you know that, eh?"
mate "cos i never clean them properly"
(klegnut, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 15:33, Reply)

5 second rule
just wondering if anyone else outside of my group of mates has heard of the five second rule?

it applies to cutlery and food.

when dropped, if said item is picked up within 5 seconds it can be used. have done it myself and have seen it done in large establishments hosting functions and things like that.
(klegnut, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 15:26, Reply)

che grimsdale
i always assumed it was because the face of someone at that point of no return looks as if they are drinking vinegar...
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 14:53, Reply)

Lexan of green chicken
When I worked for a chain of Mexican restaurants I happened upon a lexan full of stinking green chicken. So I duly threw them in the bin but the kitchen manager threw a wobbly, ranting about costs and forced me to pull them out of the bin.
Cue ten minutes of me scrubbing them to get rid of most of the green then roasting them and absolutely drowning them in BBQ sauce.

We put them on the all you can eat buffet and lots of customers commented on how nice the chicken was - "it just fell off the bones!
(Bobble, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 14:44, Reply)

turd.
The foreign staff in my local mcd were so bad I once had to climb up on to the counter and take a shit into my own burger.
Several other customers asked for a dollop and I now run my own small restaurant in Tower Hamlets.
If a customer is rude to any member of staff we put mayonnaise in their spunk sauce.

I can do made up stories too.
(waxdart hello., Mon 24 Jul 2006, 13:58, Reply)

The missus
The lovely Mrs. V works in a pub in central London (occasionally frequented by b3tans) and I have to say that in the two years I've known her, and I've helped out in the kitchen or just stood there hanging out while she's working, I've never seen any incidents of taking revenge on customers by abusing their food. Nor have I seen any shocking lapses in hygeine - they occasionally get mice, but the building is 250+ years old and very close to the tube station, so it's only to be expected. She even prepares the meals above and beyond the standards of the pub chain she works for, using fresh ingredients instead of frozen, that sort of thing. So sorry if this isn't amusing, but at least when I order my meal in the pub I know the exact conditions under which it was prepared (by my girl with tender loving care) and best of all I don't have to pay for it.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 13:52, Reply)

A few more pen portraits
...for you, all true.

At the Toby Grill I used to help out in the kitchen sometimes, and, as others have pointed out, there was a permanent, if light-hearted war between kitchen and waiting staff. Chefs would scream at the waitresses to take food out etc. Any sort of come-back with met with a request for the waitress in question to suck their knob. Eventually, to save time and effort this was abbreviated to the chef raising his folded over apron and pointing at said organ, or just raising the apron with a bored look on their face.

We did have fun though, especially line cleaning nights. The management usually agreed to a staff social on these nights as four pints could be pulled from each tap before the cleaning fluid came through. The pints were set on the bar and it was free for all…except me, the humble bar supervisor, who was down in the cellar doing the cleaning for the first hour or so. We usually had long pool tournaments with the pockets stuffed with bar towels so we only had to pay once.

My best barman was Paul who was a joiner by day and worked Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Really nice guy and very successful pulling waitresses etc. We also had a surly regular – can’t remember his name – whose job was “slitting throats at t’abbatoir”. He once challenged Paul to an arm wrestle, it went on for about twenty minutes. He also got caught once fingering a slaggy customer under the table - hope he'd washed his hands first.

We had a very attractive barmaid for a while, called Helen. She was always attached to doormen at the various clubs in town. The only time I ever saw her blush was when an old regular commented loudly that she was “sat well back in her knickers” – lovely phrase.

By the way, what is the origin of the term ‘vinegar strokes’? Answers on a post please.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 13:30, Reply)

Never ever piss off a chef...
When I was younger up till about 19 i lived around the catering industry due to my old mans line of work and as a result helped out in kitchens from an early age and regrettably went to work in them (not now thank god, not that it is a bad job, just grossly underpaid).

