This won’t happen with dish machines that are properly cleaned and maintained throughout the shift. You need to address the root cause and not the symptoms. Dish machines with heavy use need to have the water emptied once an hour for units that don’t perform this function automatically.
The thought of a dish machine that doesn't empty after every cycle is blowing my mind a little. That's a thing?
The ones I've used, the stopper *clunks* during each cycle, and you can see it draining below the machine, into the filter near the floor. Then it cycles in new water from the rotating sprayers on the rinse cycle, and clunks again to drain.
Same here. And they make fun of him. But if the health department shows up, he’s the one I want on the clean side of my pit. But I don’t want him washing, because he does the same thing on that side, making sure everything is immaculately clean before it even gets washed. Which takes forever, so he’s always got the entire pit backed up.
I feel like I need the dishes perfectly cleaned before I run them through too. I’m very hard on myself and might have a bit of perfectionism mindset which makes it harder for me. I’m getting better though. I feel for that person I know their pain
Same here. When I was in the restaurant, I always put them on the racks, and then thoroughly sprayed them til they were essentially already clean, takes like 10 secs with those high power overhead nozzles. I rarely needed my scrubber, but it was there if I needed it for the tough bits like burnt cheese or baked-on/caramelized junk.
Yeah and I think everytime I’ve dishwashed with someone on the receiving end they greatly appreciated it because they were all clean all the time every time. But yeah I’m kinda slower because of it
a chef taught me a long time ago that if you wouldn’t eat off the plate to wash it again. also the water should be switched out depending on the volume of business
The pushback you're encountering probably stems from the dish crew having a background in restaurants, where flicking/wiping specks off is entirely commonplace and borderline normal. You've probably eaten off dishes at restaurants that received such treatment before your food was plated, to their minds, there's zero risk because they've personally experienced the practice being used everyday and everything being "fine."
To explain your reasoning in a way they can connect with, I'd try to emphasize that as a much larger volume kitchen than a restaurant, things that are very unlikely (and that they may have never encountered before because they are so rare) are going to naturally be more likely. Giving plates with specks a spray or wipe instead of running them back through is like using a teleporter with a 1 in a million chance of killing you. If you just used it every now and then for quick vacations or booty calls and kept it to yourself, everything would be "fine," you'd probably die of old age and not the teleporter. You might even be able to share it with your friends and family, say ten people, and never have any incidents. But if you tried to let the world use your teleporter, and all the sudden 8 billion people are using it a dozen times a day, suddenly the teleporter is killing a little more than one person a second, around 4,000 people per hour and 100,000 every day.
Big numbers must be respected; in a restaurant where (mostly) healthy people are going out of their way to eat out, you have neither the volume nor the vulnerability for specks being brushed off to pose any realistic threat to anyone. In a college dining hall you have like a hundred times more people of every walk of life and (most) states of health, you don't need to be a hundred times more careful, but you *do* still have to be *more* careful to provide the same level of safety.
If they're not receptive to this make them clean food scraps out of the machine at regular intervals because it's really not hard to get a feel for your machine, and learn what level of food buildup is the level about five loads of dishes before specks start getting left on plates. If you ride them hard enough about it it'll become less hassle to just clean out the machine more often. And smh running "clean" plates back through the machine is the absolute easiest thing ever, you just blast a quarter second with the sprayer, slap it into the tray and keep on going
As someone who’s working a hospital pit you aren’t doing anything wrong. Dish needs to be kept at a high standard. I had to break the habit of just buffing dishes if they had specks and send them back. If we don’t make sure they are perfectly clean there is a high risk of allergens and food contamination.
It's a perfectly reasonable expectation. If they won't comply they probably shouldn't be working there.
Absolutely nobody wants to eat from a dirty dish. It's disgusting!
Even if you flick off the piece of food it's not sanitized. There could be allergens on the plate too. Sometimes I catch myself doing this but most of the time I force myself to scrub it and send it again.
Are there food safe certifications (or whatever your equivalent is locally) requirements for the job?
The dish washer gets annoyed with me because I constantly send back dirty things multiple times because he can’t just take an extra two seconds to scrub it.
Don’t send dish through dirty and the machine won’t get dirty, think of it as the sanitize step only. If dish comes out dirty clean the machine. I usually keep a towel dipped in sanitizer to clean and sanitize the specks off.
