Lunch Lady Land!!

Yesterday was my first official day as a substitute lunch lady! Let me tell you, being out of regular work for sometime has really made me mushy and lunch lady-ing really kicked my patoot! Those ladies work hard! My day started bright and early at the kitchen entrance at 7:15am. The kitchen was already warm and bustling! I was given a tour of THE cleanest commercial kitchen I have ever seen! There was not one speck of dirt anywhere! I was given a few small tasks before I set to helping a nice lady named Mary Ann make hundreds of "Cosmo Sandwiches". These toasted ham and cheese deals were put on a pretzel bun and boy did they look good! We also cut up some veggies while another lady assembled the fruit. There actually was another whole team that put together the salad bar and juice area. After that there was a bit of last minute stuff before the kids hit the line. I happily got to work the line and hand out food. Kids came in waves. It was an elementary school and the kids were so cute-and shockingly well behaved!! About 500 kids in the whole school. I was the lady at the end of the line who put the sandwich, fruit and veggies on the tray/in the bowl. So there was a lot of talking with the kids. I made the mistake of asking what kind of fruit they wanted and that held up the line a bit! Oops! I quickly learned that they could switch fruit amongst themselves in the cafeteria! Too funny. Working on the line was crazy! In between kids coming in you had to reset the line, take empty trays to the wash room and help out in the wash room getting all those trays washed and back out! Mayhem! Organized mayhem! These ladies work like a well oiled machine, each knowing what their roll is and getting that job done! After the last kid was served, we had to break down the kitchen and clean it! There is a reason why that kitchen is so clean! It is cleaned every day! Good old fashioned elbow grease! Each lady has her responsibilities for cleaning and when they are done with their section, they come together around one of the kitchen tables to enjoy lunch together. It was so nice sitting around the table after our work day and enjoying lunch. So cute! I really enjoyed my day and was happy when I got booked for 4 more days with this crew!

PS-If you are wondering about the hair net thing...When I got there they offered me either a hair net or a visor. I thought I was being cool when I picked the visor. Yuck! I hated that thing! It limited my vision so much that it was a bother. I quickly switched to hair net. (no laughing!) The kitchen manager said that we could leave our bangs out and I fixed my hair under that net just so! A couple of the other ladies gave me the hair net 411. Sally's. Go to Sally's and they have hair nets to match your hair that are super lightweight. I couldn't even tell that they had on hair nets. So get this, they put the hair nets on from home, so they can fix their hair nicely under it! I am all over that! AND even with my hair in a net, a couple of the little girls said, "Oh! I really like your hair!" to me (not one bit of sarcasam from them, thank you very much!). That made my day!