I worked at a hotel in leeds about ten year back when our manager comes in an hour or so after last orders when we had finished cleaning up and were ready to go home. Twat manager orders head chef to do duck al la ronge with x y z, head tells manager not a chance and twat bag manager says in no uncertain terms food or your job...
Head proceeds to start cooking said food and then starts snorting back the biggest greenie ever and spits it in the sauce, head for sheer cheeck value takes the food out to the customers and gives it them. Comments when the plate came back empty... Compliments to the chef.
Same place again, they used to have a guy come and do pot washing duties,sat there drinking his 24 pack he'd bring in with him while working, real nice friendly fella but stunk to high fucking hell, why? Had a colostomy bag, one day is walking around kitchen and somehow the contents of his crap bag end up all over the floor, never seen people scarper so fast...
(pissed_squirrel, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 13:14, Reply)

Knife roulette anyone?
As a chef for many years we did some evil things to our waiting staff over the years. One particular unrepeated act of terrorism on staff remains embedded in the back of my mind forever.
Whilst working for a notourious chain of "steakhouses" (possibly rhyming with 'wifebeater') every steak was served with the knife poking out from under it, 'twas the waiting staff's responsibility to do this so we could get on with other crap.
Anyway, as we were pissed off as a whole with said waiting staff, we decided on a game of roulette without them knowing. we put 5 steak knives in the oven (225c) for a couple of mins, and mixed them back in with the rest of the normal knives just before we sent out about 6 meals.
The scream as the metal cooked one hand was unbelieveable. i've never seen a hand swell up that fast. oops.
We blamed it on the retard at the potwash with one eye.
(smeg4brains, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 12:44, Reply)

Greencloud
I worked at St. James' a year or two back aswell in the Sports bar. Hated the fucking job as the customers were tits, the chef was a bully and the porters were immigrants with little or no grasp of English.

Rather than put the unsold pies back in the fridge we used to give them away to the customers who stuck around while we were cleaning the bar. Two proper fat, dykey lezza's used to sit for a good two hours after the match so they could get the left over chips, Panini's and Ginsters.

On my first day (Evening game, England vs. Ukraine) I was put straight on the till but I had no till training. Come the end of the night I had 'lost' the best part of £300 due to the fact I tilled in 88 mince pies by mistake. I had to hang around until nearly midnight while they decided whether to call the Police or not.

I left after a dispute over pay (The whole dispute was that I wasn't getting any, they fucked up my bank account details) and when one customer threatened my life because it took more than 5 minutes to get his chicken burger. This was due to the fact the immigrants didn't know what a chicken burger was and didn't tell the chef a customer wanted one.

I did learn one thing during this time - Stewards are legends. There was this one old fella called Tom who used to come in a midday and sit by the till chatting away. When it started to fill up he'd stand on the back wall with the specific instructions that "if any of these scumbags gives you shit, just give me the nod and i'll be straight over". True to his word whenever any customer started getting edgey he was on their case. It wasn't just him though, all of them were too happy to help any member of staff who was getting shite.

I've sat down at football matches ever since out of respect for them.
(Peter Sutcliffe's Right Bollock, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 12:26, Reply)

Seven types of semen
Incidentally, how would you go about extracting seven types of semen from a tub of mayonnaise?

And has anyone ever met a mayonnaise analysis scientist? If I had to test mayo all day I'd be "finding" some spunk in it too. A flatmate once told me that out-of-date mayo is "the most dangerous substance known to man". Should someone alert our defence secretary, so we can put it in our war heads?
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 11:59, Reply)

Frozen Pizza Factory, West Country
Does this count?

Hellish Summer job 3 years on the trot.

Saw Some sights....

A guy who loaded the tomato topping into the hopper, spilled a load down himself, filling his wellington boot, so he took off his wellington, and tipped the contents into the hopper.

The cleanup crew (who by definition were filthy fuckers) dumping their Simian paws into the cheese/pineapple/onion and munching away, pausing only to spit it back into the tray.

