If you didn’t know, line cooks’ jobs are super intense and crazy. It’s cited that the two things you learn very quickly as a cook are stress management and time management. It’s often an overworked and underpaid job. What I’m trying to say is - cooks have it bad enough.
But still, some people think they know better than them and that it’s okay to push them even more. That’s the story of the poster of this story - the manager told him to wash the rice until the water runs clear, so he did, 37 times.
More info: Reddit
Sometimes you just know that the formal requirements of a job are bull, especially when you've been working there for years
Image credits: Guilhem Vellut (not the actual photo)
A Redditor by the nickname of FaultyCarbon took it online to share his malicious compliance at the chagrin of his manager
Image credits: FaultyCarbon
Image credits: miheco (not the actual photo)
He was working in a popular burrito restaurant for a time and had worked long enough to know that you didn't need to rinse the rice according to company regulations
Image credits: FaultyCarbon
Image credits: Bob Peters (not the actual photo)
Alas, a manager one day attempted to enforce the rule of washing rice "until the water runs clear," without listening to the poster's complaints
Image credits: FaultyCarbon
Image credits: Krystal Hotels Timeshare Mexico (not the actual photo)
To be malicious, the poster agitated the rice more aggressively than usual, washing the rice over and over and over again
Image credits: FaultyCarbon
37 washings later, when the rice had turned into a fine white paste, the manager relented, with OP winning the petty battle
In this story, the original poster (OP) detailed how he maliciously complied with his manager for enforcing every single rule exactly to the word.
Working at a popular restaurant, known for their large burritos and charging for extra guacamole, the company policy was to “rinse raw rice three times until water runs clear.”
Now OP knew that he could wash 50% more rice, letting them serve more people without them waiting, thus improving their experience.
On the flipside, the rice water would never “run clear”, but he knew that this corner could be cut without any risks to customer safety.
The manager butted in once, saying that the rice wasn't clean enough and told him to wash it according to company policy. He did so, but, admitted in the comments that while he did so, he agitated it with a spoon a little too hard and over the 37 washings, the rice turned into mush.
OP vs. manager - 1:0. And yes, OP counted the times he washed the rice, what’s malicious compliance if you don’t go the extra mile?
Bored Panda reached out to the OP of this story, FaultyCarbon, to get some more in-depth comments about it and he graciously replied!
Now, look, this story’s manager is not the evil supervisor you’re used to and OP puts emphasis on that fact.
“Overall, she was a good manager. She did her best to balance taking care of the employees and following the demands of her boss and the higher-ups of the company. Not an easy balance to find,” FaultyCarbon told us.
He worked closely with the manager for over a year and while there were other conflicts, none were nearly as story-worthy as this one.
Continuing with the interview, we inquired about what other corners get cut that customers may not even realize. OP began this part by saying that “the key to cutting corners is to keep customers in mind.”
You should only cut corners that will be to a customer's benefit. The poster was cooking for people that were a part of his community, family and friends, so his first rule was to never cut a corner that would endanger the customer or cause them to have a bad experience.
According to him, you can cut corners that are busy-work prescribed by corporate to maintain an image or “some nonsense health code rule.”
Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio (not the actual photo)
One example of this is rules in the kitchen that you should take the temp of the fridge where you store food multiple times a day and write it down. Once you’ve done this 100 times in a row, you get to know what the temperature should be.
So instead of checking the thermometer, filling out paperwork with a whole bunch of details multiple times a day, you can tell which foods are not being kept cold and need to be thrown out, or whether the fridge needs to be repaired or replaced.
So, if it’s a really busy day and you’re understaffed - you skip taking the temperature of the fridge, saving a couple of precious minutes to keep the food going. You do all of that later, and just make up the previous times, because you know what to say to make it believable.
Another corner OP would cut was how much food they were allowed to make at a time.
“For example, we were only supposed to cook something like 30 pounds of rice in the cooker at one time. But these cookers were huge, you could put in, say, 45 pounds, and there would be no discernable difference in the quality of rice,” FaultyCarbon clarified.
Cooking in bulk takes up time, so OP says that if they could increase a batch’s size by 50%, adding only a little bit to the cooking time, then he would.
Customers get upset when they’d run out of rice, so the poster ensured that they never did.
OP said there were some things that he wouldn’t skim on.
“Never ever, ever cut a corner that would compromise the safety of a customer or staff,” for example, meat cooking temperatures. The poster said that they wouldn’t do it no matter how unreasonable or rude the customer was and if they witnessed staff doing it, they’d kick 'em out.
The poster finishes the interview by saying that he wouldn’t serve something that they wouldn’t be 100% willing to eat or give to their family. They want to get paid and serve people good food so they keep coming back, so they draw a hard line on cutting corners that could interfere with those goals or hurt someone.
Image credits: Quiet Hut (not the actual photo)
If you’ve ever wondered, being a cook really is a difficult job. In a Quora thread discussing the job, all 9 comments said that it is some shade of difficult.
Several people described it as brutal, extremely hot, draining, but at the same time, oddly rewarding, when you get used to the insane tempo and being screamed at by the chefs.
Even though it is a crazy difficult job, it is one of the stepping stones of becoming a higher-level chef. A career in a high end restaurant is likely to start from a job cleaning the kitchen and washing dishes, while slowly getting accustomed to the speed of the job and what your colleagues are doing.
A lot of people look down on dishwashers, as it is the lowest job in the hierarchy in the kitchen, but, ironically, also the most important, as without clean dishes the work in the kitchen simply halts.
Then, if you get a lucky break, it’s possible to become a prep or a line cook (a prep is someone who prepares ingredients ahead of time), then a cook, sous chef, chef and so on until you become a regular Gordon Ramsey.
Of course, there are various other stepping stones, with courses you can take and qualifications you can gain, but what’s most important is your own dedication. Peeps say that you have to be on time, be willing to work overtime, and simply bust your butt off.
By the way, this applies more to restaurants and similar establishments, rather than fast food franchises, but if you want to climb the career ladder, putting in the work won’t hurt in any circumstance.
In 10 days, the story collected almost 7.5k upvotes with a 95% upvote ratio. In the more than 560 comments, people made jokes about the situation and shared their own stories about working in kitchens or… with rice. I hope you’ve got a good story about rice to share in the comments too!
The commenters made jokes and told their own rice and cooking based stories
