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Hospital Stories, Part the First
Apr. 16th, 2010 12:44 pmAs some know, back in the 90s one of my first jobs was working for two years in a hospital kitchen. Not as a chef but as a glorified dishwasher. The official title was, "Food Service Technician" which makes it sound like I was being called in to do maintenance on broken sauces. "Ah! There is your problem, you used a Phillips Parmesan in the sauce and this recipe needs a Flat Head Parmesan cheese..." When in reality the job was about 3/4s dish washing and floor mopping and about 1/4 madly assembling trays for patient dinners (I worked evening shift).
Now some of my coworkers were a little, shall we say odd? Not that I can point fingers much at people being non-mainstream, but then I'm just making an observation and not an accusation. There was the one who went to night clubs nearly every night and somehow managed to either still arrive sober in the morning or could fake it well enough to never had problems. Another voluntarily lived in a camper shell on the back of his pickup truck in order to help save money to fund a hopefully lavish retirement by saving no less than 2/3rds of every paycheck on a bad month (good luck, I'm still rooting for you!). So, unusual but generally fun people to hang around. That was evening shift. Now morning shift on the other hand was made up mostly of fairly mainstream people as near as I can tell. All but for one who I think was not quite mentally all there. The kind of person who would toss a steak knife at you not because he was angry, but because it seemed the easiest and fasted way to pass them to you... So, yeah, nice guy but not all there.
One perk of the job was that we got almost free meals. You might say, "Uh, Steve? Hospital food?" But it was actually good stuff. About the time I started they'd scored in the top bracket of a survey that lumped hospitals in with hotels and resorts. Now we certainly didn't serve five star gourmet meals, but while basic what was made was made well. And there were nice things available. My addiction for cheesecake was cemented while working there, and especially my love of pumpkin cheese cake. And of course there was the frozen yogurt machine. I recall that the nutritionists had to remind some of the doctors that, "Just because the machine says Fat Free does not mean it is calorie free," when they wondered how they could be gaining weight.
So, the story I am remembering happened while I was enjoying one of those nearly free meals. I had arrived at the register just about the time that someone took their frozen yogurt up, saying they were glad that the machine always had vanilla. Seems that the other flavor that day was Butter Pecan and they couldn't stand that flavor. I remember this because shortly after I paid a couple dollars for my well filled tray (Amazing how staying on your feet all day keeps your weight down even on a poor diet, but that's a subject for another post) the previous customer came back up to ask if today's vanilla was some kind of special flavored vanilla. No, came the answer, it was the same vanilla we always had. But the customer thought it just didn't taste like vanilla. It tasted... Well, having thought about it, it seemed to taste a bit like Butter Pecan.
The clerk at the register, being in a good mood, suggested that perhaps the person had filled their bowl from the wrong tap and offered to let her return the first one and prepare another. This time the customer made sure she filled the bowl from the side labeled "Vanilla". And this time she was even more certain that it tasted like Butter Pecan. This, both the customer and clerk agreed was rather strange. Especially since a quick taste test showed the the side labeled Butter Pecan was most definitely butter pecan. A quick note was prepared and placed on the machine stating that both sides were butter pecan flavor and a refund issued to the customer. Of course something like this does get the attention of the supervisors, who asked the all important question, "What happened here?"
This was when they realized that the machine had been loaded at the very end of the day shift. It was in fact the first day that our friend who was not quite all there had been allowed to fill the machine. When asked about it he didn't hesitate to describe how it went. Top opened up just like he had been shown. And both sides were filled with the yogurt base mixture, just like he had been shown and without spilling a drop. With the yogurt base in he added a package of vanilla flavoring to the vanilla side and then realized he had a problem. When he compared how much yogurt base he put in the butter pecan side to the directions on the flavor packet he realized that he would have a half container of butter pecan flavoring left over... But, as he explained, he quickly realized there was an obvious solution. Butter pecan was his favorite flavor of all yogurt and ice cream flavors, so he would be nice and share the leftover flavoring with everyone by adding it to the vanilla side. No one could get too angry with him. After all, he wasn't trying to be bad or mean or anything like that. To his mind he was doing everyone a favor. It was his all time favorite flavor and he was sharing it with everyone.