Rats in the storage area.

maggots in the flour, which was then turned into pizza bases.

Would name the brands to avoid....but that wouldn't be fair would it.
(Rockster77, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 11:58, Reply)

Special Sauce
I can't imagine that most restaurant employees would find kitchens so irresistably erotic that they had to contantly masturbate into the food.

However, when we worked in McDonalds we all had to wear plastic gloves in the kitchen, for hygiene reasons. But they became too slippery to hold onto anything, so the solution? Rip the fingers off. And i saw more than one beatle fall into a cheeseburger. (Ringo and Paul har har).
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 11:52, Reply)

Woof plop tea...
I only worked in food-service for a few days, it was at St James' Park when Newcastle United played at home. I didn't really see anything malicious, just that the unsold pies and pasties were re-refrigerated after the match and rolled out again for the next home game (maybe two weeks later). This wasn't done once, the slower selling varieties were wheeled out for a minimum of three home games.

But that's not my story,

I worked a crappy admin job for a couple of years with a supervisor who was a real lazy prick and sat on his arse while I did all of the work alone. In the 'office' there were very basic tea/coffee making facilities of which the prick made regular use. I was well aware of the routine of making a brew, then rinsing the spoon / mugs under the tap before replacing them on the tray ready for the next use. One Sunday i started work and noticed the smell of shit so checked my shoes and found I needed a 'poo-stick' to scrape out the smelly mess from my boot treads. Since I was annoyed at having to work Sunday, and he'd been getting on my nerves all week, I took 'his' spoon and used it to scrape my shoe clean before wiping the lumps off (paying care to smear them all over the spoon) and replaced it ready for Monday mornings 'first brew'.

I've never told anyone of this, just smiled to myself every time I saw him drink tea since.
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 11:50, Reply)

Special Sauce
I second that comment about the sealed containers of mayo, which is why, after working at McDs for a I became annoyed with the customers. Having heard the urban legend about "special" sauce, I thought I would re-enact it. Imagine my dismay when I found that it was very hard to do in the back of the restaurant - the best I could manage was not washing my hands after a fwap. Not special enough.

So I jacked that job in, and got one at a company (name understandably witheld) that makes mayonaises and sauces, for most of McDs in the south east (along with a number of smaller establishments and some sandwich manufacturers).

I worked there as an computer support monkey for a few weeks until I got the lay of the land and worked out all the proceedures and processes. And I waited. One week, they had shut down part of the plant for cleaning (they did this regularly) and I realised that this would be my opportunity for spunky revenge.

I collected about a weeks worth of spooge in a plastic bag, and the night before they were due to re-start that part of the factory, I dumped the entire bag into the egg-yolk vat that would be used in the McD sauces. 100ml of man-fat in half a tonne of yolk wouldn't be noticed and wasn't.

So I spunked in all the big macs in the south east, over a several week period. And a lot of the sandwiches you buy in petrol station forecourts. And a lot more food besides that. Hee hee.
(lardaholics anonymous, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 11:44, Reply)

All you 'special sauce' story posters...
Stop it now you bullshitters

I wouln't object only your 'true' stories are so DULL.
( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 11:14, Reply)

Just one thing...
It's practically impossible to spunk into the mayo in MacD's as they have sealed containers. Everything is only opened once you get to the kitchen.
( jim_bob can herd cats., Mon 24 Jul 2006, 11:13, Reply)

I was running a boozer in Bradford a few years ago
There was a girl, Leanne, who worked there who as excellent at her job, took no crap from anyone and if you hadn't supped up by ten past eleven she would just lift your booze and bid you farewell, well it saved me the trouble. I was off one day and when I came back I was given a splendid tale by her. It seems some chap was giving her a load of earache about nothing, punters being invariably wrong, and she had tired of it and had a bit of a moan to her boyfriend about this chap whinging about a glass he claimed was dirty. Her boyfriend then promptly took out his cock and wiped it around the rim of the glass that was to be the punter's next pint. It was her who told me this and the disciplinary procedure was as follows; "That was a bit naughty, wasn't it, Leanne? Nice one"
(bogus official shove it up your cunt, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 11:06, Reply)

so many stories
i spent a lot of years working in bars/restuarants/hotels and have seen countless disgusting things done to peoples food/drinks, encountered many forms of violence (especially in scotland), known all manner of penny pinching, met a wide variety of cunts/psychos/imbeciles/arseholes...

