The S-C calls me over conspiratorially this morning as I arrive; Chef has had a phone call from one of the clients to whom I deliver; they've opened an out-of-date packet of rouille which was off, and it's my fault for delivering it to them in this state.
So assuming I'm guilty I drive up to the shop with the deliveries assuming I'll either be sacked or so badly shouted at I'll end up throwing in the apron and buggering off.
Instead, chef is rather calm and asks me to think carefully about what I'd delivered the previous day. I do, and remember that it was jambon persillé. He asks me to go back to the kitchen and double-check in the diary we fill in every day with details of what's sent where - until now to make sure we don't send out the same thing two days in a row to someone.
There, I see that it was indeed the aforementioned jambon persillé and that we last sent out rouille on Friday. Seems to me that the client, for some reason, kept the stuff from Friday and opened it yesterday, and I call Chef and tell him this and go off to do the rest of my deliveries.
When I come back Chef has spent an hour on the phone being shouted at by the client who insists I delivered the rouille yesterday. Well, I can prove I didn't and even have a witness - the S-C clearly remembers coming in to see me slicing up the jambon persillé and, yesterday being in the Twilight Zone, complimenting me on doing it well.
Hmm. Chef doesn't believe me; or, rather, he says he doesn't know who to believe. Well, the client has thrown away the bad stuff complete with the labels showing that it was out of date when they opened it, whereas I have a paper trail and a witness to back me up.
He still doesn't know who to believe, and compensates by being in a very, very bad mood and SHOUTING at everyone, all the time. So badly, in fact, that the S-C ends up shouting back, telling Chef that he's not a kid, he's not a work experience student and he does not want to be shouted at like this.
Which doesn't really calm things down much, but then I for one am not surprised. Take someone who likes shouting at people for no reason, give him a reason to be angry but without anyone specific to take out the anger on, and everyone gets it.
What bollocks. You can recognise me, I'm the one over there in the corner not giving a shit.
Like, for example, when I put the lunches in the oven to warm them up. I've laid out 36 individual trays and am about to start putting the chicken into them when I ask the S-C, who's standing next to me, "These are the right escalopes aren't they?"
He doesn't get a chance to reply as Chef, who is passing by, leaps in and bollocks me for not knowing that they are the right ones. He leads me to the menu and points me to the words 'Chicken escalope'; he leads me to the fridge and invites me to point him at any other escalopes (my mistake here was saying there are some in the other fridge - that's the wrong fridge for such things so, if the right escalopes are in the other fridge, then that's yet another mistake I've made), and then back to the bag of escalopes I was about to open and invites me to tell him if they're the right ones or not.
From the list of replies that spring to mind, somehow I manage to say just, "Oui, chef". And then we spend five minutes listening to how communicating is so important, how I should have verified the ingredients this morning - nay, last night, last week even - how I am wasting the S-C's time, how I am delaying lunch for the customers who pay our wages (with the fluff in their pockets, I avoid saying), how I am letting the team down...well, just insert some bollocks here. You can make it up yourselves now, I think, and frankly you won't be able to imagine anything that's worse than what I really hear.
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