New staph infection can kill in 72 hours

[frigilux]

More e-coli in ice than in toilet: YIKES!

Make mine a lukewarm Coke, please.

 

[tomturbomatic]

I went from a summer job in the hospital's housekeeping dept. to part time work in the kitchen in the fall. I was amazed at the difference in attention to cleanliness. I would often be told to clean something, but there were no cleaning cloths. The folks I knew in the laundry said that the kitchen did not want to bother with keeping a stock of cleaning cloths and paying to have them washed. I worked out a deal with a friend in housekeeping to leave me some cleaning cloths each time I worked and I would return them to her to go through the laundry. I did enjoy being able to work the big flight type dishwasher. The conveyor was all of these fingers sticking up so nothing except glasses and sliverware needed trays. It really needed two people, one at each end, to make it efficient because the conveyor stopped once stuff started stacking up at the clean end. All of it had to be moved before the conveyor would start again. One person handling dirty dishes, washes hands or changes gloves and flies to the clean end to pick up hot plates. When I would get there on Saturday mornings, they would have already fixed and served breakfast and all of the pans and dishes were waiting all over for me. I would have to put the strainers and wash arms back in position, close the drains and then start filling that big dishwasher. There was a pipe about an inch and a half in diameter that came in through the back wall of the wash tank. Although you were not supposed to open the steam booster valve until water covered it, I had to see what it looked like so if no one was around, I would open it a little to see the steam escape. Fully opened, it made big roiling movement in the still water. I would have to add the detergent to the feeder and stir it up until the light indicated that the solution was strong enough. Once everything was full up, I would close the side doors and water valve. Then the huge pump could be turned on and I was up for a some fun. They always cooked oatmeal and grits in tall pots and they did not stir enough so there was always a half inch of the glop stuck to the bottom of the pan which I had to loosen with large spoons and then a brass or copper scrubber before it would emerge from the DW clean. None of the preparation stuff was ever rinsed or filled with water to keep the crud soft and wet. I had to get the china, glasses etc. from the cafeteria cleaned first because the nasty old man who ran the cafeteria would worry me to death until he had his clean dishes for lunch. It would have been nice if I had anybody to work with and talk to, but mostly I was somewhere cleaning after the cooking staff had made a mess and moved on. I learned about a lot of things like the French Top stove and the BIG griddle that would rust after I washed and rinsed it unless I wiped it down with vinegar. It was always hot enough that I did not have to worry about drying it. I enjoyed about all of that I could stand and was very happy to get a different job in January when Winter Quarter started.