Cafeteria Duty

[RetailKate]

Recently my job title took a decided turn from "retail slave" and morphed into "Primary School Cafeteria Worker" which is quite the switch if I do say so myself.
However that doesn't mean that I don't still have SC stories to tell, it's just that many of them are now Stupid Kid, Stupid Teacher, or Stupid Support Personnel stories. That being said, voila

You are not allergic!/ If your kid is, then tell us!!!!
At our school we are required to get notes from the Dr. stating that a child is allergic to something and requires a substitution/omission. And yet every day we have a flood of kids attempting to scream at us that they are allergic to broccoli, carrots, jello, beef, what have you. Now, don't get me wrong. I understand that all those allergies exist, but I have a hard time believing your screamed tale when just last week I saw you chowing down on just this very thing and loving it with every fiber of your being. Even better is the kids that come in, demand to know the name of something, demand to know what it is, and when they finally figure it out, freak out and yell at us that they can't have it cause if they do, they will die.

Best though is the parents that come in on a weekly basis demanding to know why their little pookyookems got something they couldn't have. But will they be arsed to ever go to the clinic and get a note saying not to give whathaveyou to them? Hell no!

Teachers stealing food
We work in such a poor area that all of our students get free breakfasts and lunch's just so they can be assured that they get 2 meals a day. Some of those kids only eat at school and come to school starving each day. Do all of them? No. But for the few that do I want to make damn sure we have plenty to feed them. That's why I have so very very little sympathy for teachers who sneak in and try to steal milk, bread, condiments, (for the break-room more than anything) or basically anything that doesn't seem to be stored away and locked down. The ballsiest ones' would go to sign in for trays and would sign in other teachers, not sign in at all, or would attempt to sign in on our names since "we work there, so we should get a nice fat discount"
Why yes! I get a lovely discount! It's getting the privilage to get up at 4 in the morning so I can be there by 5:30 getting breakfast ready, then serving it, then eating leftovers, then getting lunch ready, serving, and shoveling down leftovers before cleaning the whole kitchen, all for minimum wage! It's a lovely discount.
The Chicken Fiasco
I figured I would end with an actual story instead of generalized gripes.
Bit o backstory. Every so often we have chicken day at school. It's usually accompanied with cornbread, green beans, cookies, generally good food. Everybody loves it! I mean LOVES IT. The choruses of "We love you lunch ladies!!!" that burst forth when little kindergarteners see the mound of drumsticks sitting on the serving table really goes far to making that job worthwhile. The teachers are also big fans and for the most part are just happy to see that menu item cycle around again. However there is always on teacher that seems to want to ruin it for everyone. This was her attempt.

J - annoying teacher
Me
BL - My boss

My coworker and I were blazing through the long line of 1st graders which is good, because 1st graders are about as hyper as kindergartners, but have a larger vocabulary, so they can argue more. Anyway.
At this point J muscles her way up to the front of the line and actually halts the entire line of 1st graders as this conversation occurs.
J- I need soma that chicken! A big piece! A really big piece!
Me - Ok, hang on I'm trying to get through the current wave of kids, I'll help you as soon as we get a buffer made up.
J - Oh man are you serious????? I gotta wait? Hang on, HANG ON!!! I see the piece I want! It's that one, you see that one? It's that one, get that one right there! J proceeds to mash her face against the sneeze guard as she tries to guide my unwilling view to her desired "big piece"
Me - this one?
J - Yes that one! that one looks good! I'll take it!
I send her chicken down the line with the announcement of "teacher tray" so co worker will know to put more on. J gets her chicken and leaves, and the rest of the kids file through with a minimum of fuss.

Like, a minute after we get the kids through.
J - hey, guys? Yoo hoo? Guys? I got a problem!!
BL - Come back here, we're counting up food for the last class!
J - I was sitting out there getting ready to eat, and this chicken, this chicken isn't dark enough. I said I wanted a dark piece!
Me - You said you wanted a big piece, you picked it out.
J - Yeah but, this piece...
J then begins to dig her fingers into the chicken in order to prove that it isn't dark enough? I guess?
BL - I cannot and will not replace that. If you had said something when you first got it, maybe. But now that you're touched it, I'm not taking it back.
J - yeah but, those kids don't need to know. Just give me a better piece. Here I'll get one.
J attempts to open the hot holders in order to pull out more chicken.
BL - Get out of there!! You will get us in trouble! I'm not replacing the chicken. It's fine and it's done and you didn't fix this when you could so now you're just going to have to deal with it! This isn't a restaurant, we have a limited amount of food, and may not even have enough for the last class with how many teachers ate.
J - So then give me a piece of the chicken you're getting out.
BL - We have no more, the rest of the kids are getting chicken nuggets.
J - Then give me chicken nuggets, a whole lot of them. I love your nuggets.
BL - *getting really mad* NO! You have a piece right there! On your tray! You have been eating off it while we're taking! No more food!
J - Then put it in the microwave to brown it up.
BL - No! You did that last time and made it tough as leather then tried to get free food cause it was our microwave that did it! Go use the teacher's lounge microwave!
J - Look, I know this is hard, I'll just take some of these nuggets and heat them myself. *starts to reach into box of frozen chicken nuggets
All of us as one - GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN!!!
Finally she left while muttering that she just wanted a big dark piece and that we were always doing this and she was so mistreated. Uhg.

