washing eggplant down the drain

Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000
From: Ceels
Subject: washing eggplant down the drain.

I think I have worked out why I was so over work. I was taking it too seriously. I was thinking of it as my entire life, rather than just something I do so that I can write about it later. Of course if you are in the kitchen for fifty-six hours a week then you can sometimes confuse where the tired you ends and the exhausted you begins.

The kitchen is a bit like a hostage situation with no terrorists, you are just doing it to yourself. Or maybe it is some bizarre form of torture where you are subjected to bright lights and extreme pressure in a confined space, and you are never quite sure when, or for how long. It keeps changing, changing, changing.

Or maybe the punters are the terrorists.

Tip number 79 for punters: if you laugh like a horse, the chefs will make fun of you.

I should point out that I am still writing under extreme lack of sleep and am prone to exaggeration anyway. I am sure it is not really as bad as I am making out. I’ll work it out when I have had more sleep and get back to you.

I will think of three good things.

1. I am much stronger now than four months ago. We have a new full time kitchen hand called Marty. Bridget calls him a girly-man. He is a goth and he shaves his eyebrows and paints them back on every day and he is a very nice boy, but Bridget is right. Anyway, I used to be about as strong as he is, and now I can lift 25 kg bags with only a little bit of complaining.

Also I can get yelled at more and picked on more without getting upset. Except not on Friday when a chance remark from Steven caused me to burst into tears. Then I couldn't stop crying for the next hour and a half and it was ridiculous.

2. There are cute waiters. (But not Andrew, whom I like to refer to as syphilis boy, he is not a nice person and I loath him and I don't like to look at him. He upsets me.)

3. I am learning lots about politics. If you keep your head low and your mouth shut most of it misses you. But I am learning what it takes to make your way to the top (AND SOON I WILL TAKE OVER THE WORLD).

I saw a man today who had a really long droopy nose and it was all I could do not to grab it to see if it was real.

When prawn stock goes off it smells exactly like really rotten eggs. Only worse. And if you tip it down the sink you can stink out the whole of down stairs for about half and hour. Incidentally, apparently the kitchen’s exhaust fan outlet is right by the air-conditioning intake vent for 333 Collins street, so everyday 8000 people in suits hate us very much.