It's pretty fair to say he was traumatized by the things he saw in his short time at the job - and based on some of what you're about to read here ... yeah... that's not exactly a shocker.
Reddit user CalmAnxiety87 asked:
If you have a sensitive stomach you might want to take a deep breath and find your happy place before you start in on this article. Maybe plan a few breaks, too?
Yeah, it gets that bad.
Soda
The restaurant was an all you can eat buffet, and had a small wait staff employed to bring drinks to customers.
Almost all of the food in the buffet was too cold, and the kitchen has mice droppings all over.
But the most shocking part is, the waitress would take half finished drinks from previous tables and top them off to give to new customers.
Soda is dirt cheap! I can't imagine they saved more than $1-2 dollars a week by being so gross and lazy.
Homophobia Saved The Day!
My place of employment almost got shut down by the health inspector, but homophobia saved the day!
I was duty manager at a large, 3 level nightclub. Owners were cheap and refused to spring for decent cleaning stuff. The place was pretty grimy. Not filthy, but not likely to pass. Health inspectors never, ever showed their face... until one rolls up at 4am for a surprise inspection.
The upstairs room (generic nightclub: bad music, lasers, smoke machine etc) was just closing, and the staff had already been cleaning for half an hour so the inspector figures there's no point.
He comes to the smaller, public bar on ground level. This room is open 24/7 so it's considerably cleaner as it's open during daylight hours. He goes over EVERYTHING and finds nothing.
Clearly frustrated , he asks if there's any other rooms open. I tell him we have a 3rd room at basement level, and I'm already mentally preparing for calling my boss at 4am. We hadn't started work on this room yet and the inspector was obviously itching to shut something down, so I figured this is where the problem would be.
We head down the stairs and a few patrons leaving pass us as they head up. These patrons were 2 men, roughly the same size as vending machines. They're wearing leather harnesses, leather chaps, underwear clearly visible and not much else.
Health inspector turns to look at me, eyes like dinner plates:
Him: "This is a fa**ot bar?!?"
Me: "We're open to everyone, but the patrons are predominantly gay if that's what you're asking."
Him: "Ugh. Gross. Forget it."
And that was it. He left. Normally I'd make a formal complaint but given how unlikely we were to pass in that room, I figured it was a bad idea to draw any more attention to us.
Lysol
Giphy
Not a health inspector, but my dad was. He witnessed an employee of a grocery chain spray Lysol around and over the meat section in attempt to get rid of flies and the smell of rotting meat.
My dad went up to the employee and identified himself as a health inspector and the employee nearly passed out. Place was closed shortly after.
This List
I was a health inspector for about 5 years. I saw so many things. Like:
- a cleaner using a rag and bucket to clean the floor and then immediately using the same rag to clean the prep station (literally right in front of me).
- trying to explain to a completely-stoned chef why he has to actually reheat the gravy to full temp instead of just letting it come to room temperature on the counter and serve it like that.
- throwing out the entire inventory of a large bakery (basically a warehouse) for mouse infestation (that is some interesting logistics work).
- helping a coworker serve a court summons to someone that locked him in a freezer when they didn't like the result of the health inspection.
You name it I saw it, I could go on and on.
A New Restaurant
I just bought a restaurant and we are remodeling planned on being closed for 30 days to do some updates and open.
We took over and all of us were almost sick looking at the kitchen. Roaches everywhere, old food in the stoves and ranges. Grease caked on the equipment so thick and over so many years we power washed the equipment and had to use palm Sanders to try to get rid of it.
After spending lots of money and time we had to get rid of everything in the kitchen and start over. They were serving food out of that kitchen two weeks prior and we could not use the same equipment after intense cleaning. This is all aside from the fact that they had steam warmers that had been under able to drain ad they had maggots in the water.
So we are still in the process of cleaning everything and getting new equipment.. but wow I feel bad for anyone who ate there.
Let The Health Inspector Choose
One of my friends is a health inspector and we usually let her pick the restaurants when we go out. She's not allowed to tell us specifics until they're public, but the worst things she's ever seen included:
- a local cake business operating from someone's home (which is fine, if it passes inspection and obeys regulations) where the owner let her six cats do whatever they wanted in the kitchen (which is not so fine.) Apparently they were just walking all over the ingredients and sniffing the cake batter and sh*tting in a litter box beside the oven.
