A day in the life of a Utility Dishwasher
A very good afternoon to you, My name is Adnan and it's great that you have come to join me in the Galley today. As you can probably tell by my job title, I work as a Dishwasher.
Here, take this pair of rubber boots to put on. Trust me, no other shoes will do in the dishwasher area. There is a huge dishwasher and racks for glasses, cups and bowls, cutlery and plates. The ones the busboys are to fill with dirty dishes are on the counter.
I also have a container here for the cutlery, as they are soaked in a bit of soapy water, before I send them through the dishwasher. I also have my spray gun, with which I pre clean the dishes, especially the plates as sometimes they have had food on that just won't come off in 1 wash.
If you want to help me out then take a pair of those rubber gloves as I can tell you, having your hands wet all day can make your skin really hard and sore.
We use a grinder for the food waste. The busboys and waiters have to scrape off the food waste from the plates, into the grinder and then I will push the button to start it up
Of course I also have to watch and make sure, no cups, glasses and especially cutlery ends up in there as it would damage the grinder and then the engine department that we call for repairs will not be happy – especially not with me!
Besides all the used china and cutlery, the busboys also have a place here, where they have to leave their serving trays. As you can see they are pretty huge and you can carry 15 plates and more on them. During service time, they need to be always be available and rotated from the dirty area, through the dishwasher, to the clean area. The worst would be, if the busboys would run out of trays.
We need to hurry up a bit now and keep up with the pace, so that everything is clean and shiny again ready to be used in the next sitting. At the same time, we need to use the machine to it's maximum. No half filled racks will go through that machine in my shift. We need to make sure we have time to clean the area and to bring the dry chinaware and cutlery back into the galley, so the cooks and busboys have them ready for use.
I know, it is not easy work, and regardless that we have the air conditioning on all the time, due to the humidity and of course the way we have to work, this is always a hot and sweaty job.
I am glad, that today we don't have a midnight buffet being laid on for the guests as we can get out of here by midnight, and leave a pretty clean dishwasher area for the early morning shift. Since each shift has a different work load, there are 20 of us that rotate between the different shifts and work in different Restaurants.
Working in the specialty restaurants gives you a nice break, is a little bit more relaxed there so that's my favourite. Maybe you could come back and see my again when I'm working that shift.
I'll see you around soon.
Adnan Kay King, Malaysia