#dishwasher tips

[untypicable]

Why My Teenage Son Simply Cannot Load The Dishwasher Properly...

It begins innocently enough: a request to load the dishwasher. A simple task, one might think, requiring little more than a modest grasp of spatial awareness and a vague sense of cleanliness. Yet in the hands of my teenage son, this task transforms into a performance art piece, a chaotic collage of misaligned plates, teetering glasses, and bowls precariously stacked in ways that defy the laws of…

[vstheworld]

I’m not saying it’s solely because of my “fuck the boss, quit your shitty job” vibes but

I AM saying both small businesses I’ve worked for have lost their whole core workforces after about six months of me gently reminding my coworkers that they’re human beings who deserve better

[autistic-shaiapouf]

So the previous roommates having rocks for brains has worked out in my favor as I sift through the items they didn't bother to take with them

[bookishbrigitta]

I'm so ridiculously happy. There's extra space in the dishwasher and no need to coordinate around another person because my roommate is out of town, so I'm clearing out the fridge and running all the big clean-it-once-in-a-while stuff (like the dish drying rack and the water bottle scrubby) through the dishwasher!

It's literally deep cleaning some kitchen things for me while I'm working today. 🤩

AND I just learned you can deep clean a rubber nonslip bath mat in the dishwasher, so guess what I'm doing tomorrow!

[themslash]

i was feeling real down about the undisclosed misogyny event that happened to me over the weekend (if u know u know) so i looked around the kitchen to see whats in here and made coffee and banana waffles. please clap.

[tiredcrowbrain]

Tip for ADHD/OCD and cleaning dishes

If you have dishes overflowing in your sink, lay some trash bags down on your kitchen table (or a counter away from the sink) then move ALL of your dishes away until there's a small enough amount that the dishes don't feel scary to you.

For me, my apartment has a big divided sink so i leave one side full of dirty dishes then use the other side to clean the items individually. When i finish one 'load' of dishes, I move another sink full bit by bit until they're finished.

I also play a podcast or music while i do this (if i play a show or movie i get distracted staring at the screen, you can do whatever stimulates you and keeps you productive!)

I'm currently using this method since i have a month of dishes from when i was recovering from a surgery, so make sure you do your 'loads' based on your energy level and comfort.

Even if it takes a while, and you only do one cup or two bowls at a time, that's progress, and it gets done over time!

Don't be ashamed to use paper plates or disposable utensils as accommodation for yourself on bad days as well!

Also fellow people with sensory/contamination issues, GET HEAVY DUTY GLOVES! The normal kitchen gloves you still feel everything, so go with the thickest pair to avoid the gross food textures. The thick rubber can be annoying but it's way less gross then soggy bread or something touching your hands. (also prevents your hands from drying out in soapy hot water.)

[shadowbrightshine]

Life tip. If you have trouble standing and bending over to put away dishes, you can sit on a kitchen chair and lean and put them away while sitting.

[killcatboys]

this shift is going by soooo slowly im gonna change my blog appearance and theme :3

[menlove]

hanging out at the coffee shop I used to work at and they have starlight by muse on the playlist and now I'm soooo mad that I quit

[seilon]

BABES IVE ACQUIRED A JOB INTERVIEW

[vignetted]

soooo excited for summer yay i really hope i get a solid dishwashing job again

[iguessitsjustme]

Today so far I have cleaned my bathroom, cleaned out my fridge, picked up a whole bunch of trash, and I currently have my dishwasher going and other dishes soaking. So tell me why I keep staring at my mountain of recycling and I’m stuck. It is probably the biggest mess in my apartment and I can’t do anything about it. When the executive was functioning I got so much done but now I’m just staring at this cardboard wishing it was gone already

[sapphicautistic]

So... I might get to move after all??

It sounds like there are some major repairs needed first and we won't be able to move in on the 1st but probably before May??

This seems too good to be true, really hoping this actually pans out cuz nothing's signed yet.

[excusethequality]

"The poor dishwasher is always the last to clock out, soaking wet and exhausted."

As a former dishwasher I can confirm that that is correct.

it was too much i had to make my own post

line cook here. ACCURATE

if you don't get the hate, here's what you don't understand.

it takes up to 2 hours to close down the kitchen.

The last 60-90 minutes before closing time you do almost no cooking because the restaurant doesn't have many people in it and you've already cooked most of their diners.

So if someone walks in during, like, the last hour, the cook is in the middle of an industrial deep clean of the kitchen.

(these numbers can vary quite a bit from place to place but i have worked several restaurants with these actual times and the concept remains the same)

Say the place closes at 10. If you wait til the restaurant is already closed to start all your cleaning duties, you'll be there until at least midnight.

More than that your boss knows that on an average night you can start your clean up as soon as the last rush ends and get out of there around 10:45, even 10:15 on a slow night if you get lucky. That means there are plenty of restaurants where if you do take until midnight the manager is going to come up to you at some point that week and ask you what went wrong that night, and you'd better have an answer.

So this example restaurant closes at 10 pm. The dinner rush ends around 8:30, and shortly after that the cook is going to start getting every single dish possible over to the dishwasher because the dishwasher always gets hit hard and late, and the machine runs for 2 full minutes and only holds so many dishes, so the way that works out is if you wait an extra 30 minutes to give the dishwasher all your stuff it can mean adding like 60 minutes to the end of his shift. And you're gonna KEEP finding shit to send to the dishpit right up until you leave probably.

all these little square and rectangle containers in this cold table have to be pulled out and changed over into new containers, replaced by new full ones, or in some cases filled from larger containers in the back, which can result in even more empty containers to send to the dishwasher.

while it's all pulled apart to do this, you have to clean up all the spilled food and sauce and juices and stuff from the joints and ledges and shelves and drip trays

Once you get your line changed over in this way, and fully stocked, anytime someone orders something that makes use of a bunch of that stuff, you have to restock and re-clean it some. It might already be covered in plastic. Some of it might already be stuck in the back to make room to take apart your cutting board counter to clean. To cook a dish isn't TOO much of a problem at this point, but you're really hoping for zero orders because you still have so much other cleaning to do.

