Older but no wiser
This past weekend being Memorial Day, we were all prepared for a lot of business at work. Memorial Day usually marks the first really busy weekend of the season, and things only get worse from there. To summarize, this has been a hell of a week for me.
We had four people in the kitchen, and it’s been a tough battle to get even that many. Chef Pete hired me back before Easter. He hired Ermin a few weeks ago – not much English but he had cooked before. He worked one day and never showed up again. In a pinch, one of the waitresses called her sister, who had run her own restaurant but was now idle. So in comes Gloria, who worked out so well she was brought on full time. She then brings in her daughter-in-law, who had worked with Gloria at her restaurant, but she also only lasted one day (didn’t like working long hours. Never occurred to her that with enough people in the kitchen we wouldn’t have a lot of long hours, but anyway…) So Gloria calls Steve, her line cook, and asks for help. (Friday was Customer Appreciation Day, which offered free food out on the course, Saturday was a huge wedding, and Sunday was Mothers’ Day Brunch plus regular golf business.) Steve came in and got us through Mother’s Day weekend, and decided to stay on. Loud, obnoxious, and talks a good line of BS, but he was a decent cook.
That brings us to this weekend. Friday, Steve doesn’t show up for work. I was supposed to be out by 3pm, but no Steve, so I stayed. Finally we hear from Steve an hour or so later, who explains that he got arrested for driving with a suspended license. (Pete was ready to can his ass.) So Pete calls Gloria, who comes in at 6:30 so I could leave. (I was in no rush to go home, but Pete didn’t think it was fair for me to work a double shift to cover for Steve. Hell, 9am – 9pm used to be my regular shift so staying until 6 was nothing.)
Saturday was busy, but nothing we couldn’t get through. I opened, Gloria came in at 4, and I went home.
Sunday I opened again, expecting to be there all day. Found out that I was only scheduled until 3, Gloria comes in (early as usual.) Steve shows up barely on time, not dressed for work, unshaven, and bragging about how he hadn’t even showered that day. No documentation, nothing to prove his arrest, just a lot of stories. Pete tells me to clock out and go home to rest up, since Monday was going to be crazy. Before I left, Steve comes to me saying Chef told him he could take one of my shifts. I wasn’t too thrilled with this, especially since Pete had already left and Steve’s story kept changing, then he couldn’t make up his mind what day he wanted to change. I told him to leave a note or something so I knew what the hell day I was working, then left. The more I thought about it, the more upset I got, so I sent an e-mail to Pete asking what the duck was going on. He told me that was not what he said – if it was okay with me, Pete approved a switch, but it was not a requirement. I decided to keep my shift and went to a cookout at the neighbors’.
Monday morning, Pete went in at 5:30am to run a breakfast buffet. (He has an hour drive, so he was up since around 3am.) I went in at 8:30am so Pete could go home, with Steve scheduled to show up at 11 so we could do Memorial Day lunch and dinner. I arrive to find a note hanging from the shelf with a list of things that were not done the night before by Steve and Gloria. Steam table was filthy cleaned, grill wasn’t clean, food was left unwrapped, stuff ranging from the minor to the serious, with many of them being things I find every morning when I open (dirty salad mix bowls in the reach-in is a popular one.) We had our radio taken away as punishment. I also saw that according to the schedule, Steve had planned to take my Thursday shift, but it was crossed out by Pete who added “Change denied.” I took the brunt of Pete’s frustration until he left at 9:00.
11:05am, Steve wanders in, not dressed, not clean, not even clocked in. He looks at the schedule and asks why the change was denied. I handed him the note, and Steve loses it. First he gets mad at me for “throwing it in his face.” Then he gets pissed because of some of the language Pete used in the note. (What can I say, he writes the same as he talks.) He didn’t think it was professional that Pete didn’t even stick around to tell him in person. Then he gets on the phone to Gloria and says he’s not working there anymore. “$11 an hour, I didn’t sign up for this.” Um… sign up for what? Cleaning? You work the line, you clean up your mess. If you can’t handle that, there’s the door. He ends walking out. I was already getting lunch orders and knew it was going to get busier, so I called Pete to let him know what was going on. (Steve said he had called Pete a bunch of times, but Pete only saw one missed call.) Pete, unfortunately, had to drive all the way back in. He got there at 12:45, right as we got hit. HARD. We got bitch-slapped. Kicked in the teeth. Punuched in the face. Kneed down low. There is a myriad of terms for what happened, but whatever you want to call it, we had non-stop business for the next three hours, during which we did more onion rings in an hour than I usually do in a week. We were also running out of lettuce, but somehow managed to make it. Three hours later, after the smoke cleared, we had done 75 plates. I think Pete worked that out to roughly 1 plate every 2 minutes (the reality is probably more like 4 plates every 6-8 minutes, since most of the orders were for tables of 4 or 6.) The line looked like a bomb went off in the salad cooler. All I could think of was “there is no way I coulda done that myself.” This was shortly followed by “I wouldn’t have done any better with Steve here.” As much as I hated to drag Pete back in, if he hadn’t come in I woulda been dead, whether or not Steve had been there. As it was, Cheryl (owner) had to help with waiting tables because the girls on the floor were overwhelmed (and we were short-staffed because the dining room manager had gotten sick on something Steve had “created” on Sunday night.)
