SC - Another observation on clean-up

[Margo Hablutzel]

Hi, y'all:

I have actually signed off the list for a time, as I am on the road in
Ealdormere and lacking time to read most of my non-work messages due to the
time in conference.  However, I had an experience this weekend that I wanted
to share and don't want to risk forgetting.

At Ealdormere Crown, they came out at the end of supper asking for
dishwashers.  I was one of about a half-dozen persons who showed up to
assist, and we quickly fell into washer, rinser, and driers.  There was one
mechanical dishwasher in the (VERY small) kitchen, which we loaded with the
nastier things and set to running before we started on sinkfulls.  (It was
observed that there was no bleach available for the rinse water - just an
observation.)

The cooking crew had gotten things scraped and piled up, so we started
washing piles, and more piles, and drying them.  Anyone who came into the
kitchen and stayed more than a few minutes was summarily handed a tea towel
or terry apron and passed wet dishes with the rest of us .  A very cute
young man shuttled piles of clean dishes out to a cleaned long table outside
the kitchen, until we discovered that most of the dishes belonged to the
site and had to be brought back in and placed in cabinets.

THIS WAS THE PROBLEM:  The kitchen staff, once they pointed us at the
dirties, DISAPPEARED.  One head cook went to drum for the middle eastern
dancers, and another just disappeared.  (OK, I got a look at the man dancing
with a sword on his head and hip, and see why she left, BUT......)  This
meant we had no instruction on (1) where anything went, and (2) in which
order to wash things.

The last became a problem about 10:30pm or so when a woman came in looking
for her flatware and bowls.  We had done the flatware (she then became upset
that it was only two knives and two forks; apparently she had lent an entire
set to Head Table, but we had only those items in the wash, so she needs to
track down the rest from the Royalty or whomever) but the bowls were yet to
be done.  We did them quickly, and while doing had two other persons come in
and ask why certain items were not done yet as they were supposed to take
them with when they left, which was NOW, and they items should have been
washed and packed.

At the same time, people's rides were starting to fuss, and the hot water
ran out, so we were boiling pots of water, quickly washing and drying things
which were to be gotten away that night, and one transporter ended up rather
sleepily and grumpily cleaning a couple of pots (them being the nastiest, we
left them for last) that he was supposed to carry away.

Had we been given some instruction, the things to go away would have been
cleaned and packed first (well, most of the pitchers of drinks were not
brought back into the kitchen until the word was given that they had to be
gotten home, so we don't take a lot of blame for that) and other items would
have been put away more efficiently.  Since we were given no more
instruction than "wash these," it was less efficient than wanted at the end
of the night.

So, a suggestion (which I am going to add to my "How to Plan a Feast" talk
at Lillies War in June):  If you are a cook, and have a clean-up crew which
will work unsupervised, PLEASE leave an instruction sheet - preferably taped
to some wall surface - with instructions on what needs to be cleaned in
which order, and where things go.  I've seen groups that mark on the bottom
of items their ownership (return-address labels, the sticky kind not the
gummed kind, and masking tape with indelible ink) but we had no indicators
here.  Supervision of or instruction to the clean-up crew is another thing I
thought was obvious, but apparently not.  No fault to the cooks - they did a
very nice job with extremely limited facilities, and probably needed as well
as deserved the break.

Otherwise,  it was basically a nice feast; serving was run a bit badly but I
don't know that anyone was in charge of it and so cannot say too much about
what happened.  We only tried to take advantage of the servers when they
offered us a second plate of shortbreads (they all started on one side and
worked around the "U" shape of tables, but did not check to see where the
previous server had stopped serving).

	
- ---= Morgan




	           |\     THIS is the cutting edge of technology! 
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	           |/ margolh at nortelnetworks.com <mailto:margolh at nt.com>  *
Hablutzel at compuserve.com <mailto:Hablutzel at compuserve.com> 
	                      Morgan Cain * Steppes, Ansteorra

Red meat is NOT bad for you. Now blue-green meat, THAT'S bad for you!
                                                           --Tommy Smothers

	                     May God have mercy on my enemies
	                     For they shall certainly need it.

	      For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.

                I intend to live forever -- so far, so good!
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