Horror Stories from work

[nicholsmayer]

I'm sure there are plenty of knife lovers working in kitchens, but what about people you have met who have no business around a spoon let alone anything sharp?

I'm an apprenticed cook in a casino and have had a passion for knives for a while now, all my knives are kept sharp, but recently we got a new worker moved into our restaurant. Of course he gets to work with me in the back doing prep, at least he has his own knife right? By far this is the absolute dullest piece of crap I have ever seen; it's some no name santoku and even if you were to put all of your body weight onto the edge you couldn't cut yourself. I watch as he tries to cut into an eggplant, kinda makes me cringe just to think about it. Of course when it comes to having to cut things like an order of prime rib I can't let something like that be ruined...I handed him a knife. Now, I'm an apprentice I don't have expensive knives either, that's the only reason I handed him my victorinox. I knew better and didn't look in the direction while he worked with the knife I spent so much time with, But I still had to see the end result: edge was rolled.

The only thing that still bugs me is that this guy wasn't some novice, I was told he had been working in this casino for longer than I had been alive. How do you go so long and not develop some interest in a tool you use every day? Either way, all I can do is resharpen the knife and hide all of my tools.

 

[BluntCut MetalWorks]

Yup, he used excess force, the edge rolled from hard cut the cutting board (prob poly board). I usually put a 40* inclusive micro-bevel on my beater knife before letting non-knife ppl use it.

 

[Phydeaux]

Not a kitchen or food related story.

I used to work in an R&D lab. Someone was cutting something with an Exacto knife and cut herself badly (she was not being careful). So management immediately banned all Exacto knives and single edged razors in the labs. The thing that made me angry is that she was in a different department and the no blade policy was for all R&D, not just her lab. In protest, I ordered about a dozen pairs of scissors and placed them through out my lab area. To ensure they would be there when I needed them, i attached them to permanent fixtures with 1/4" coated SS aircraft cable using the aluminum crimps so they would be difficult to remove.

Ric

 

[spareparts]

A couple of things happened to me when I worked kitchens. Not that bad really. I was working at a high end resort in Tucson called Canyon Ranch, using a set of Globals and kept them well maintained. One of the guys kept bugging me while I was cutting onions and had a lapse of concentration. Took a good meaty portion of the tip of a finger off, the onion juice stung pretty good. Show must go on but this thing wouldn't stop bleeding. I put on a finger cot, and over that a glove. The injured covered finger kept filling up with blood to about an egg sized water balloon. Had to change it several times to get through the service and it was pretty gross.

A guy I knew who worked a saute station. The dish guys would take dirty pans, wash them, and put them on a shelf above the range for the cooks to use. A fellow coworker put a pan full of hot oil on the shelf. The pan had rached smoke point and he just wanted to get it off the heat, not thinking about the consequences. So this guy I knew, grabbed the pan, thinking it was a clean pan ready for use. Sloshed hot oil all down his arm resulting in third degree burns from wrist to elbow.

Had a pilot light issue with an oven once. Bent down and opened up the bottom to see if the pilot light was lit and all of a sudden a ball of flaming gas shot out of it. Instinct, I guess, kicked in and I closed my eyes just in time. My eyelashes were seard together so that I couldn't open my eyes and my eye brows were completely burned off. Just minor surface burns but I'd hate to think what could have happened if my eyes were full open.

At culinary school an instructor just got done telling all the students not to shove things in the meat grinder. Use the appropriate plunger to push the meat. Even showed us examples of equipemnt that was mangled from students not listening. So what does this dumb chick do, she uses a suasage stuffer tube. The worm drive in the machine started to pull the tube in so she grabbed it to try and pull it out. These things are belled on the end, so with her fist closed on the tube when the bell got to the back of her hand the bell forced pulled her hand in to about a two to two and a half inch opening on the meat grinder. The machine bogged down enough that someone was able to shut it down before her hand got all the way to the worm. Unfortunate for her, she had to wait with her mangled hand stuck in there until a maintainence guy could be called and bring a wrench to crank the motor backwards to free her. Quite a few broken bones on that one.

 

[VCM3]

As a former pro chef,current knife enthusiast,I can't imagine not having really nice & sharp kitchen cutlery.