Restaurant Workers Who Intentionally Taint Your Food, page 1

reply to post by kattraxx

Thanks for bringing much needed attention to this problem, S&F for you.

This is the reason I have left food service for good!

I have never tainted food served either to the public or my family. In fact the high standard of cleanliness I follow at home was carried over to my job.

Certainly some customers can be real @$$&*%#$ but do not deserve to be poisoned! I consider tainting food served to the public right up there with any type of violence intended to inflict pain, misery or death.

I quit serving because I was tired of the public and wanted to hide away in the kitchen so I became a prep cook. That was fine until I met the dishwasher from hell. The only reason she wore rubber gloves to do dishes was so that her hands would not inadvertently get cleaned.

She had this thing about feeding birds with leftovers off of dirty plates. She would shred the leftover rolls and pieces of toast to throw out back and without washing hands would put her version of clean dishes and silverware away. Her filthy egg stained un-gloved hand would scoop ice from the ice machine to be used for the public's beverages. I found her brushing her teeth in my prep sink and I came pretty close to taking her down and squeezing that toothpaste right up her nose. Solution levels were never checked on her dish sanitizer and often ran out.

I could go on and on about this piece of work referred to as our dishwasher. The health inspector was about as incompetent as she. He did not come in to inspect during hours of operation. He never witnessed her procedures or the actual running of our kitchen. I told my managers and owner of the restaurant and threatened to call the health department. Nothing was ever done. I warned all staff not to eat from her dishes we all ate with paper plates and plastic utensils.

The cooks were good but dishwashers were usually low paid unskilled labor often drunks who do it for a couple weeks and are gone with the first pay check.

Many of you worry over the cooks and servers but often forget the dishwashers. I eat in one restaurant in our town it's family owned I worked there for a time and they are clean and conscientious.

I tried every way possible to get through to this person but she just didn't get it. She was ignorant and unhygienic in her personal life. Just gross and disgusting.

Please do be careful where you eat especially with the elderly, chronically ill and children they can be so susceptible. Some people just don't have a brain or conscience. I have seen a co-worker put dish soap in another workers drink giving her terrible diarrhea. It was "just a joke" but no one thought it was funny imo she should have been fired.

This does go on all too often don't think for one minute it hasn't touched your life. Let the buyer beware.

(edit for spelling)

[edit on 27-12-2008 by Morningglory]