A Review Of Dishwashing

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Hello friends, today I will talk about my experience so far being a dishwasher at a medium sized restaurant. I truly am on my way to the top from here, and I suspect I will be rich soon enough from the endeavor, so here I go-

Dishwashing, while it sounds simple, is actually one of the most difficult jobs you can get at a restaurant. Not particularly because it is hard, but because it DOES NOT STOP. Really, you won't get a break. But that's ok, if you're a hard worker you'll survive. Depending on where you work, you may even get a free meal.... but good luck finding time to eat it, or time to use the restroom, for that matter. Work pace can range from steadfast ("easy mode") to nonstop madness ("nightmare mode") depending on the night. More often than not you will be one of the last to leave if your shift is at night. My wage is personally good enough to make all this work worth it, it also is one of my first jobs so I do not have much to compare to.

What I like about it, is solving the puzzle to how I can most effectively put away the most dishes with the least racks at the fastest rate, in my free time I sometimes draw the racks and the various dishes and make optimizations then test them on the job, it's very satisfying to see what works and helps up my speed.

Another thing- this job will make you pessimistic about the work ethic of servers. They simply DO NOT know how to stack your dishes right and unless you yourself rectify it, your workspace will be a chaotic mess. They ask a lot from me yet don't hold up their part. But hardworking me does their tasks most of the time because if I am liked they are more motivated not to leave me hanging.

Here is a list of my archenemies-
LASAGNA PANS. These things are nothing but scrubbing.
POTS AND PANS. Must be handwashed in a seperate station, so it is tedious and easy to lose track of.
SILVERWARE. Just awful.
CUPS. Come in huge racks, always feels like it takes up space in the machine that could go for other stuff.
RAMICANS. You have to stack things on them to keep them from flying into the machine, annoying.

Aside all this though, I don't hate my job, but I don't love it. What I do love is money and I am in no shortage, so that's nice.

I salute your work ethic, Perfectionist. I've had plenty of low-status jobs myself, including dishwasher, and like you, one way I kept myself interested and motivated was putting some brainpower into optimizing my efficiency.

You also get credit for realizing it's to your advantage to have positive experiences with co-workers (e.g., the servers).

I have had many different types of jobs over my lifetime and I always tried to do them to the best of my ability.

My 1st job was a dish-washer & I did that for 10 months. My starting pay was just over minimum wage & after being there a month or so I got a 25 cent raise. I kinda wonder if the minimum wage had gone up then. Noone really had a problem with me cuz I was a good worker so that was one of the good points & I also liked it when things were alittle slower & I didn't have to rush. I always stayed busy thou but the pressure was a bit much sometimes. A big factor into me leaving was because I worked in the afternoon & evening & they kept wanting me to stay after my shift was supposed to end. I cant drive & I had to rely on my dad to bring me home & he usually had to go to work the next morning. It wasn't my fault the guy who was supposed to come in after me was unreliable. I also think I wasn't getting paid for all the hours I worked. They might of been deducting an hour for lunch every day even thou I never took a lunch break or they were just shorting me. I also felt I could do alittle better than that. I wanted a job with alittle less pressure & slightly better pay & benefits after a while. The chemicals were bad for my skin eczema too but I was able to deal with it OK. I left a couple weeks after I was officially hired & started somewhere else. I really should look into getting a part time job at some point, something where I could still keep my disability benefits & I would totally be willing to do dish-washing again.