Yesterday was another epically challenging day at work lol. It was the third Monday of the month which was when those having their birthdays that month celebrate it at the doctors’ lounge. At around eight in the morning, I was already called up by the househelp to go to the condo to help out with the cooking preparations. At one point we were nearly running out of time and for whatever reason she was choosing to cook the sidings one at a time. Like, mam, you have a couple of free burners right there. So I kinda stepped in for a bit there, stirring the instant mashed potatoes from IKEA to prevent it from burning on the pan while blanching the asparagus and French beans. We did manage to get things done right on time.
Then came the lunch service. For whatever reason (or rather because nagpapasikat siya), my boss wanted to serve steak for everyone who attends. She even made me print out meal stubs beforehand so that people can choose whether they wanted either medium rare or well done steaks. And it wasn’t on the meal stubs but there was also two kinds of steaks as well: T-bone and ribeye. I was assigned with plating out the sidings of veggies, boiled egg, mashed potato, and gravy. Upon the arrival of the first steak, I immediately realised there was no way for me to tell their doneness. What happened was that they get served with whatever instead and just anything goes na lang.
Chaos descended. There were only two induction burners on the tiny pantry that can barely fit two people and we were four or five in there at a time. Because of the constant high heat and as an automatic precautionary measure, the stove periodically turns itself off which slows things down even more. Orders came flying in and the waitlist turned longer and longer and questions kept getting asked how soon they’re getting served. In fairness, these people were patient and besides there were other plenty of things to eat outside. But they were also demanding and coming in to ask for things which adds to the total chaos.
Not long after, we were also running out of sidings. I noticed this one particular person who just ladled out a heaping portion of gravy for their steak which annoyed me so much. The table which these items were laid out were exposed so people could just get stuff wherein I should’ve been the one controlling the portion sizes so that it’ll fit more people. Another person also took the veggies for their salmon dish.
The steaks were served on sizzling plates my boss specifically bought for the occasion. But they weren’t hot plates because there’s no open flame to heat those in. Kinda useless at that. They could’ve been served in normal plates and iut wouldn’t have made a difference. The househelp was also putting these steaks immediately into the plate without letting them rest for a bit lol. I eventually noticed that there would not be enough of these sizzling plates to go around. They were probably around 20 pieces of those and like 120 pieces of steaks were ordered apparenty. So I also took upon myself to seperate the wood part so that the metal part can be washed and reused immediately. At one point, I was helping around with the dishes and clearing up the leftovers just to keep things from piling up.
All of those was happening while there was a deluge of moonson rains and floods outside. According to later data, the amount of rain that fell was equivalent to half of Ondoy’s rainfall in 2009 within just 5 hours. My partner told me that they were told to go home after lunch because the water was rising outside their office.
At nearly 3 in the afternoon, the help told me I should go home already. I was only a teensy bit hesitant because my boss had initially told me to leave at 4 but of course, I’d like to get home as soon as I can. So I ended up excusing and leaving them in the middle of things (but at least it wasn’t as busy as the earlier couple of hours). I had been standing up for about six hours by then and barely had anything to eat or drink. They were also a growing concern amongst them because they thought I might faint but really, it was hard for me to eat when things are in a rush like that.
So I got to the bus stop and the rain has slowed to a drizzle at least. There were far too many people waiting and barely any buses stopping by. I was mentally steeling myself to walk towards the train station but lo and behold, a P2P bus stopped and the driver said he’ll let passengers with BEEP cards in since it’s the only payment system available. I was able to get in. The fare turned out to be ₱24 and my BEEP card had ₱25 remaining. Truly counting the lucky stars for that after those very eventful few hours.