I seem to recall that he was eventually allowed to fill the yogurt machine again, just with very specific directions not to mix flavors. The steak knives on the other hand remained off limits.
Now some of my coworkers were a little, shall we say odd? Not that I can point fingers much at people being non-mainstream, but then I'm just making an observation and not an accusation. There was the one who went to night clubs nearly every night and somehow managed to either still arrive sober in the morning or could fake it well enough to never had problems. Another voluntarily lived in a camper shell on the back of his pickup truck in order to help save money to fund a hopefully lavish retirement by saving no less than 2/3rds of every paycheck on a bad month (good luck, I'm still rooting for you!). So, unusual but generally fun people to hang around. That was evening shift. Now morning shift on the other hand was made up mostly of fairly mainstream people as near as I can tell. All but for one who I think was not quite mentally all there. The kind of person who would toss a steak knife at you not because he was angry, but because it seemed the easiest and fasted way to pass them to you... So, yeah, nice guy but not all there.
One perk of the job was that we got almost free meals. You might say, "Uh, Steve? Hospital food?" But it was actually good stuff. About the time I started they'd scored in the top bracket of a survey that lumped hospitals in with hotels and resorts. Now we certainly didn't serve five star gourmet meals, but while basic what was made was made well. And there were nice things available. My addiction for cheesecake was cemented while working there, and especially my love of pumpkin cheese cake. And of course there was the frozen yogurt machine. I recall that the nutritionists had to remind some of the doctors that, "Just because the machine says Fat Free does not mean it is calorie free," when they wondered how they could be gaining weight.
So, the story I am remembering happened while I was enjoying one of those nearly free meals. I had arrived at the register just about the time that someone took their frozen yogurt up, saying they were glad that the machine always had vanilla. Seems that the other flavor that day was Butter Pecan and they couldn't stand that flavor. I remember this because shortly after I paid a couple dollars for my well filled tray (Amazing how staying on your feet all day keeps your weight down even on a poor diet, but that's a subject for another post) the previous customer came back up to ask if today's vanilla was some kind of special flavored vanilla. No, came the answer, it was the same vanilla we always had. But the customer thought it just didn't taste like vanilla. It tasted... Well, having thought about it, it seemed to taste a bit like Butter Pecan.
The clerk at the register, being in a good mood, suggested that perhaps the person had filled their bowl from the wrong tap and offered to let her return the first one and prepare another. This time the customer made sure she filled the bowl from the side labeled "Vanilla". And this time she was even more certain that it tasted like Butter Pecan. This, both the customer and clerk agreed was rather strange. Especially since a quick taste test showed the the side labeled Butter Pecan was most definitely butter pecan. A quick note was prepared and placed on the machine stating that both sides were butter pecan flavor and a refund issued to the customer. Of course something like this does get the attention of the supervisors, who asked the all important question, "What happened here?"
This was when they realized that the machine had been loaded at the very end of the day shift. It was in fact the first day that our friend who was not quite all there had been allowed to fill the machine. When asked about it he didn't hesitate to describe how it went. Top opened up just like he had been shown. And both sides were filled with the yogurt base mixture, just like he had been shown and without spilling a drop. With the yogurt base in he added a package of vanilla flavoring to the vanilla side and then realized he had a problem. When he compared how much yogurt base he put in the butter pecan side to the directions on the flavor packet he realized that he would have a half container of butter pecan flavoring left over... But, as he explained, he quickly realized there was an obvious solution. Butter pecan was his favorite flavor of all yogurt and ice cream flavors, so he would be nice and share the leftover flavoring with everyone by adding it to the vanilla side. No one could get too angry with him. After all, he wasn't trying to be bad or mean or anything like that. To his mind he was doing everyone a favor. It was his all time favorite flavor and he was sharing it with everyone.
I seem to recall that he was eventually allowed to fill the yogurt machine again, just with very specific directions not to mix flavors. The steak knives on the other hand remained off limits.