but the absolute pinnacle was, when working in a live-in hotel-restuarant in the derbyshire peaks - a total hole, half the staff were junkies, incestious and semi-retarded. the manager was like a frightened rabbit - the place was run by devious, thieving kitchen staff.

i remember one particularly mouthy slapper waitress, who was screwing the head chef (and a number of other people on the side) had an ability to make even the nicest customer be rude to her. she just attraced drama. you all know the type, i'm sure.

anyways, shed managed to get quite upset by a couple of customers one time, and went in flailing her limbs and screaming to her boyfriend in the kitchen. he proceeded to take a blow-torch (they type used for caramellising sugar on the top of creme brulees) and heat one side of the a plate til it was shimmering hot.

she then took the plate to the customer, leaving the hot edge slightly off the edge of the table so it would need pushing in, and commenting 'mind the plate its a little hot'

cue customer trying to push it onto the table - its an automatic reaction - and the thing being SO FUCKING HOT her fingers stuck to it. she screams, it takes the skin off her fingertips, the plate flicks off the table and smashes, the customer, poor woman, is in tears - her fingers bleeding at the ends - the manager is running over with a first aid kit, everyone in the restuarant staring. and the waitress is just standing their grinning like a smug fucking bond villian.

i quit shortly afterwards.
(Mildred is a slimy, double-crossing, no-good swindler, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 10:47, Reply)

I am a gigolo
...and once I used a syringe of mayonnaise instead. Oh how we laughed.
(wago, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 10:43, Reply)

I worked in a well known chain of bars
for almost two years. Although the social life was superb, the clientelle were somewhat lacking in both manners and brain cells. Therefore, the ruder the drunk retards were to me whilst I was serving them, the more money I would add onto the total of their bill, in multiples of £1 to make it easy to remember. I liked to call this my "tip".

I also used to "accidentally" knock full pints across the bar onto men who told me to cheer up/were wearing white tops/waved money at me/generally looked unsavory.

We also blatantly ignored customers in favour of our own entertainment, which took the form of the "Bar Olympics". My specialist event was Extreme Freepour, but there were many, many others, including Curling, with real ice and brooms along the length of the bar, and a unnamed game involving huge chunks of ice and 2 ice scoops, which had to be retired when one girl eneded up in A&E having stitches in her face.

I never spat in anyone's food though. That's just mean.

(This is my first ever post. Please be gentle...)
( kirst0s, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 10:31, Reply)

I've never spat
in a customer's burger, because I've never had to work in McDonald's.

Just because you have a shit job, no need to take it out on someone else.

Now get me a coke, monkey.
( sprinkles ITS AN ISLAND, morron, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 10:30, Reply)

Used to do Bar-work.
I can honestly say it was the best job I'd ever had. Working in a pub in the centre of Swansea was an eye-opener, and no mistake.

Our landlady was a 4 foot skinny midget of a woman, who would stand down to no-one. She was also one of the funniest women I've ever met, and the bestest boss I've ever had too :) Rachel did have one thing though; an anger unmatched by the Greek Gods themselves. There are a few examples of her anger;

1st week she was there; she goes out clubbing with the staff, just to get an idea of Swansea. They all turn up at "Quid's Inn" (a fucking dive, if you've ever been there) and are allowed in as staff. Rachel, as the doormen didn't her from squat, had to pay. She gripped the largest of the doormen by the collar , dragged him all the way down to eye level and said in her most authorative voice "Do you not know who I am?", which did actually scare the doorman.

