Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.
I am walking to work when I happen to notice my boss sitting in a restaurant a couple of blocks away from our restaurant. I realize that it is time for his monthly neighborhood watch or business association or whatever the fuck meeting he goes to once a month. He does not see me as I stride by but I know that he will be away from the restaurant for a while. Being the opener, there will be no one else there except for the kitchen crew. All of the sidework will be the responsibility of me and me alone.
“How long has Mr. Man been gone?” I ask Juan, the line cook.
“Que?”
“When did Mr. Man leave for the meeting?” I ask again.
“Si, he’s at a meeting.”
“How long?”
“Thanks,” I say, giving up and cursing that even though I took years of Spanish and heard it all around me growing up, the only thing I know how to say in Spanish is, “We need more glasses and silverware, please.”
I get the ketchups out of the reach-in and set up the bread baskets, all the while knowing that I need to get on the mopping detail or the floor won’t be dry by the time we open. I hate mopping. The bucket is one of those huge yellow kinds with the contraption that you put the filthy mop head into to squeeze out all the filthy excess water. The mop head is so dirty that as soon as you put the mop into the pail of fresh water, the water instantly turns the same color of our coffee at the end of the night when somebody wants one more cup but we don’t quite have enough so I just add more hot water to it. I am heading downstairs to retrieve the dreaded mopping supplies when a little devil appears on my shoulder.
“Don’t fucking mop today. Your boss isn’t even here. Who cares?” he tells me. “He’ll never know.”
Suddenly, an angel pops up on my other shoulder. “Now, now, now, you know that you need to mop. It’s one of your duties as opening server.”
“He said doody,” the devil laughs.
“Duty, not doody” the angel corrects. “It’s your duty to mop.”
“Fuck it,” says devil. “I’m in the details and I determine it doesn’t fucking matter.”
I look back and forth at my two advisers, unsure which one to listen to. The devil lights a cigarette and blows smoke rings that circle around the angel’s golden halo. I hate cigarette smoke but I hate mopping even more. I grab the angel on my shoulder, break its neck, put him in a to-go box and throw him away. The devil laughs and then disappears in a puff of sulfur.
I have a plan. I pick up the dry mop and carry it upstairs and then go to the dishroom to get a plastic quart container of water. I go to the front of the restaurant and pour about a cup of the water onto the floor and then drag the mop over it to give the appearance of mopping. I do this in a few spots around the restaurant so that when the boss gets there he will see that the floor is damp and as well as the mop head. On my way back down to the basement, I pour a bit of the water into the mop bucket so it too looks as if it has been used. As I walk past the garbage can, I can hear the muffled cry of the angel begging for help. Curious, I open the box to see that he is still there, pale and crying. His eyes look up at me pleading for assistance.
“Please. Please, help me. I know what you did. You didn’t really mop the floor, did you? It’s wrong of you. The only way you can save me is if you go back upstairs and do a complete mopping job. Otherwise, I will fade away and you will never hear from me again.”
The poor little angel is lying there in the to-go box, his halo a dull grey color and his wings bent out of shape. I look back at the mop bucket and know what I should do.
“Just mop the floor,” says the angel. “It will save both of us. Do it for both of us. Mop the floor…” His words are barely audible, his breath so shallow, his eyes so sad.
I slowly move my hand to the angel’s face and gently caress his cheek with my index finger, marveling at the softness of his skin. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the mop bucket and I suddenly remember how much mopping sucks. I move my thumb to meet my index finger with the angel’s head in between. Like bubble wrap, I pop that bitches head off and put the lid back onto the to-go container. No mopping today!! Hurray!
So forgive me, father, for I have sinned. I deceived my boss and led him to believe that the floor had been mopped when it hadn’t been. It was wrong of me, I know. I offer this confession to anyone who reads it so that maybe I can be absolved of this sin. It isn’t the worst of sins, is it? It was just a dirty floor, after all. How bad can that be? I did, however pop the head off of an angel. That’s kinda bitchy, I guess.
What have you done, readers? I ask you to take a moment to admit your biggest restaurant confession, anonymously of course, and leave a comment below. Show me that I’m not the only evil person here.
Florida
Saturday lunches we have to scrub the drains under the 2 soda machines. I always pick the one in the unused station so no one can see that I just throw a pitcher of water on the floor and then just wipe it back up. These drains went 2 years without ever needing a scrub and all of a sudden it’s a weekly necessity? Your clothes get soaked doing it and if you don’t put the drain back right (which no one ever can) water floods everywhere. Oops ! I, ,way sorry I, not sorry I don’t get paid enough to also be a plumber 🙂
maxi
We’re not meant to leave more than 2 tubs of cutlery unpolished at the end of the night but sometimes I kinda combine tubs (so spoons are mixed in with forks, say) so it LOOKS like I’ve polished more than I have. We have a crazy amount of cutlery at our place, as long as the opener has enough to lay up the restaurant I don’t feel inclined to stay past midnight polishing extra! Sorrreeeee!