Meanwhile the salad bar and appetizer section and server station and everybody are all doing the same thing. Even the bartenders are stocking olives and lemons and sending back whisks and stir spoons and shakers and empty 4quart storage containers that used to hold the back-up lemons and olives and things. Every section is dumping their must-be-cleaneds to the dishpit as fast as possible because early and fast is the only thing they can do to to help that dishpit not absolutely drown into overtime.

The poor dishwasher is always the last to clock out, soaking wet and exhausted.

Around this time you probably scrub the flat top, which has turned black from cooked on grease and is still about 500 degrees. Line cooks are divided in opinion on water-based or oil based cleaning methods for this, but they all involve scrubbing with (usually) a brick of pumice stone using every ounce of your strength while you try not to burn yourself

you scrub it from fully blackened to gleaming silver and now if somebody orders something that needs the flat top to cook, you can either fuck up your cleaning job or fake it in a couple frying pans and pass that tiny fuck you down to your dishwasher (who usually understands, especially if you help them take the garbage out or clean your own floor drain later)

If there's deep fried stuff on the menu then the fryers have to be cleaned out, which includes straining the oil out into enormous and super-heavy pots full of oil so hot that if you spill on yourself then it's probably a hospital visit and if you slip and fall face first into it it'll be the last thing you ever do.

Then you gotta scrub out the fryer. Like you gotta take the (hot) screen out and reach your arm down into the weird rounded pipes and curved areas (so hot, burn you if you brush against them hot) and scrub off whatever is down there

Depending on your kitchen you might have to do up to four of these. Then you'll have to pour the (dangerously hot) oil back in

oh, and if you didn't dry the pipes and get ALL the water out of the trap and tank?

water reacts with hot oil in a sort of mentos and coke way that can send a tidal wave of oil past the open flame of the pilot light ...HUGE dangerous mess and/or burn down the kitchen if the oil lights up.

Unless! If the oil has been used too hard and needs to be changed, it's time to carry those open topped super heavy pots full of will-kill-you-hot oil and dump them in the barrel outside by the dumpsters so you can put room temp fresh oil in the fryers. whew!

The clean up is not just some light wiping down that can be easily interrupted, is what i'm saying.

You might have to do some kind of walk-in duty (moving around 50lb cases of lettuce and 50lb bags of onions to get to the stacks of five gallon buckets full of salad dressings and sauces to move so you can reach the giant metal pots and bus tubs full of prep and get it all organized and make sure it's all labeled and i have to stop now i'm having flashbacks)

THE POINT IS

by 15 or however many minutes to close, the line cook is doing an intense deep clean and probably has the whole stove taken apart to detail.

For some industrial stoves this means lifting off large cast iron plates that weigh like 20 lbs each and are still quite hot. Whatever metal burners are on there, you gotta take off and clean, you can see here the lines that indicate the large thick cast iron rectangles that sit on top of the burners to allow heavy pots to rest on. Those five (each has one front burner hole and one back burner hole, see?) have to be lifted off and cleaned with soap and a wire brush usually, and then the underneath area also has to be cleaned because a lot of shit falls through the burner holes on a busy night.

if you didn't do it when you did the flat top you have to do the grease trap (which can be like a full five minutes and is always disgusting).. You gotta clean out all the little gas jets in each burner with a wire or something so the burners all flame evenly, and sometimes you have to remove some of the natural gas piping that connects the burners to access where you have to clean.

you gotta clean out the bottom of the oven and the wire racks, and, oh gods, you gotta take down the filter vents from the hood fans above the stove.

See all the lined parts along the top of the wall?

those are hood vents, and as they pull air up they also pull a lot of grease and they have to be taken down and cleaned, then you gotta climb up there and scrub where they go before you put them back...

And then there's the mopping and floor drains and...

Anyway, that's what the line cook is doing when you walk in fifteen minutes before closing and order something that needs to be cooked on that stove. They are doing an entire industrial cleaning of a professional kitchen.

In some restaurants maybe one or two of these jobs will be every other night or even only twice a week, but in many, possibly most kitchens, ALL of these things happen EVERY night. You don't want to leave any food mess that might attract insects or rodents for one thing, so a really good kitchen is as close to brand new as you can get it every night.

IF YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO ORDER SOMETHING ANYWAY, HERE IS WHAT TO DO

open with an apology and ask the server to go ask what the cook would prefer you to order.

Any good server will already know what the cook is hoping for and what will make their line cook go into the walk in and scream. If it's significantly less than an hour to close and they say some variant of "oh anything is fine" they are either telling the lie their boss wants them to say, or they actually do not know what their line cook wants, and you can either use human connection and a conspiratorial just-between-us tone to get them to drop the customer-is-always-right act, or get them to actually go ask the cook.

It might be as specific as "the lasagna is easiest on the kitchen" or it might be a simple guideline like "nothing that requires the flat top" or "any of the sautés are easy" but a good line cook will probably have a system for if they have to make a couple of the most popular items after they start their close, so the answer is likely to include something most people like and you should be good to order that.

but for the love of all that's holy, please only do so at great need. Leave that last 30-60 minutes to the truly desperate and the crew's duties.

[neverendingford]

.