7. Pots!
I had never worked in a commercial kitchen before, except as a young teen washing dishes for a catering business owned by my friend's parents. It wasn’t something I ever aspired to do again, but here I was. This was the job… pots it was!
I was rostered onto Pots and this duty started at 6am so my watch alarm sounded at 5:45am. There was no point having a shower in the morning as the water was cool without the power heating the boilers overnight. I usually had my shower at night after my shift ended and after I had turned off the generator. It was always in the dark… until one day they fixed the night lights and I had a small dim light to shower by.
It was just fifteen steps in the dark to the generator room from my bedroom and once I had powered it on, I headed to the kitchen with my duty sheet and it's instructions on what to do for the day. I had never done "Pots" before. The vibe in the kitchen was dynamic, loud and busy, but I had to first walk through it and to the lounge beyond the kitchen doors where I had to turn on all the equipment required for breakfast, from the conveyor toaster machine, porridge urn, the bain-maries and the two Nespresso machines.
I had to refer to my duties list several times to know what to do, but already guests were arriving. Pompolona was the lodge before the summit climb so guests were always keen to get breakfast early and prepare for the big walk. I had already done the walk several times by this stage… the first time was with the Chef who led the way. It is an amazing walk and made up for the back-breaking work.
I was called to the kitchen and my washing of pots began. I had my own sink in the corner of the kitchen with a pile of pots to be scrubbed and cleaned, including a pot covered with baked beans. When I finished washing all pots and trays, I was to help other duties complete their tasks until we were all ready to have breakfast at 7:45am. Pots isn’t pots without some cleaning thrown in and guess what, pots also had to clean the bathroom and change bed linen in seven rooms no less.
I went into the cleaning cupboard and grabbed my named basket full of cleaning goodies and rags and headed up to my first room. There is a fine balance between cleaning to perfection and being too slow. According to the advice of others, I should be able to clean the bathroom as per “spec sheet” in 15 minutes and make the bed/s in 15 minutes, however until I found my cleaning rhythm, I was averaging 40 minutes in total.
The shift was meant to finish around midday but I finished up at 1pm with a sore back and a very hungry tummy. I went to the staff table and plonked myself down in front of a plate of scones dated from the previous day. I didn't even like scones but I found some jam and cream and nibbled away until I had the energy to get up and walk to my room.
Once the shift resumed at 6pm, I was firstly asked to help serve the soup by swirling some cream around it and throwing on some parsley before returning to my sink full of dinner pots and by 9pm I was finally finished.
I had no energy for anything except to walk to my room and head straight to bed, exhausted! Oh, and turn off the generator at 10pm.