But that's my new job in a nutshell! Crazy teachers and crazy kids.
I'll have more stories soon I'm sure!

[Captain Trips]

Report her. She should (and probably does) know better than to reach into the serving area. It's a health-code violation for one, and she knows it by saying "they're just kids, they'll never know."

[ShootMePlease]

Waht's particularly galling is that these teachers would rather stuff their pie holes than make sure the kids have something to eat. If this is all the food some of these kids get all day then teachers should not be allowed to eat the food at all. There's no reason why they can't bring their own food or purchase it elsewhere. The kid's needs should come first.

[MoonCat]

Waht's particularly galling is that these teachers would rather stuff their pie holes than make sure the kids have something to eat. If this is all the food some of these kids get all day then teachers should not be allowed to eat the food at all. There's no reason why they can't bring their own food or purchase it elsewhere. The kid's needs should come first.

I agree. The teachers are getting paid. Yes, I know that doesn't make them rich (I have friends who teach) but it's still more than the kids get. Let them bring their own food. And that teacher was a total twat. Sounds hyper, actually.

[spark]

My dad teaches. It pays more than a lot of jobs he's had over the years. But it pays little enough that we did get on the free lunch program ourselves, as kids. So it's not completely beyond the pale for a teacher to get the free food too. But I find myself hard pressed to believe that a GOOD teacher would behave like this one did! I feel sorry for her students.

[BrenDAnn]

I was about to say, if she behaves like that over FOOD, I feel bad for the kids she's teaching. Wow.

[Kristev]

A good teacher wouldn't behave that way.

[chainedbarista]

i'd report her for that; she makes enough to bring in her own damned lunch, and it's past time she did so, lazy hag. acting like a spoiled child, 'i want, i want, i want,' then throwing a tantrum when she realises it's not what she wanted. gtfo, eat what you have or LEAVE, dammit.

[RetailKate]

We actually did report her to the principal. Who's a pretty cool guy and took it upon himself to let her know that this was not going to fly, now or ever.
Thanks to that we haven't heard much from her or any of the other teachers. Course, that could also be because school is about to be out so all account activity has been frozen on pain of "accepting that this will come out of your summer check"

[Geek King]

Did anyone else note the teacher wanted a "big piece" of dark meat? Now, maybe I don't know my chicken as well as I think I do, but aren't the big pieces usually the breast pieces? You know, the white meat of the chicken? Unless these chickens have the biggest backs/thighs I've ever seen, she's setting herself up for failure.

[chainedbarista]

yes, in dark meat, the largest piece would be a thigh, which isn't very big, but that's no excuse for her behavior. the food is actually there for the kids; anyone else is a secondary consideration. she should know better, but apparently, she doesn't care.

[PatchO'Black]

She should know better, but apparently, she doesn't care.

I believe that is a good short definition for an SC.

[laborcat]

Did anyone else note the teacher wanted a "big piece" of dark meat? Now, maybe I don't know my chicken as well as I think I do, but aren't the big pieces usually the breast pieces? You know, the white meat of the chicken? Unless these chickens have the biggest backs/thighs I've ever seen, she's setting herself up for failure.

Dude I totally started to go down the wrong road with that one... bad, bad man.

I don't know how they do it where my kids go to school. I don't remember the teachers eating school food when I was going to hillbilly high back in the day. Of course, it wasn't really fit for human consumption, either. Most of us didn't eat it.

I just asked alpha son and he said sometimes the teachers ate in the cafeteria but they didn't usually eat school food.

[depechemodefan]

J sounds like a homeless person. At the library the homeless people can't wrap their minds around "no". Well, other patrons can't wrap their minds around "no" but the way J was talking it reminds me of the homeless people at work.

[Moirae]

A suggestion, why don't you keep track of how many teachers are eating every day for a couple of weeks? Get enough extra to feed that many teachers, and then make the teachers pay for it out of their own pockets? You make some money back that way, and I bet it will chase some of them away leaving more food for the kids.