- an Indian restaurant whose butter for naan bread etc (to brush on top before baking) was just in an old plastic tub that had been sat out for six months and had mouse droppings in it.
The Mop Sink
I work in restaurants and asked our inspector the worst thing he has ever seen.
He was at a Mexican restaurant and the prep cooks were fast thawing chicken in the mop sink. As in the sink they use to clean the floors with. They were doing this in front of him with no remorse. They were shocked when he made them bleach the meat to destroy it, and took off several points from their score.
- Mugzerz7
Hard To Pick A Story
I am a health inspector and it's honestly hard to pick a story, because the gross sh!t I see everyday is so commonplace that I barely find it gross anymore. The restaurants in the town I work are actually, as a whole, pretty good because they get full inspection 4 times a year. They really don't have time to get super grimey!
That being said I've seen my fair share of cockroach infestations (place was full, crawling all over equipment and utensils, etc. Place was closed for over a week.)
Rats in the kitchen (actually saw one scurry from behind the cookline and out a hole in the back screen door, rat droppings were everywhere, that place closed for 1 day to clean.)
Place had mold literally so thick you could not see the color of paint covering every wall in the kitchen (they were closed for less than a day.)
Place had a full on sewage backup from the kitchen to the basement, where there was food stored. They knew it was disgusting, but remained open and just had their staff tie plastic bags over their shoes if they needed stuff from the basement. We closed it down.
- Sluzella
The Fat Garbage Thief
Giphy
Get a call for man with a weapon at a Chinese buffet. We got there and didn't see anyone with a weapon, so we located the caller to get details. He says one of the staff had a machete and ran back into the kitchen yelling something. We hear the yelling get closer and a raccoon comes waddling through the swinging door to the kitchen followed closely by a very angry Asian dude... with a machete!
We draw weapons on him and he locks up, drops the machete, and asks why we're pointing guns at him. Umm, because you're running around a buffet with a machete?
Raccoon ghosts off somewhere.
No, they were not serving raccoon meat. It turns out the little trash panda had darted into the kitchen while the cook was on smoke break. Cook grabbed a machete to run the fat garbage thief out of the restaurant and ended up terrifying everyone. Security camera confirmed this. They still got shut down for related issues.
No Common Sense
I am a health inspector. I don't have a story to share (and I guess other inspectors don't either, hence, "I'm not an inspector) because what I see on a daily basis seems par for the course and doesn't gross me out any more. I am use to it. I can see it and write them up but I don't see it as "story" worthy. I take care of it and move on.
By the way, common sense is not common. People say "hand washing is common sense". People don't wash their hands in front of me while I am inspecting. They are so use to not washing their hands that even when they are being inspected they don't do it even to make things look good.
Probably not the grossest but I have seen goopy build up hanging out of soda machine nozzles. Probably hadn't been washed in weeks or months.
This was posted on Tumblr recently.
But then two commentators said THIS, and set everything straight...
That's what the media smear campaign about her would have you believe, anyway. The truth of the matter is that the McDonald's in question had been previously cited - on at least two separate occasions - for keeping so hot that it violated local health and safety regulations. The lady didn't win her lawsuit because American courts are stupid; she won it because the McDonald's she bought that coffee from was actively and knowingly breaking the law with respect to the temperature of its coffee at the time of the incident.
(I mean, do any of you have any idea what a third-degree burn actually is? Third-degree burns involve "full thickness" tissue damage. We're talking bone-deep, with possible destruction of tissue. Can you even imagine how hot that cup of coffee would have to have been to inflict that kind of damage in the few seconds it came in contact with her skin?)
The woman injured was 79-years-old at the time of her injuries, and suffered third-degree burns to the pelvic region, (including thighs, buttocks, and groin), which in combination with lesser burns in the surrounding regions caused damage to an area totaling a whopping 22% of her body's surface. These injuries required two years of extensive medical care, including multiple skin grafts, during her hospitalization.
She was uninsured, and sued McDonald's for the cost of her past and projected future medical care. An estimated $20,000. The corporation offered a settlement of $800, a number so obviously ridiculous that I'm not even going to dignify it with further explanation.