The rest of the evening wasn’t nearly as bad. Weather was nice, so I figured people were going home to burn some dead cow flesh, or go prepare themselves for the work week. We cleaned up (doing an extra careful job – glass houses and all that) and went home. I then proceeded to do one of the dumbest things I have done in my life (and I have done some pretty dumb things, let me tell you.) I was in so much pain from the day that I started drinking rum and Coke. I have no idea how much I drank, but considering I don’t drink, it probably wasn’t much. (I haven’t been drunk – I mean really REALLY drunk – since I turned 21. I had a few too many a week or so ago, but nothing at all like this.) I barely remember asking Paula for help getting to bed – when I get drunk, everything is moving in fast motion, and everything is hysterically funny. She was not impressed or amused. I crashed at about 10:30pm, but woke up around 2:30am and could not get back to sleep. I flopped around a bit, which woke up the dog, which woke up Paula, so I went downstairs to watch TV and hopefully fall asleep. No such luck.
Tuesday morning the headache hit. Paula gets up and gets ready for work, I’m downing Advil like M&M’s. She leaves, I get into the shower and realize my hair hurts. The world’s colors have changed, and I am very aware of every sound that every bird, every bug is making. Then I remember I have to get my truck inspected that morning. Thank God I have off today. Somehow I manage to get my truck to BC Auto, he does the inspection, tells me I look like death warmed over, and as I am waiting for him to put the sticker on it, my cell rings. Oh crap. Suddenly I remember: Pete told me he may have me come in today. I let it go to voice mail because it was noisy in the shop, then found out it was not Pete, but rather someone I do computer work for in Manchester. I called her back (I sounded so bad that she thought she had woken me up) and said I would be there in an hour.
While I am in Manchester, I start realizing that even being out of bed was a mistake. The world was moving (beyond the normal rotation I mean) and my head was screaming at me. The girls in the office were getting a great laugh at my misfortune.
And then about noon my phone rings. I let it go to voice mail – I didn’t recognize the number, but had a hunch who it was.
It’s Pete.
“You’re in at 4.”
Oh, shit.
I wrapped things up and drove home, stopping in at Stonebridge to let Pete know I had got the message. He warned that it would be a hot night, so drink lots of water. He also asked me how my head was feeling – apparently I was chatting with him Monday night, and he could tell I was drunk (my typing is usually spot-on, but got worse the more I drank.) I told him I was so hungover it was a wonder I was on my feet. Now, most managers would get very upset at this, but not Pete. He’s one of those people who thinks drinking is an occupational necessity, so the fact that I was suffering from it was very amusing to him. I told him I would be back in a few hours and went home, where I gathered my stuff for work and took a short nap.
I got into work about 10 minutes to 4, and tried to put on my game face. Pete and Gloria were making gazpacho, then Pete left for the night. Gloria was bored out of her mind, but I knew it would get busy – Tuesday night there is a Men’s League of about 90 people; many drink a few beers and then go home, but a lot of them do eat, and they always wait to order at the same time. I had never worked a Tuesday night league so while I knew it was typically busy I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, but Pete said after Monday’s battle, Tuesday night would be a walk in the park. So we did whatever orders came back, then stepped out onto the deck to cool off.
Somewhere around 6:30, i started to really feel bad. I was dizzy, so I started drinking more water. I went out onto the deck, and the rest is kinda fuzzy. From my perspective, i needed to sit down. Next thing I know, I am in an ambulance. From what I was told, I said “I need to” but never said what I needed. I fell face first onto the deck and was out cold. I vaguely remember people shouting at me a few times, then a bunch of guys show up, load me onto a stretcher, and drag my sorry ass to Catholic Medical Center. I had no concept of time, but I was told this morning that it took them 15 minutes to show up, and I was in and out of consciousness the whole time. (First Responder was some 90 year old woman from Pinardville who could barely walk herself, what the hell was she supposed to do?)