Someone attacked one of the bar-staff with a broken glass, because she called one of the assistant managers (called Matt) and this drunkard thought she said Twat. Before the doormen got near them Rachel had Superman dived over the bar catching the attacker by the throat and throwing both of them to the ground. The doormen had to clean the mess up.

Rachel was a bit lonely, and got roped into a date with this "Steve Martin" look-a-like who was an eco-warrior (ie wanker). She really didn't want to go, as he wanted to take her to the cinema to see some shit film (I think it was Titanic or something). Luckily I was there to rescue; Rachel suffers from a bad reaction to vodka in the same way that Gamma radiation affects Bruce Banner which is she becomes a snarling green beast of rage. After getting one of the regulars to get her two double-vodka-redbulls just before the date, we could see her eyebrows twitching as she was walking out with him. Apparently she threatened to kill him in the auditorium at some point. They didn't date again.

Two 6 foot skinheads smashed a window with a pool cue because some twat regular tried winding them up. I throw out the regular with the words "well, I would have to clean you off the wall otherwise" and then walk upto these huge Mitchell look-a-likes. I say rather calmly "Look guys, you're both 7 foot 8 and could easily kick the living shit out of me, but hey, I've gotta ask you to leave." They smile and apologise about the window, saying thanks then leaving quietly bless 'em. On the way out, Rachel storms up and physically grabs them, dragging these huge thugs out of the pub while they both literally shit themselves, much to my amusement.

One dark November Wednesday night off; my ex-fiancee at the time lived in a flat which was above the pub where I worked (convieniant). There were windows on the side of the building, which allowed us to see on the roof of the adjacent building next door. This was also visible from the 2nd floor of the pub (which housed about 9 pool tables and a bar at the time).
Me and said-ex walk into her room, and we decide to watch a film. She asks me to stick the TV and video on, which are right by the window. I happen to glance out the window and spot a curious sight. I immediately shout "Kill the lights!!!!!" to which said-ex does so. She comes over to see what I'm looking at, which is a girl spread-eagled over an air vent while a bloke is standing there pumping away while drinking a Carling. Said-ex says "Fucking hell, tell the regulars downstairs in the pub", which I do and bring up half of them to which we're all quietly laughing and voyeuring at through the pub windows. Except now, there isn't only the guy with his carling and her. There's now the guy with his carling with his two mates and her, and they're all taking turns on her. By this time, the entire pub is looking out of the windows laughing at this, until one of the barmen opened the window and shouted "Go on luv!".

The four of them stand up with the three blokes smiling and bowing to us all and the girl covering her face with embarrasment. This earned a shoutout of "Dunno why you're covering your face, we've seen everything else".

Five minutes later, we're all downstairs laughing about it and the 3 guys from the gangbang come in for a pint. Apparently they'd only met her half an hour earlier in a nightclub and wanted to take them "somewhere quiet". Got that wrong, didn't you?

Soz for length, but it's what you do with it that counts.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 10:02, Reply)

the golden arches
there is a lovely story about one of the three golden arches in my town. (quite small town with quite large people if you've been to redditch you'll know what im tlaking about)
upon testing the sauces, one tub of mayonnaise was found to have seven different samples of semen. we don't have one manky person spunking in the sauces we have alot
(bryony*niamh kneecaps exist to be hit with clawhammers., Mon 24 Jul 2006, 9:38, Reply)

I used to work at McDonalds
And if customers pissed me off, I'd give them the items on the menu that they'd ordered.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 8:25, Reply)

Various spunk
Mate of mine used to work for McDonalds and he spunked in a burger. However, thats not as clever as another mate, who spunked in a jar of mayonnaise. He got some good length out of that one!

Mmmmmmmm, special sauce.
( Watney Heckbulb uhnnnnnnnn has a new blog: www.skepticcanary.com, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 8:03, Reply)

Indian Restaurant Job
In the late eighties I was working in a bar in Worcester Park. There was a curry house next door, who after losing their own bar man, asked me to help them out for a couple of weeks.