The settlement number most often quoted is not the amount that the actual corporation paid; the jury in the first trial suggested a payment equal to a day or two of coffee revenues for McDonald's, which at the time equaled more than $1 million per diem. The judge reduced the required payout to around $640,000 in both compensatory and punitive damages, and the case was later settled out of court for less than $600,000.
Keep in mind that at the time, McDonald's already had over 700 cases of complaints about coffee-related burns on file, but continued to sell coffee heated to nearly 200 degrees Fahrenheit (around 90 degrees Celsius) as a means of boosting sales (their selling point was that one could buy the coffee, drive to a second location such as work or home, and still have a piping hot beverage). This, in spite of the fact that most restaurants serve coffee between 140 and 160 degrees Fahrenheit (60 to 71 degrees Celsius), and many coffee experts agree that such high temperatures are desirable only during the brewing process itself.
The Liebeck case was absolutely not an example of Litigation - happy Americans expecting corporations to cover their asses for their own stupidity, but we seem determined to remember it that way.
It's an issue of liability, and the allowable lengths of capitalism, and even the way in which our society is incredibly dangerous for, and punitive towards, the uninsured. It was and is not a frivolous suit. Please check your assumptions and do your research before you turn a burn victim's suffering into a throwaway punchline.
Check out the original here.
Well said, Tumblrs!
If you ever watched Saturday morning cartoons, you will definitely know the famous Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner. But what you may not know is that creator, Chuck Jones, had 9 sacred rules that he followed for every episode of this show.
It's so cool to see how much thought went into the making of a seemingly simple cartoon!
If you'd like to see the original source of this list, and learn more about Chuck Jones, check out this Wikipedia page.
Canada (and the world) experienced a monumental moment in history, in what could be the first case of issuing a genderless ID card to a baby, in the world. Little baby Searyl Alti, was given their first health card by Canadian officials, and under the "gender" category, sits a tiny "U" for unassigned, or undetermined.
Searyl's parent, Kori Doty, believes that doctors shouldn't have the right to assign a baby's gender at birth.
Via Facebook
Kori Doty is a nonbinary transgender person who identifies as neither male nor female. After giving birth to baby Searyl in November, Doty undertook a lengthy battle to keep their child's government documents gender-free.
In an interview with CKNW News, Doty explained, "Were not actually asking to have anyones ID changed against their will. Were just asking to change the structure of how identification, particularly the birth certificate, starts out."
Human rights lawyer, barbara findlay (name intentionally stylized without capital letters), spoke about this huge step forward. In an interview with Buzzfeed News, findlay said that taking gender and sex off of identification documents recognizes "that the state has no business certifying a child's sex at birth. It is something that is private and that might change."
At least two other Canadian provinces, Ontario and Alberta, are now also considering offering a third, nonbinary option on government documents.
Kori Doty / Via facebook.com
"We would prefer they take 'sex' off these documents entirely," findlay said. "A baby's gender identity develops over time, not when a doctor examines its genitals right after birth."
Doty told the CBC that they felt inspired to make sure their child's documents were genderless, because the doctors who delivered them, assigned them an incorrect gender that, "followed me and followed my identification throughout my life."
Doty wants to make sure that their child doesn't go through this, and has the freewill to choose how they identify.
Doty told the CBC, "I'm raising Searyl in such a way that until they have the sense of self and command of vocabulary to tell me who they are, I'm recognizing them as a baby and trying to give them all the love and support to be the most whole person that they can be outside of the restrictions that come with the boy box and the girl box."
Way to go, Doty!
Recently, Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant allowed the public to ask them all their burning questions about what it means to be a celebrity, how they got to be so darn charming, and even the one thing that has riddled people for centuries is a hotdog a sandwich?
And Meryl and Hugh, being the all knowing super beings that they are, answered every. last. question. Here's the best-of from their public interview.
1/15. Meryl - would you be up for playing Batman?
2/15. If there's any advice you could give to your 18 year-old self, what would it be?
Hugh: Don't wear that jumpsuit. I had a girlfriend who decided in 1978 that I should have a jumpsuit, which were quite trendy. But mine was too small from crotch to shoulder especially after it had been in the washing machine, so I had to go around with a slight stoop and all the dye ran. I remember when I took it off I was bright blue. It was a mistake. We all made mistakes.