By the time I got to CMC, I was awake, and demanding to know what had happened. The paramedic (Walter I think) said I passed out, but they didn’t know why. Several people at Stonebridge told the paramedics that I was diabetic, so that was their first assumption (sugar was 140 so that was out.) Then they assumed heat exhaustion, which I guess was right on the money – no food since the day before, alcohol consumption, not enough water, kitchen was 104 degrees… yeah probably a safe bet. I also was aware that I was maybe half-on and half-off the stretcher, strapped in but very uncomfortable, and my head was killing me. I felt like someone had hit me in the back of the head, but from what everyone said I landed on my right side. (I later found out that when they loaded me into the ambulance they used some sort of portable chair stretcher to get me down the stairs of the deck, and my head was flopping around like a bobble doll. No wonder my neck is so stiff.)
I recall someone saying I had arrived at CMC around 7:30. They stuck leads all over me, cut off my chef jacket (great, another one destroyed – I had just splattered one with buffalo sauce, and another got ruined because it went through the washer with a Sharpie in the sleeve pocket.) They ran an IV, took blood, and then left me there to contemplate how exactly I had arrived at this point. I didn’t have my wallet (it was in my locker) so they had to ask me a bunch of questions, but I did have my cell phone. As is the usual procedure, they had an IV in the crook of my elbow, and the other arm had a blood pressure cuff on it, so I was unable to raise my arm high enough to make a phone call. (Funny, the last time I was in the ER at CMC, the same thing happened – due to new rules, they were not allowed to call anyone for me, and insisted that I make the call. Morons didn’t seem to grasp that I couldn’t lift my arm.) So I sent a text message to Paula to let her know where I was, then another to Gloria to apologize for abandoning her. She said I was being ridiculous and to get some rest, and not to worry about my Wednesday shift. (I thought I had been fired. There is a rule about kitchens – you don’t leave the line. You don’t take days off. If your grandmother dies, you bury her on your day off. I honestly thought I was in big trouble.)
Doctor shows up, says they are assuming heat exhaustion but wanted to make sure it wasn’t my heart since I had complained of chest pain. (I had trouble breathing right before I passed out.) Paula showed up a few hours later (she had been at a movie with her phone off so had no idea what had happened.) Fortunately she saved the “serves you right!” speech until later and just sat with me. I am pretty sure I dozed off a few times, and felt bad that she was stuck there with me instead of home sleeping. So I had to lie there until after midnight so they could take more blood tests. At this point, I was reminded of what day it was; as a nurse comes in and takes blood, I think what a way to start my birthday. By 1am they were fairly sure I was fine (just very tired) so they sent me home. I came home, showered, and passed out in bed.
I hear Paula leaving for work. Look at the clock, it’s 10:12am. <Obscenity deleted>! I was supposed to be at work by 9:30am, but before I could panic I recalled what happened the night before. My neck helped as a reminder. Ow. Got up, showered, then remembered we had no food in the house. Oh crap, my wallet and my truck are still at work. Fortunately, it’s all downhill to Goffstown! I hopped on my bicycle (yes, not my motorcycle, my bicycle!) and rode to work. It’s not really all that far, and it is mostly downhill, so I had no real trouble until I got close to the club itself. One small hill where I had to get off the bike and walk it, but all in all not too bad for not riding a bike in about 6 years. Tossed the bike in the back of the truck and went into work to get my stuff.
Between Pete, the owner Ron, and Erin (waitress who was there last night) I got the rest of the story: Gloria saw me fall, ran and got Ron, who called 911 and stayed on the line until someone showed up 15 minutes later. He said he could have walked to Goffstown Center in that amount of time, and if he ever gets sick, take him to another town before calling anyone. Sylvia (waitress who lives near me) stayed with me the whole time until the paramedics finally arrived. Surprisingly, Pete was not angry about what happened. He didn’t even lecture me about getting drunk the day before a shift. Just told me that working today was out of the question, go home, get some sleep, and prepare for another hot day on Thursday.
I fully expected Paula to let loose on me. She would have every right to, after all. I don’t know whether or not I would have passed out if I hadn’t been drinking the night before, but I am sure it didn’t help. However, I have been told before about forgetting to eat, and as my wife, Paula always reserves the right to point out when I do something really dumb. In this case, drinking myself silly, passing out, and ending up in the hospital happened to fall under the category of “You Would Actually Have To Be Smarter To Do Something Stupid.” I think this is some sort of mental punishment – like waiting for the other shoe to drop. She hasn’t really said much, so either she’s letting me kick myself or it’s still brewing and will explode later in the week.
Happy Birthday to me. With any luck I’ll survive to see 40.