Tuesday, February 05, 2013

As The Assisted Living Facility Turns - Part ??

It's the first Tuesday of the month and that means there is a meeting scheduled.  Not the monthly meeting of the Resident's Council, but the monthly meeting with the Head Chef.  It is at this meeting that people gripe about all the things they didn't like about their meals for the last 30 days or so, and make a few laudatory comments.

Today's meeting included an unusual guest.  There are actually three chefs employed by the facility, the Head Chef, the #2 Chef and the New Hire Chef.  The New Hire Chef's work has been roundly criticized by a large number of the residents and today the Head Chef brought the New Hire Chef to the meeting.  For several reasons.

1.  To introduce the New Hire Chef to anyone who might not yet have met them.
2.  To explain that from now on, the New Hire Chef will do what the Head Chef does, in terms of going around the dining room after the cooking of the meal is finished, while the diners are still eating, seeking feedback on the meal itself.
3.  To illustrate to the New Hire Chef the level of dissatisfaction with their work thus far.

The best part of the meeting was that they served rainbow sherbet and chocolate ice cream, with chocolate syrup and nuts, over a slice of banana.

The worst part was listening to the same complaints over and over by the same group of residents.  There is one who must have been a professional chef in another life, who gives the chef "what for" every single month.  And often at other times, between the monthly meetings.

Four separate people asked for more soups that are creme-based rather than water-based.  I guess they figured that the first two people asking for it either weren't enough, or they just didn't hear the requests of others.

One man asked two different times where was his ice cream, because the activity calendar mentioned ice cream at 2 p.m., and it was twenty minutes after the hour.  The Head Chef tried to explain that the ice cream was served toward the end of the meeting, but all the man did was ask again.  If only the servers had started on that side of the room instead of the other side, we could have saved five minutes.

One resident said they had nothing to say other than everything was fine and good, and then ten minutes later, asked to be recognized a second time and had several complaints.  Maybe the problems took place between their first and second response, but since no food was served during that period of time, probably not.

In our next installment, as promised earlier, a look at a few of the characters that used to reside here.