Meryl: I'm picturing that, and it's such a beautiful thing. Jumpsuits for men are always so difficult when you get to that one area.
Meryl: Ok so me. I would say, don't smoke.
Hugh: When was your last cigarette?
Meryl: Uh two days ago.
Hugh: Oh I see.
Meryl: No I'm kidding, but yeah, I did smoke in college and as a young actor and it's stupid.
3/15. Is a hotdog a sandwich?
- Chtorrr
Hugh: I had a very unhappy experience with Nathan's hotdogs.
Meryl: Last night you had a hotdog.
Hugh: I had one last night, I got so hungry at the premier. Which I paid for myself.
Meryl: Only the best.
Hugh: I was filming Two Weeks Notice in Coney Island, and someone told me Nathan's hotdogs were famous. What they didn't tell me is you should only have one. I had seven.
Meryl: Seven?
Hugh: I was unable to return to the set after, because of the condition of my innards. I had a makeup artist from Brooklyn who did not mince her words. She said, "Oh my god, did it blow your ass out?"
Meryl: It's really a lovely story. I want to return to that, over and over.
Meryl: Is a hotdog a sandwich? Well with a bun, yes. Without a bun, no. It's a canap.
4/15. For Meryl: let's be honest here, you use at least one of your oscars as a door stop right?
Serious question though, after so many wins and nominations, do you still get excited for the oscars whenever you get nominated?
Meryl: Of course I do, of course I do. I am a human being, and also I'm sort of in a category of person that is usually out to pasture at this point in their career. A woman and over 60, so it's a miracle. When I get invited back, and I fully am delighted, because it's those nominations come from other actors, they don't come from everybody else, they just come from the people who know what it is. So that's cool.
Meryl: No, but, no. they are not door stops. But they are not consistently and beautifully stored, I must say. The housekeeping at my house leaves something to be desired to say the least.
5/15. Mr Grant: How did you become so very, very charming?Is it like a thing you can turn on and off, or must you be utterly swoon-inducing in an endearingly self-deprecating way at all times?
Hugh: Dead right. It is entirely phony, put on- switched on just for the occasion.
Meryl: Bullshit, it is not.
Hugh: No it is, I'm awful. Three quarters of my life I'm hungover, grumpy, and a miserable bastard.
Meryl: But you're perfectly balanced because then you effervesce seemingly effortlessly. And it's a thing a person can't manufacture. You either have that or you don't. You have charm or you don't.
6/15. Whom would you have play the role of you in a film about your life?
Hugh: Colin Firth, obviously. I know it's the role he wants more than anything.
Meryl: He's turned it down over and over again.
7/15. Meryl and Hugh would you accept a role playing Hillary Clinton?
Meryl: For me...probably we should let Hillary play the role she was destined to play all by herself first.
Hugh: I would love to. From the age of 5 to 18 I played almost exclusively female roles.
Meryl: Is that true?
Hugh: Yea because I went to an all boys school.
Meryl: Because you were so pretty probably.
Hugh: I was pretty and undeveloped.
Meryl: Incurable!
Hugh: In many ways ravishing in dresses. And I miss those days. So yea, I would welcome that part.
Meryl: Go for it.
8/15. How do you both approach roles that are based on true stories? Do you feel any sort of responsibility towards maintaining historical accuracy, or do you feel it's more important to ensure the film is entertaining?
Hugh: Good question. Personally, I think the job is to make it entertaining, and that you mine the history for whatever is useful to making a character entertain and move people. And then you just hope that that character isn't alive, or any of their relations, in case they get angry!
Meryl: I've played a lot of characters who really existed, and some who still exist, or existed when I was playing them. Yes, you feel a special responsibility to get as much as you can right about the essence of the person. You can't replicate another human being, nor would you want to. And inevitably, how movies are made and how dramas are made, distorts to make a dramatic point. But sometimes the dramatic point lands on the truth more clearly than documentaries, so, that's cool.
9/15. What is your favourite type of cheese?
Meryl: Well my favorite is really really sharp, extra sharp, aged cheddar cheese.
