Holy Crap: a 2nd Shift in the Life of a Waffle House Grill Op. (Part The First)

Holy crap! A lot of people that work at the Waffle House have been in jail before.

I slept until about noon today so I was quite energetic and probably annoying as hell to my co-workers bouncing around from sink to grill to fridge to soda fountain. I'll be working an additional shift this week on Friday. That ought to be fun. (Psyche!)

Here's a short description of my daily second shift routine:

I generally try to arrive 20 minutes early. I'll clock in before I start doing anything. I won't start doing anything until I clock in. There's always work to be done right off the bat. And Waffle House rules pretty much require folks to arrive at least 10 minutes early to their shift if at all possible. Steve Skinner, my boss will generally already have between 3 and 6 cartons of dehydrated hashbrowns laying out ready for me to re-hydrate. So I'll do that. Steve also generally leaves between 3 and 5 packages of waffle-mix (pretty much just flour and sugar) out for me to mix. The waffle recipie is:

Mix 4 eggs
1/2 gallon Pet Half-n-Half
with 1 package waffle mix
mmm mm good!

it's best to use a whisk to mix the ingredients together. Also, you'll want to beat the eggs into the half-n-half first and then simultaneously mix the waffle mix into the wet ingredients.

So, by the time I get finished with this stuff, I generally have to go out and cook some food for a minute or two. Then again, on slower days, nobody comes in. It's time to get the chili started:

3 sausage patties
3 quarter pound hamburger patties
mmm mm good! -- brown 'em in a big grits pot -- don't drain the dang grease or you'll rot in chili purgatory with no flavor!

fill the grits pot au mashed up meat with about six glasses of water, boil it
add one can of campbell's tomato juice (hot dang! it's almost a vegetable!)
add the packet of chili powder and dried beans
add 3 "heaping" bowls full of diced onions

also, don't skimp on the dang onions! (It says not to on the dried beans/ chili powder packet)

stir till it's good and happy

put it on the 2 foot grill to simmer at 250ish degrees for the rest of the seven-hour shift.

Hell yes.

Probably will have to cook a cheeseburger or an order of eggs or something minor here in a minute. Second shift is really slow. But I don't give a dang because I'm not a waiter! Yeehaw! Jeepers. That was kind of insensitive towards waiters and waitresses. Oh well. I think I broke down the salary thing somewhere in one of my first few entries. I'm making US$6.80 per hour now, compared to something like US$5.50 per hour (plus tips) that the waitresses make. Actually I ought to double-check that waitress number.

OH! the "Anonymous" comment which set me on the dang warpath last time was actually from a friend of mine at Duke. He was apparently in a really pissy mood due to a nasty grade on an organic chemistry exam. I can't say that I agree with his politics; but I'm honestly really glad that I'm not in summer school this year. I'd rather spend 3 hours making grits and grilling burgers than 3 hours taking an organic chemistry exam any day. You think cooking $200 dollars worth of food in an hour by yourself is stressful? Try taking an organic chemistry exam in a cramped lecture hall with 30 classmates, all equally frazzled, on for size.

So, that's it for right now. Tune in next time for the shocking conclusion to a 2nd Shift in the Life of a Waffle House Grill Op. Time to go find some craft beer.