Menu du Jour-Turkey-Spam & Turkey Jello

Image by keltickelton via Flickr

OK! It's been over a week. I figured I had better get in here & do some posting before anyone misses me! LOL! So...Did ya? Miss me? HUH? I thought so! Well, I missed you, too! (((HUGS))) Wow, that was a big hug. Thank you. I am much better now. That last post was a doozie, wasn't it? If you didn't read it, please, check it out now here.
Anyway, school started back up on Tuesday, September 8th, which means the cafeteria is OPEN! harumph! grumble, grumble. If you don't know the reason for my grumbling, it's because I work in our high school's cafeteria.







Yes, I am a lunch lady cafeteria aide. Contrary to popular belief, I do not wear a dress or support hose. We wear black pants & a maroon polo shirt. I do wear a black apron so I don't get food all over me & because I keep all my crap in my pockets. If I don't have a purse, I must have pockets. Like my purse, I carry everything including the kitchen sink only the essentials. We can wear tennis shoes or black non-slip shoes, but I just wear my comfy, black clogs. Although, somedays I feel the need to wear steel-toe boots. Those pans can be very heavy & HOT! On our heads, we can wear a white paper bonnet (UGH!) or a hair net. The nets aren't too bad because we get them in 2 colors: dark brown or dark blonde which pretty much matches my hair color. I prefer to wear the net over my perfectly coiffed hair ponytail rolled into a bun. It's much cooler.
Now I know everyone has seen the stereo-typical, slop-serving lunch lady behind the counter. There are days that I have stood & served food from behind that steam table. I have also run the cash register, which is actually a computer on a steel cabinet with the cash tray in the drawer. But, my job this year is to work the deli area or what we call "Sandwich Central". We make fresh sandwiches on a variety of breads. Since the school consists of around , maybe, 70% Muslim kids, we rarely use any pork products. Pretty much every meat is turkey-based. The only pork we use daily is pepperoni on the pizzas. This angers quite a few parents because the school district, well, pretty much the whole city, caters to the foreigners immigrants. But I digress, & that is another story within itself. So to continue...The lunchmeat we have is roasted turkey, turkey-ham, turkey-salami & turkey-bologna. Uh yeah, a little turkey overload. It's really not that bad. The taste is pretty similar to the "real" stuff. Then, we have cheese, lettuce & mild peppers.
Our cafeteria is pretty much your typical, dated public school lunchroom. It's on the 2nd floor, which makes it terribly hot during the warmer months here. We do have an elevator, thank goodness, to transpot our stock from storage or deliveries downstairs. Fairly often, we have to bring our own supplies upstairs ourselves as we don't have a stockboy. Sometimes, if we're lucky & he's having a good day, our delivery guy will bring things up. It really is part of his job, until they can find someone who will deal with crap & his attitude, but he believes he works too hard already. He delivers the food already prepared to the other 6 schools in the district. Mind you, our city is only 2.2 square miles. But, here I go, off on a tangent again. I hope you don't mind. It does tend to give a boring old story little bits of flair, I guess. All the school buildings are fairly old compared to many schools around nowadays. Our building was formerly the middle school until 1970 when it became the high school. I don't know what year the building was erected but my babcia went there when it was the middle school & she's 92. Now, my daughter is a junior there.

I suppose the job isn't too bad in itself. My hours are from 8 am to 1 pm. School lets out at 2:48 pm, so I get a little time in between to check in on babcia. I usually go back later on to bring her anything she needs picked up, take care of things she can't do, or mostly just to visit & talk. I absolutely love the stories from when she was growing up. Do you remember the picture of Rosie the Riveter? The woman in the blue jean shirt, raised fist, with the red bandana on her head? My babcia was one of the women who did the riveting on the planes! I am so proud just to say that she was Jessie the Riveter!

Back to job part of post...So, the hours are great, but the pay is awful, compared to other districts. We started out at a little over minimum wage, which went up to what we were starting off at & caps at less than $2 more, no matter how many years you work there. Now you know that a lot of lunch ladies are lifers so this blows a big old horn, to put it nicely. That's what you deal with when there is no union. But, I try to remember that I am blessed to have a job these days. It is within walking distance if the need should ever come up.

Once again, this is not the post I was going to write. But work can provide wonderful blog fodder. And, if you didn't notice, once I begin rambling, on & on & on, I can't seem to stop the force.

I hope you enjoyed the post. I hope you will visit again. And, if you have any comments, questions, or just want to shoot the shit, ramble on!

Thinking of using my babushka as a work bonnet,

Collette

P.S. Please scroll down to the bottom. I have some pretty cool stuff down there! Like an xtra comment box in case the usual commet section isn't working correctly. Thanks!