Hugh: I recently discovered the stuff that comes out of tube in america. What's it called?
Meryl: Velveeta?
Hugh: Delicious.
Meryl: Oh you really--
Hugh: Unmatchable.
Meryl: You're lying.
Hugh: Almost as good as a Nathan's hot dog. Particularly when squeezed directly into the mouth I think.
Meryl: That's far enough.
10/15. What movie have you watched more times than any other?
- sak0711
Hugh: I think for me, it's Four Weddings and a Funeral. It's just so charming.
Meryl: For me, The Godfather.
Hugh: I agree. Or Goodfellows maybe, for me.
Meryl: No, no contest.
Hugh: Really? Well, I disagree.
Meryl: I mean I love Goodfellows and I love Nick Palleggi, but no, it's The Godfather, 1 and 2.
11/15. Hugh have you ever wished you could be James Bond?
- SinSmithy
Hugh: Not so much in the films, but in real life, very much so.
Meryl: You've achieved it!
Hugh: Yeah well, it's harder these days.
Meryl: Youre a race car drive, and you're elegant.
Hugh: Well, whenever I'm in Monte Carlo, I always go to the casino, and say, "banco" and "swivy" just like Bond. The fact that they don't actually play those games anymore spoils it slightly. There's mainly fruit machines. But guys say "banco" and "swivy" to everyone.
12/15. What is your favorite thing about working with one another?
Hugh: Well, Meryl raised my game, for sure she raised my game. It's like playing tennis with Roger Federer.
Meryl: Oh my god. Well, I'm just not into the sports analogy. We had a fight about that last night. To me it was a surprise because...even though I'm an actor, I think I know how people work and what the process is that they go through to get what they've done. So from the films that I'd seen of Hugh's where everybody falls in love immediately when he comes on screen, and it's an indefinable thing. You don't know what that is or how it's created, but you just think, like every other audience member you're in the thrall of it, and you think "Oh, its just...that's the way he is. That's just natural. And that's just behavior." But of course it's not. It's acting. And I made the mistake of thinking this will just be an effortless thing. He agonized over everything so much that, you know, there was a lot of everybody soothing him to make him feel it's okay. It's not the biggest piece of crap anybody's ever seen. It's wonderful. You're wonderful. And he is! But it doesn't...he's so demanding and so...analytical. It's analytical I think. It's not neuroses, it's a high level of, to use the sports analogy, aiming at some technical perfection, that you actually own without the agony.
Hugh: I wish you'd told me this before we started shooting. You're very nice.
13/15. When did you realize the desire to be an actor was a legitimate passion to pursue?
Meryl: Probably the third year of graduate school in acting, I realized that. After I slept through the law boards, the tests that you're going to take, because I was sure I should give up, and do something more meaningful, and measurably helpful in the world. But, I took it as a sign; I slept through the test. I spent a lot of money on the application fee, and had a late performance and a lot of beer the night before, and boom! Missed it. So, you know.
Hugh: Well, it was my triumphant success as Brigitta Von Trapp, the third daughter of the Von Trapp family in a school play when I was about 14. I wore a white dress with a blue satin sash, and I had a very funny line, and I got a big laugh. I realized this was my destiny.
Meryl: Irresistible, isn't it? Big laughs.
Hugh: Yeah!
14/15. Are there any particular historical figures you'd like to play? Or events you're interested in, which you'd like to see adapted into a movie?
Hugh: I think we could do Adam and Eve.
Meryl: Haha yeah, we could do a revisionist Adam and Eve. Because I think that story has been sourced sort of incorrectly.
Hugh: It's not a feminist tale.
Meryl: Like who came from who. The rib of Adam? Oh really? Talk about reversing the order of events.
Hugh: We'd look nice in our fig leaves, wouldn't we?
Meryl: Yes haha. Well you would.
Hugh: Let's set it up. Come on Paramount.
15/15. How does it feel to be the inspiration and role models to other, well accomplished, actors/ actresses?
Meryl: Daunting. It does. But I know what people meant to me when I was coming up. I know that certain actors and actresses really meant a lot. And so I get it. But I feel...yeah...I feel not up to the job sometimes. Every time out is kind of terrifying like it is for you, but I guess I'm an example that in spite of your terror you can continue.