Previously I had been a regular at the restaurant, but after working there, what an eye opener. Standard operating procedures I observed included:

* Any unfinished customer drinks were sieved and then topped up for the next customer (even shorts).

* Helping yourself to customers' meals (with your fingers) before they went out was normal.

* Gobbing in rude customers' food was compulsory.

One night we ran out of tonic water, so I went down the road and borrowed a crate off another curry house. When I got back, the owner made me take it back because the people who owned the other restaurant were "born of low merchant class" (??).

After two weeks, when the manager called me a "bloody bastard" for combing my hair behind the bar (I had a stunning hoddle / waddle mullet perm at the time), I walked out. That Friday I went in, ordered two poppadums and drank a large quantity of bottled lowenbrau (opened at the table) before writing off the khazi with a tidy attack of diahorrea and a power chuck. Sweet revenge.
(Mandrill, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 5:39, Reply)

Never piss off a fast food worker
especially if you can't see the kitchen area.

My sister used to work at Taco Bell. The manager told them they could "spice up" rude customers' food. This included wiping them on the floor, using moldy cheese from the trash can, spitting, adding hair or bugs, and many other things.

I have also heard the tale of Dale. Someone was rude to him when he worked at Burger King. He promptly took the cheese for the cheeseburger and wiped his ass with it. He smiled as they ate it.
(evil_penguin_17 Robots of Doom... Attack!, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 4:59, Reply)

Always Open
For a few years I worked as a waiter at a well-known chain restaurant in North America. Its main money maker is breakfast, but our location did a brisk business at night as we were up the street from some famous and large cowboy bars.

The saddest day I ever worked there was Christmas. I volunteered to work the counters instead of a sections of tables. As we were one of the only restaurants open, we were incredibly busy with every seat taken, even at the counters. It seemed that every 55ish single male with no family or friends who wanted to have a Christmas meal came to sit at my counters that day. Of course, I was too busy to chat, let alone spend time listenening to some old crank complain. But the sad part is that we all knew there was nothing wrong with the service given the class of restaurant. The issue was really that these guys needed a reason to force someone to talk to them, and I was to busy to help.

But mostly, I worked on the graveyard shift 11 to 7, mainly dealing with drunks trying to sober up before driving through the police stop-checks, and the "coffee bums" who spent every night of their lives in the restaurant nursing a bottomless cup of horrible coffee for 70 cents a day.

Of course, it was hard and chaotic, but there was a warm sense of brothers-in-arms about the staff, which is really what I want to talk about.

When you wake up at 9 pm, and go to sleep at noon, you're on a different wavelength than other people. When they're just waking up, you're just getting off shift ready to go home and relax. I'd stop at the gas station on the way home to buy smokes, and the attendant and other customers would look at me like I'm from another planet, but they wouldn't know why they felt that way.

My fondest memories of that time are the poker games Sunday morning 8 o'clock after work. We'd crank the heavy metal music, drink and smoke hash and cigarettes, gambling the waiters tip money while the neighbours went to church. The level of play wasn't that sophisticated, so I always made money.

Sorry for the lack of sabotaged food stories. We took pride in our jobs, even as we laughed at them. Twenty years later, I still have vivid memories of those days.
(DeepBlue, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 4:41, Reply)

How bulbs can you do at once...?
worked in a cafe in a ritzi part of town full of rich swine. Daily i would lay mucus, spit anything dirty I could get my hands on in peoples food. I would also give this very fussy customer who demanded decaf coffee due to his extremely poor health and high blood pressure the strongest regular coffees I could muster. We would also inhale the bulb gas out of the creaming machine and get really high.

I did the hiring and only hired young college girls that I could manipulate into my bed (Or toilet out the back).

Good times.
(semtec, Mon 24 Jul 2006, 3:03, Reply)