I haven't posted here in a long time, I kind of got burned out on music entirely. I came back through to ask a practical question from all of you. I recently got a job as a dishwasher in an Italian restaurant, and I've been there for about 3 weeks. I was told that most people quit within 3 weeks because they can't handle the pressure. And it is definitely stressful at times. It's harder than I thought. I not only load the dishes on the rack, and take them off, I also wash pots by hand, which I have to go to the line to grab, and I can only have 3 clean racks queued before I get jammed up. I take the plates over to the plate rack when the cart gets full. Silver wear is kind of a pain because it takes precious time to sort. When it's busy, it's easy to get buried in plates. I also have to close at the end of the night, and that means all the kitchen implements come rushing in at once.

It's also quite frustrating when something goes through the dishwasher and doesn't come out totally clean.

So, those of you who are dishwashers, or used to be, what was your experience like? And did you learn any "shortcuts", any tips to help speed things up and make it a little easier on yourself?

...

Well, you may not have posted here in a long time, but the quality of your thread topics seems to have stayed pretty consistent.

I always wash my dishes in water. You really can't go wrong with that.

fuck it.

Because MutantClannfear makes threads about mundane topics all the time!

I'm going to assume that was a dig at me and therefore point out that WaywardSon doesn't actually do much on the forums besides dig at people he doesn't like.

The only shortcut I have is, if the waiters act like bitches, let them sort the silverware out themselves... Otherwise, take the time to sort it.

Dish washing sucks balls plain and simple but you'll get used too it. I did it for like two years when I was a teenager but it opened the door to the career I'm in now so I can't really complain. You'll get used to the work and discover your own rhythm for things eventually, by the time I wound up quitting I had an 8 hour shift that I only really worked about 5 hours during and that included doing kitchen prep work and putting away the stock on delivery day. Plus there was serious perks like tips when busy tables or helping with parties and all the free food you could ever want from the kitchen and also pretty much everybody leaves you alone as long as the dishes get cleaned.

My house mate has a dish washing brush that contains soap in it so perhaps use that?
Seems to save time not having to wait until the water gets soapy.

I work dish and prep stuff for a sort of "upscale pub". Been a dish pig for two years at this point, but they're already showing me how to cook a few entrees and hopefully I'll be bumped up to the line at the end of the summer because one of the cooks is moving to Vancouver. MC may think this is a dumb topic, but hey, at least it's one I have a lot of recent experience in!

Honestly, I don't even mind the tiring work anymore. Anytime I get sort of down because it's busy or the shift is long I tell myself to pick it the fuck up and just be grateful I'm employed. It's one of the grossest jobs you'll ever encounter; you don't even know the awful places I've had to clean from the grease traps to the gray mush behind the dishwasher in the back corner...but eh, if you work in a place with good management and one that'll pay you on time and won't make arbitrary deductions (both haven't been the case with me before, you wouldn't believe how often some people just try and scam you) it really isn't that bad, there's room to move upward (most line cooks I know got their start working dish and I know of some places here that won't hire a cook unless he has dishwashing experience) and manual labor is easy once your body gets used to it. It's a more rewarding profession at the end of the day than any sort of paper-pushing job, to me. (Although of course, the pay is chump change.)

I went a different route, I actually got a job with the company that delivered to food to where I worked and wound up becoming a truck driver out of it. I don't work for that company anymore because they sucked balls and the management team was full of a bunch of assholes but I'm still a truck driver and I do pretty well for myself. A much better path (I feel) then if I had started working in retail like I wanted to when I was looking for my first job.

Honestly? For me, Cocaine. I used to wash dishes and deliver for Pizza Hut. On my routes I'd pick up a gram and share with everyone that pitched in including other drivers, cooks, waiters/waitresses, even managers. Sometimes we'd get discounts from this dealer since I'd always hook him up with extra cheese, pepper, and napkins, plus the cooks would put extra toppings on all his orders. As soon as I drove up the restaurant I could see people's noses twitching. The waiters with the gift of gab would go at 100 mph and get paid left and right as well as hook up a girl's number. The cooks, who would have to stand by the oven needed it especially on those busy hours as they were not allowed to take breaks. Us washers/drivers had to wash every dish and crusty pan by hand with a scalding spray gun and scraper. No dishwashing machines. After a couple of bumps and We Were the dishwashing machines. There was nothing like feeling that icy drip while Black Sabbath blasted in the little boom box. Everybody air-guitaring. I'm not saying you should start doing cocaine. Cocaine is evil. It's bad for your heart in the long run. I quit that shit a long time ago but that shitty job would have been a lot shittier if it weren't for the candy. After hours we'd all get together at someone's house to talk shit about our main boss and party till the morning. Ah, youth.

