Monday, November 15, 2010
Lessons from the Lunchlady
I've been a blog slacker as of late and for that I apologize. It's been a while since I've posted what I've learned in the cafeteria and since I've been in charge for half a month I've learned even more.
- Kids will say the craziest things are the craziest times: Recently I was serving pancakes with a sub who was pulling them out with tongs. Occasionally the tongs would rip one of the pancakes. When this happened to a kindergartner he looked up at me and said "Hey! Miss W, did you bited my pancake?" The superintendent was in the kitchen just in time for the remark.
- Lettuce doesn't last long unless you want it to: If I want lettuce to last, it can't make it past three days. If I don't need it, it last for a week. What's up with that?
- It's okay to process a chicken but not stuffing: Seriously, how many of you make your Thanksgiving stuffing from scratch? Am I the only person thankful for Stovetop? Imagine my face when I learned I would have to make the stuffing for our Thanksgiving feast from scratch for tomorrow's lunch. Thank God for retired head cooks willing to help a girl out.
- No one uses recipes: For example some of the head cooks put some kind of syrup in their sweet potatoes. I thought you just added brown sugar. Have you ever drained baked beans? I don't drain them when I make them at home. Who knew you had to drain them at school.
- A brain is a terrible thing to waste: The amount of things one has to remember as a head cook is astronomical. Order the bread, order the food, call for the milk, take into account the holidays, know how this effects the delivery schedule, pull out the breakfast for the next day before you leave, turn in the time cards or no one gets paid, divy out all the jobs, don't offend the substitutes (which is a lot harder than it sounds) take care of all the lunch accounts, feed the teachers. This is just off the top of my head.
- Doing the job and not being paid for it. I understand completely why my boss makes significantly more money than I do. I wish I made her rate while I was filing in.
- Thanksgiving is wasteful: I have visions of Indians watching from the stars as tomorrow the K-3 kids throw away more food than their tribe had in a year. Most of the fresh stuffing balls, the turkey, the gravy and the corn will go down the garbage disposal.
- Stewed tomatoes. Even though I know that most statistic are made up I can tell you that 95 percent of the K-3 students in my building do not like stewed tomatoes. Apparently it is an Amish tradition to dump those little blobs of goo onto of your mac and cheese. I know I never heard of that either. Any who we serve them with mac and cheese and on Friday I offered them to only the students who wanted them. Not very many takers.
- Bread, bread, bread: It doesn't matter what I order we either have too much or not enough.
- PBJ: Is it really necessary to offer both grape and strawberry. If I dethaw more strawberry than grape than we need more grape. If I dethaw more grape than strawberry than we need more strawberry. If I dethaw the same of each, we run out.
~KISA
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About Me
- kisatrtle
- I'm a 41 year old (gasp) freelance writer, school cafeteria manager, wife and mother. I have three children and one anxious and overweight beagle. I use my blog to make others laugh, to share some cool crafts, to document my lunchlady adventures and to lament about the challenges faced by us all on the journey called life. Thanks for visiting. Please leave some crack...um...I meant some comments.
4 random thoughts:
hehehe, sounds like you are always in a catch 22;)
cheers
I wouldn't survive one day in the school cafeteria. I give you lots of credit for handling all those requirements and stress. I use Stovetop :)
I think you should get your boss's pay when you are doing her job! It sounds really difficult!
And I'm even worse than Stovetop -- I BUY IT PREMADE AT THE GROCERY STORE!! ACK!
Stove Top? Really? My family would freak if I served it for Thanksgiving and actually if my SIL was hosting and served it, I would probably freak! I'd offer to bring it with me next time. LOL!
You are a real trooper. And in my humble opinion, I feel that if you are filling in for more than a day or so in a position like that, you should certainly get more pay!