Boss
I have owned my cafe for almost 20 years and work the same shifts as my employees. Sometimes I sprinkle comet on the floor and spray it with the dish sprayer and just lightly mop over it. When I do side work I steal sugar packets and jellies from the other waitresses section cuz I’m too lazy to go get my own. When I wash dishes I put the last of them back out in the bus tubs for the morning dishwasher to do. I also drink red wine in my coffee cup after noon and never ever marry the ketchup. Just pour more on top. I know….not a very good example to set but I have mad skills at being sneaky about it. If they suspect anything they sure don’t show it.
Anonymous
You are the boss though, you kinda get to do whatever the fuck you want….
Boss
Yeah…Whatever the fuck I want….But I insist THEY do it “right”. :/
BV
Sometimes I just splash water on the bar floor instead of scrubbing. Or I clean behind the bar first so when the closing server sees I still have dirty tables in cocktail, they’ll help me out and clean them because I have “so much to do”
LB
Sometimes when I roll silverware I will use two napkins instead of one so that the rolls are thicker and the bucket fills up faster…
Vaanja
When I was working the graveyard shift at a truckstop diner (8 hour shifts, I was the only server, only one cook, and we had to completely turn over the restaurant (silverware, dishes, mopping, windows, bev stations, stock the salad and dessert line) in addition to handling any actual customers that came in (oh yes, for 2.13 an hour plus tips, bless Texas). I eschewed mopping 3 times in 6 months – twice because I was too busy, and once because I didn’t fucking well feel like it. Now, I work in a much higher-end seafood house, and we’re (by my standards) ridiculously spoiled. We stock and sweep our own tables, and our extra sidework is generally something like rinsing 15 trays or so. I will admit that when I have one particular section-neighbor, I’ll occasionally steal crackers or sugars from his tables or sweep crumbs from under my tables over to his side. That’s not laziness, though, that’s good old-fashioned revenge for having to carry away his trays of dirty dishes and generally babysit his tables while he macks on the chickies or checks his iphone 20 times a shift.
Anonymous
I used to work at a Seattles Best Coffee, but it was on the top floor of a grocery store so I only had to mop the tiny area behind the counter and the store guys did the seating area. I got really fucking tired of walking alllll the way downstairs and to the opposite side of the grocery store to get the mop and bucket and lugging it allllll the way back, moppping, then repeating the whole voyage to put the shit back. That walk seriously took about 15 minutes, not even including mop time. So I started filling a large cup with hot water and soap, spilling the water all over the floor, and using the squeegee thing we had for cleaning spills to get the water down the floor drain. (I was usually the only one on so as long as the store managers stayed away for five minutes no one would scold me). After about a week of this, they started scheduling me to close every shift since I always got the floor so much cleaner when I mopped. Hurrah for laziness!
Fred
I used to spray SheilaShine into the air instead of actually onto the stainless steel behind the bar. When one particular manager came to do his dreaded checkouts, he would smell the heady benzene-laden aroma and assume I had sprayed and wiped like a good little automaton. HA!
Michelle
At the end of a closing shift I found a full tub of silver someone didn’t roll which means I’m supposed to do it. Instead, I filled my apron with the silver and then emptied it in the dishpit the next day when I was bartending and it wouldn’t be my side work to roll. Sorry noobs.
Amanda
I only spot clean the mirrors over the bar. I only clean the dirty looking bottles. If the boss isn’t there, I will always consume large amounts of vodka and sprite. Always.
Brandi
Sometimes as the closing server there would be a ton of silverware that needed to be rolled. I would dump the bin of clean silverware back into the dirty bus tub and make it look like the dish person didn’t wash it before they left at the end of the night. Whoops! Closing shifts were looong shifts lol. Rolling a ton of silverware at the end of a long shift is no fun! :/
Anonymous
At my restaurant the dishwashers disassemble the machine at the end of the night, so the closers will wait and do the silverware last so that by the time they go to do it the dish machine is off for the night and the morning crew has to do it.
Thomas
The silverware should be rolled by the servers during the shift and the servers that are cut from the floor should do all available silverware. Then at the end of the night there is not really that much to do.
Anonymous
They’re supposed to, but they don’t. I do, but I’m not a total asshole.
Alley
Ha! The boss always say to change the towels to wipe the tables every hour….more like never! I’m too lazy to get towels in the linen room. And barely change the water with the sanitizing solution. Forgive me Restaurant Lord!
A
I could never put even my gloved hands in a urinal. So I’d splash a bucket of hot Wash n’ Walk onto it and squeegee the runoff into a nearby drain.
Sophia
Okay, I admit it…. I pretended to finish washing dishes, but I just didn’t feel like rushing at the end of my shift that day. So I carefully stacked as many as could fit inside the sink and filled it entirely with brand-new soapy water. I’m an asshole, I know.
Also, I’ve changed the sanitizer buckets with (lightly, I promise!) used water on multiple occasions. I hate changing buckets…..
I’m sorry everyone….