I wanted to post yesterday but my camping internet died. Here ya go. Also, yeah, don't do cocaine...

I worked as a dishwasher for 1 year before moving to go to the university (that's what, 4 years ago) and it was a very shitty job. I worked at a restaurant where a lot of seafood are served so I smelled horrible after but bah, it wasn't too bad. It was definitely stressful when it was very busy but during the week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday) it was pretty quiet and I had the time to talk with the staff (cool guys, good teamwork...) and the manager and me were always talking about hockey. We were 2 dishwashers for Friday and the Week End. I probably wouldn't do it again as it's dirty and it's one of the lowest job you can have, but eh my experience wasn't that bad and I had a free supper every night! I had work-clothes too and they were washed by a company so no biggie for that but damn, I always brought a 2nd pair of under wears especially during the winter.

I think I broke one plate throughout the whole year I worked there, my main tip: go at your pace, try to be fast but eh, it's not worth it to be an exceptional drone worker. Try the harder you can and always maintain a good attitude and be well liked by your co-workers.

By the way, I think we could expand this thread and it make about all fields of low wage jobs or at least, jobs in restoration.

There's an older guy who's been washing dishes for years. He showed me a trick. He brings stainless/bronze scouring ball to break up tough stuff in pots and pans. It works really well.

I don't get free food, I think it's half off, but I don't bother. I do get free drinks though. I only drink water though, I don't want to get a sugar crash from soda.

Another thing I do is use earplugs. It cuts out a lot of the kitchen noise, and dulls the clanging of dishes and silverwear. Yet I can hear people fine, albeit a little muffled.

I disagree with this completely. One of the main reasons I started getting more shifts and have started to get training for the line was because I initially got noticed as a particularly fast worker; once I get in my rhythm, I can catch up and close a lot faster than anyone else. They don't want people who just go at a lighter pace working the line, because it can get pretty intense and fast service is vital to any restaurant business staying afloat.

Metantoine gave some really great advice. Coincidentally my father owns 2 Italian restaurants and the fact about pacing yourself is great advice. I'll explain, If you bust your ass all the time your boss will begin to expect it always. Trust me!
Unless you are planing to make a career in the same establishment, don't kill yourself. The money is not worth it.

^this. Rape, Good for you if you want to work more hours and be well liked by your boss but he'll always ask more and more and give you what? His gratitude? Maybe you'll become assistant cook but I know you and you're going to university and everything, for now having this is a temporary job is good but that's about it.

Is this an incognito thread for the Folk Punk band Wingnut Dishwashers Union?

I'm confused

Folk Punk? NOT IN MY METAL ARCHIVES!

Scamming? I've gotten $50 deducted from my paycheck at my current job. No explanation, no logical reason, no idea why, no idea who to even talk to about it (kill, I mean). It's probably too late now anyway. That as 2 checks ago.

It still pisses me off. I just wanted to complain about it...

Seems like every level and department of the American public school system suffers from some degree of corruption and scandal. It's always the people on top, or the people who've been doing it the longest and think they're too fucking good to get caught who do the most crimes at the expense of the people who do the real fucking work, of course. It's easy to make an "accounting error", especially when they know you, the employee, are probably not going to do anything about it, much less know who to go to.

Give some insecure, poorly-educated loser a little bit of authority and they start to abuse it immediately. I swear, "being the boss" is the only hobby some people have... That's especially true in positions like custodial work when someone works up to "head custodian" or "supervisor" or whatever else when they've been "just a custodian" for x number of years.

I'm not trying to say all supervisors/head custodians/head office workers are manipulative, conning, power-hungry scumbags, just that more than enough of them are for it to be a problem...

Well I mean, I haul ass when I've got a lot to do but once you're on top of things you can go at a nice pace. The key is not necessarily to be busy, just to look like you're always busy with something I would agree with you if there wasn't an opportunity for a promotion, but in my case there is and I might as well try and move up as quickly as I can.

