Daylight Savings

This isn’t going to be one of those posts that slags off Daylight Savings Time, although I do think it’s only kept around for tradition’s sake at this point (and you know what they say about traditions: they’re old people’s way of peer pressuring you). Instead, let’s talk about how a seemingly irrelevant change severely alters the work environment of a place you might not normally expect: the food service industry.

First off is the obvious: windows. At my workplace, we have just about an entire wall of windows facing west. For about an hour a day, the sun shines right into the cashiers’ eyes. This hasn’t been too much of a problem -- not too many people come in at that time of day -- but once the hour shift happens, those two times merge into one unfortunate block of time. I guess that’s why they have us all wear hats.

But there’s also what I’m starting to call the “sundown rush.” Because no matter what time it is on the clock, the evening’s busiest time is around sundown. Right now, that’s about 7:30 PM, which on paper shouldn’t be a problem. We’re open for an hour and a half after that, so we should be able to get everything we need to get done done, right?

Well, the way that our saute cooks start to close down is basically going to half-capacity while three of the burners get cleaned, before switching burners to clean those. This is one of the first steps in their cleaning procedure, which means it happens… right around 7:30.

Eventually, as the sun sets later and later, these problems will cease to coincide with each other. All spread out, there manageable enough, and the sun setting later and later will certainly cause these phenomena to drift apart. But until then, we all just have to power through it.

-F