So, today, I was offered a job in the kitchen at a local restaurant. The kitchen looked very good (clean, well-maintained, etc.) and it seemed like it might be a good replacement for my current job which I dislike for a number of reasons, some of which I've talked about here previously and others that I haven't gotten into. However, something really struck me as odd about the position.
In my current job, we have more or less formally assigned duties (8 line stations plus 3 dish/sanitation stations) As a much smaller restaurant, they have a lot fewer lines and everyone does a little bit of everything - that makes sense. But, they also have no sanitation crew and instead use a rotating list where everyone has to clean the bathrooms at some point (during a cooking shift, I might add). As a small business, I want to be empathetic, but I just can't wrap my head around a chef cleaning the bathrooms - especiallly when on a cooking shift. At my current job, we contract bathrooms out to the skills center here, as do most restaurants in the area. It costs us around $15 a day and is well worth the money IMO.
Needless to say, I turned the job down. I was polite (you never know who you'll meet in the future) and they seemed like nice people, but I just couldn't do it. Besides the obvious health issues with a chef cleaning the toilets and then returning to cook food, I just don't see cleaning toilets as part of a chef's duties. Sure, I'll clean the kitchen, and I wash my own dishes when I hace time, but not toilets.
Has anyone else experienced this before? Do many restaurants use chefs to clean the bathrooms? I've never come across this before, so it seems like a rarity to me, but I've never worked outside of my current metro area so I was just curious.
In my current job, we have more or less formally assigned duties (8 line stations plus 3 dish/sanitation stations) As a much smaller restaurant, they have a lot fewer lines and everyone does a little bit of everything - that makes sense. But, they also have no sanitation crew and instead use a rotating list where everyone has to clean the bathrooms at some point (during a cooking shift, I might add). As a small business, I want to be empathetic, but I just can't wrap my head around a chef cleaning the bathrooms - especiallly when on a cooking shift. At my current job, we contract bathrooms out to the skills center here, as do most restaurants in the area. It costs us around $15 a day and is well worth the money IMO.
Needless to say, I turned the job down. I was polite (you never know who you'll meet in the future) and they seemed like nice people, but I just couldn't do it. Besides the obvious health issues with a chef cleaning the toilets and then returning to cook food, I just don't see cleaning toilets as part of a chef's duties. Sure, I'll clean the kitchen, and I wash my own dishes when I hace time, but not toilets.
Has anyone else experienced this before? Do many restaurants use chefs to clean the bathrooms? I've never come across this before, so it seems like a rarity to me, but I've never worked outside of my current metro area so I was just curious.