And yes, that is what I intend to do with this job; hopefully work as a cook (maybe even a bartender!) to pay my way through university. Who knows, maybe I'll end up making something out of it. It's a decent fallback.

I agree here. If you want to rise, go tell the boss: I can give it 100% if I get promoted to X position by Y month.

Otherwise, you're just another willing tool, and there are many of those. (There are many more slackers, but they never get anywhere.)

Yeah, you guys make unemployment look a lot more fun than it really is.

Dishwashing isn't bad at all. My biggest tip is to just plug some headphones in and slay those dishes.

I cook now (tend bar, as well), but I help out the dish bitch here and there, because he is a whiny, little...well...bitch.

Although not the worst thing in the world, I can't really say I liked being a dish pig. The place was really disorganized and overstaffed. Often I'd be done with nothing else to do and my boss would get angry at me for not doing anything. When I explained that there was nothing to do she pointed at a list on the wall. The only problem is that 90% of that list is things that need to be done at the end of the day when closing down shop. Also, one time she forgot to pay me, and when I brought it up the paycheck was only recovered because I knew the exact date. At this point she laughed and told me that she forgets to pay her employees all the time.

No, it's awesome. I remember thinking that dog food was too expensive, then turning back to the b.r.c. for survival. I'd read about people eating dog food, but that really was a budget levels above mine.

One day it was really slow, and there was 3 of us. So they let me go home early. Other times when there's more people than we need, one person goes and sweeps and cleans the fridge or something, does some out of the way closing stuff so we can go home earlier.

Last shift I had the dish washing machine door slammed on my thumb. Thankfully, the kitchen had hydrogen peroxide. Sweet, sweet peroxide. Also I got a band-aid, and they made me wear a plastic glove on that hand. It really wasn't bad though, just a scratch.

Sometimes they'd call in a lot of drivers expecting a busy night but iinstead turns out to suck. I've always known to keep busy or look busy because when the manager comes aorund those standing around will be the first to be sent home. So on this particularly slow night before they started sending people home I get busy by doing all the dishes and pans. I ask this new kid to help as I see him leaning on the wall doing squat. He ignores me when I ask him if he can sweep and mop. Five minutes later I turn around and see this mofo is still standing there. I ask him again to help and again he ignores me. So I go up to him and ask him what's his problem. 'You don't like being told what to do huh?' and he says, 'I just don't like You telling me what to do', and then he shoves me. I don't even know where he gets off saying I was bossing him around when I was simply and politely asking him to pull his own weight. So I clock him and and when I was about to hit him again we are broken up by the rest of the staff. Next day the manager calls us individually to hear our side of the story. The manager sides with me and tells him to start doing his fair share of the work which he did until he quit a couple of weeks later. I hate lazy people.

Washing dishes? Oh man. First job was spraying wing sauce and cheap beer off plates at a Hooters on the late shift, 4PM to close. And God, did it suck.

One of the biggest problems I had was that our busboy was just terrible at his job. He'd stand around for 20-30 mins at a time, bullshitting with the guy that worked register, or chatting up the equally terrible at their jobs waitresses. So I'd be caught up on dishes, feeling pretty good about my pace, thinking the night was low-key, when suddenly Ian the busboy would remember he had a job to do, and would then come in and drop 10-20 overflowing bus tubs in dish pit with me. I wanted to strangle that shithead, and learned pretty quickly not to rely on him to do anything right.

Now, our particular Hooters was located on a tiny boardwalk right on the ocean, mostly used to launch commercial fishing tours. But, it was also across the street from the main coast into the Gulf of Mexico, so the entire main road down the coastline was lined with hotels and rental condos. Monday-Thursday, we were lucky to see 20 orders in the kitchen. Friday and Saturday were pretty busy, and we did the type of business a restaurant in a residential are might see on a normal night. And Sundays were hit and miss, just depending on what sporting event(s) were being shown on TV that day.

But that was during the off-season. Our off-season spanned from September to May. Spring break was fairly busy in March, but that was mostly alcohol sales, and cleaning beer steins and shot glasses was easy. Busy season, on the other hand, was mass chaos, a time period that at times literally terrified me.

