Can’t Take My Eyes Off You...

You can’t trust a dishwasher. I don’t mean that to be as callous or as cut and dried as I make it sound, but from time to time you’ve got to watch them like a hawk; and thes guys are the exception to the rule. Dishwashers are an interesting sort. Almost always immigrants from Central America or occasionally one of the African countries, they work in the basement or ante-room of the restaurant doing the same fucking thing for about 8 hours a day, for very little money and leave work with a sheen on themselves from constant spraying of a high pressure hose. If they’re lucky the chef might ask them to do a little light prep work; such as de-boning some chicken or cutting vegetables for a stock; to break up the monotony of sliding trays of dishes into and out of a power washer. This isn’t a piece on hardships however…
The first instance that springs to mind was several months ago when I was still working at the Meatpacking District restaurant, formerly owned by a young “European” superstar chef (you’ll probably hear more about this place and the people I worked with as the weeks progress) that I first mentioned in “Knifey-Spooney.” Our sous chef, the guy who told me the aforementioned story, had this absolutely beautiful knife. I don’t remember exactly what kind it was, but suffice it to say it was a 10 and a half inch piece of steel with a wooden handle that retailed for around $400…I’m sure when he bought it was closer to $500. Anyway, one day he got into the kitchen and he found his knife, where he usually left it under the pass, (the area where cooks put food up for the chef or sous chef to inspect and “finish,” who in turn give it to the runners where it ends up in front of you) except it was mangled and wouldn’t have filleted a salmon, let alone properly sliced a tomato. How did this happen? How did a piece of Japanese steel end up looking like it got ran over by a lawnmower? By a dish washer using it to open a can of god-knows-what, that’s how. I’m not saying he did it callously, but these guys don’t know the difference between the plastic handled “house” knives and a piece of forged steel that costs over a grand. Incidentally, we suspected it might’ve been the same guy who was helping himself to the vodka we used in our Granita’s (that’s a story for another day).
I also similarly found one of my knives in questionable condition when just last week, I pulled out my boning knife to find a huge chunk missing from the handle; the kind of missing chunk that could only be made by someone dropping the knife onto the tile floor of the kitchen. And also the kind of missing chunk that I would not notice until I personally pulled the knife out of my bag to de-bone another chicken; because who ever dropped it had been kind enough to slip the knife back in my bag without telling me.
Another interesting example came a couple weeks ago (at my new restaurant) during a particularly busy dinner service; so busy in fact that it saw me running up and down the stairs several times because we kept running out of things we had prepped earlier. Around 9:30 there was a great deal of yelling from the basement and our GM came to investigate. He asked me if I knew what had happened and I had to plead ignorance; he went downstairs and I went back to work…running between the garde manger and fry stations. At some point I ran out of fries or mixed greens or sardines and had to run downstairs again. That’s when I saw our GM in our uniform room with a red-faced dish washer who was attempting to change into his clothes, but having great difficulty due to his teetering about. I went back upstairs, briefed my colleagues on what I’d seen and went back to work. It was only a little while later when I had a chance to get back down that I found out this particular dish washer had taken it upon himself to have a “few” drinks while he was working. How many you ask? Well, our GM usually picks up two cases of beer for us on a Thursday or a Friday that slowly get drank after service by the entire staff over the course of the weekend (do the math, 48 beers, about 12 or so different people a night, that’s like 2 beers). Well, Friday was busy and we treated ourselves, which meant there was only one case left on Saturday. This guy had polished off 20 beers from a case and was still standing…albeit with a great deal of difficulty. Needless to say, he is no longer employed by our restaurant, but more importantly we had no beer to drink that night.
I guess what I’m saying is that from time to time you need to check up on the dish washers because you never know when one of them is going to be using your knife to open a pickle jar or a can of tomatoes or half in the bag or taking a nap in the walk-in. But at the same time you should remember that every once in a while, one of those guys rises through the kitchen ranks and opens a place of his own, so whatever you do, don’t treat him like outright shit.