From mid-May through August, the area was just flooded with Summer tourists. Thousands of people flocked out to the boardwalk, and subsequently to the restaurant, since it was one of the only two places on the boardwalk that served something other than seafood. Monday through Saturday, we did constant, fast-paced business. Non-stop from the time you clocked in until the kitchen stopped serving. To make it worse, the closing time of the restaurant was extended to 1AM for busy season to accommodate all the customers we had in there. We had fights, we had drunk college kids pass out from not hydrating, we had people try to steal merchandise and liquor from the bar. We even had someone pull a gun on our manager when he cut him off (meaning the manager stopped the customer from being served alcohol, if you're unfamiliar with that phrase). Shit was crazy.

But Sunday nights...Sunday night during busy season we would end up so packed out with people that the restaurant would literally shut down. 200+ tickets would be in the kitchen at any one time. Food had at least an hour wait, usually more. If we were even still seating costumers, there would be at least a 2 hour wait for a table. We would just be so swamped with orders that we physically did not have enough deep fryers to keep up with the orders. And because business was moving so slowly, our short-tempered night managers were damn near seething at the employees the entire night, which left us all in sour moods as well.

All of this really shot me in the ass; since orders were not going out, dirty dishes were not coming back to the pit. So when closing neared, the dishes would just stack up in a matter of minutes. On top of that, none of the stuff on line was being sent back early in anticipation of closing, cause it was all in use. So at around 1:30-1:45 in the morning, when we had finally kicked out the last of the orders, every last thing in the kitchen was dropped in dish pit at once. And the icing on the cake was that every person in the kitchen, from the guys on line to the managers, was pissed at dish pit because it was so overflowing that it took anywhere from 10-40 minutes longer to close out than the rest of the kitchen. And since nobody was allowed to clock out until the entire kitchen was closed down, everyone had to wait around on you to go home for the night. So yeah, it fucking blew.

But I wouldn't change it. As hellish as it all was, I eventually was moved up to the food line, and gained experience that opened up doors to the great cook job I have now.

Oh, and as far as shortcuts were concerned, the one thing everyone told me about working in dish pit when I first started was "It doesn't have to be perfect".

Funny, I read this the same day I quit my job on a call center. Fuck that shit, and fuck this too.

Man, I was the busboy most of the time where I washed dishes for a day... and you had to literally angle the glass/saucer trays at, like, 45 degrees just to get through a particularly narrow space to bring them in/out of the kitchen. and, of course, there were a million people in the way at all times.

Shit was such a pain.

Why do you guys think I quit after a day (that wasn't even really the reason... I was staying out of town and kind of fell out with the person I was staying with. It was only becuae we both had the next few days off while I was down there that I only worked a day)?

So, the fact that it sucked in the extreme wasn't even the real reason I left... but, fuck, it was reason enough, and it was certainly a motivating factor on top of everything else.

I hurt constantly from my job right now. Arms ache. I take (not exaggerating) about 15 Ibuprofen a day just to make how sore I feel a little more bearable. I get bruises and scrapes and smashed fingers/toes all the time. My feet scream every morning when I get out of bed (even every morning of the 4-day 4th of July weekend--they're sore literally ALL THE TIME now). I am not a lazy do-nothing slacker. I work hard, and I take pride in what I do (most) days... I don't like my job (especially right now--those desks are fucking heavy!) but, man, the place I washed dishes that one day just sucked. It sucked a million times worse than my current job.

I would've gone postal doing dishes there for more than a week's worth of 8-hour shifts. Wasn't worth it. Anxiety problems didn't help, though.

BRC?

Sorry, should've defined it: beans-rice-cheese. The ultimate low cost diet.

Speaking of working for a day and quitting, I got a job working at Popeyes thinking it was giong to be the shit since the manager was an old buddy who had gotten me into metal back in elementary. So I get there early morning and right away it's not looking good. My first duty is to prepare the chicken, wihch I should say, smelled like ass. I was flouring a thigh when I accidently drop it on the floor. Thinking it's dirty and therefor waste I toss it into the nearby trashcan. The manager sees me doing this and takes it out of the can and says it's fine. But I dropped it on the floor I protest. Get this, he explains to me that the deep fryier will burn it all off and nobody will know the difference. Holy shit, I'm thinking...And I eat here? Yuk! Later on a cook is mopping the back area and I notice cigarette butts and all kinds of shit on the floor. I'ts like he doesn't sweep first then mop. He's trying to push all this crud down the strainer in the middle of the floor when the manager announces on the intercom that he needs two batches of fried mushrooms. So this guy stops mopping and rushes to the cooler and runs out with a couple of mushroom boxes, one of which he drops and empties right onto the wet pile of shit he was trying to push through. He picks up all the mushrooms with his hand in one sweeping motion and puts them back in the box ready to fry. I swear I got nauseous at that point and decided to quit on the spot. Fuck that place, I never ate there ever again.

Everything MetalCuresHeadaches posted is awesome and reminds me of starting off, as well.

Markov should post here. I am sure he has tons of good advice.

I don't think I ever have eaten at Popeye's, or have planned to, but that was vomitous and I am never going to eat there if I can avoid it. Yuck.

I think I've ended up at a job where I was a dishwasher for a total of seven years out of my life (so just under a third of it). As you can imagine, at this point, it's not particularly hard for me.

All I can say is right now, if you're hating the shit out of it, and it's not worth it, you may just be better off trying something else. However, if the hours are good, you don't have a hell of a lot of options, etc, I think the best advice I can give is just hang in there. It's one of those jobs that just get better with time as you develop routines. The big things that help, as mentioned before-metal scouring pads (although they're against some health departments, a lot of restaurants will stock them and hide them because of how good they are), calculated use of degreaser, and realizing that running stuff through the machine-and-then-scrubbing may save you more time than letting shit pile up soaking. Also, I always run stuff through twice, which may slow down output, but helps you control your flow better, and dramatically reduces your having to re-scrub anything.

However, I currently work the overnight shift at a Denny's (eat shit, I'm still in school), and I'm at the point where in a 7-9 hour shift, I'm really only doing dishes for about three hours of it, I have my cleaning of the restaurant down to an hour and a half routine, and I'm good enough that they let me listen to music the whole time and give me nights off for shows that I give a decent amount of notice for-no questions asked. Dishwashing really is only ever worth it depending on the fringe benefits like that. Most kitchen managers/chefs understand that the dishwasher is the lone wolf of the place, and is best off doing things on their own if they're doing it well. Thing that helps me, too, is now that I'm in such a corporate standard-controlled environment, there's plenty of dishes and cookware. Smaller places will run out so much faster.

And again, music helps. Metal will guide you through your dishwashing adventures. As well, whoever suggested coke is being a jackass. Using it on a dishwasher's pay is pretty ridiculous (unless you're getting some sort of crazy deal or killing for it). If you're in the states, Walmarts generally sell 3-4 dollar bottles of 90 Jet-Alert tabs, and gas stations usually have Vivarin 20 packs. They're caffeine pills. If you're like me and you do shit all damned day, you may want to consider having one a few hours into your shift, or at the very beginning, because energy drinks get expensive, and coffee takes too long to give its full effect.

Oh yeah, almost forgot:

If you are a bigger male, you Goldbond the shit out of your gooch. Holy fuck, you will thank yourself for it. It's so easy to get chafed in the kitchen if you're muscular or thicker of stature, and that really can make the difference between an easy day at work and being trapped in Perdition.

Truer words have never been spoken.

Funny, I have been applying for prep cook/dishwashing positions the past few days. I know what I'm getting into though, I've already done that kind of work for three and a half years. Maybe I'm really good at being in stressful situations or just taking orders, but I've never really hated working in the kitchen. It was usually fairly cool, I worked my way up to learning how to make everything in the kitchen, got to work at some catering for political fund raisers.

The only time it really ever sucked was when I had to deal with the original owner of the restaurant. She was a hoarder and had no standards for cleanliness in the kitchen. I tried to throw out rotting lettuce once, and she pulled it out of the trash and made me try to salvage it. She sold the business after a while and the new owner was much better about those sorts of things.

But yeah, washing dishes isn't too bad, and if you work fairly fast and act responsibly, you can move up to a prep cook or line cook pretty easily; that is usually much more fun.

Yes, this. Fucking all of this.

everyone is suddenly commenting to say "YES, TOTALLY I HAVE A BIG DICK U GUYS".

sorry, im drunk, please dont ban me.