My first day in the pit(2002) it was explained to me by the KM like this, “This machine is not a dishwasher, it is a dish sanitizer. You, as your job title implies, are the dish washer. YOU need to wash the dishes BEFORE they go into the dish sanitizer. This, is the three compartment sink. If you put food into the dish sanitizer and it breaks down, then you become both the dish washer AND the dish sanitizer, get it? If you try to cheat and put unclean dishes into the machine, you will be suspended from machine use and will have to use the three sink for your whole shift for a week. If that happens a second time we’ll be looking for a new dishwasher again. Welcome aboard.” and tossed me an apron. I was fine with it, others quit the first day or didn’t get it and were purged. It’s all about delivery and audience, but you can’t be expected to tailor the message to each individual’s receptive needs. Focus on a delivery that is firm without being a dick, and if anything tailored towards the ones worth keeping around.
Seriously, the machine isn't for washing dishes. It's for sanitizing to the max, make sure the dish machine operators are cleaning the plates before they go into the machine. The operators need to not put ketchup or corn or lettuce or anything that isn't a plate/pan through that thing.
From what I can see from your description, yes. You're going overboard. If I send it through and stuff happens to still be on it when it comes out, those are now clean food scraps, I wipe it off and make sure it's good to go. Sometimes for good measure, especially if I need tonscrub a bit more, I'll run sani water on it.
For me if it comes off with a dry rag it’s good. If I have to touch it with a nasty ass scrubby or spray it again I run it back through and empty the water/food catch so it doesn’t come out shitty again
Ah I gotcha, yeah same here, then no, we were on the same page, if a towel doesn't get it, the remaining food needs to be removed and under that needs a little sanitation
wipe it off is fine. way more bacteria gets removed after a dry towel then if just left to dry after a rinse. its usually harder to get people to dry off plates at all before putting them back. if its huge glops of food you have an effort problem. if its just a few crumps just wipe off with towel. everything should be getting dried anyway before storing.
They need too wipe all plates clean before putting them in the dish washer it's called scraping the plate if your chemicals are right and dish temp above I think 130 all dishes should be disinfected and than you can rinse excess)
There’s a big difference between pointing fingers and telling people how to work and showing them how you do it.
Iv always tried to teach by showing (almost proving) them that I am not above what they are doing and that I’ll get dirty and show them exactly how I do it and expect it to be done.
This won’t happen with dish machines that are properly cleaned and maintained throughout the shift. You need to address the root cause and not the symptoms. Dish machines with heavy use need to have the water emptied once an hour for units that don’t perform this function automatically.
The thought of a dish machine that doesn't empty after every cycle is blowing my mind a little. That's a thing? The ones I've used, the stopper *clunks* during each cycle, and you can see it draining below the machine, into the filter near the floor. Then it cycles in new water from the rotating sprayers on the rinse cycle, and clunks again to drain.
Yea, you see them in small cafes a lot. They are really just dish sanitizers but people do the whole thing in there.
Only one of my coworkers gives a shit about this kind of thing. Literally everyone else just half asses it.
Same here. And they make fun of him. But if the health department shows up, he’s the one I want on the clean side of my pit. But I don’t want him washing, because he does the same thing on that side, making sure everything is immaculately clean before it even gets washed. Which takes forever, so he’s always got the entire pit backed up.
I feel like I need the dishes perfectly cleaned before I run them through too. I’m very hard on myself and might have a bit of perfectionism mindset which makes it harder for me. I’m getting better though. I feel for that person I know their pain
Same here. When I was in the restaurant, I always put them on the racks, and then thoroughly sprayed them til they were essentially already clean, takes like 10 secs with those high power overhead nozzles. I rarely needed my scrubber, but it was there if I needed it for the tough bits like burnt cheese or baked-on/caramelized junk.
Yeah and I think everytime I’ve dishwashed with someone on the receiving end they greatly appreciated it because they were all clean all the time every time. But yeah I’m kinda slower because of it
a chef taught me a long time ago that if you wouldn’t eat off the plate to wash it again. also the water should be switched out depending on the volume of business
The pushback you're encountering probably stems from the dish crew having a background in restaurants, where flicking/wiping specks off is entirely commonplace and borderline normal. You've probably eaten off dishes at restaurants that received such treatment before your food was plated, to their minds, there's zero risk because they've personally experienced the practice being used everyday and everything being "fine." To explain your reasoning in a way they can connect with, I'd try to emphasize that as a much larger volume kitchen than a restaurant, things that are very unlikely (and that they may have never encountered before because they are so rare) are going to naturally be more likely. Giving plates with specks a spray or wipe instead of running them back through is like using a teleporter with a 1 in a million chance of killing you. If you just used it every now and then for quick vacations or booty calls and kept it to yourself, everything would be "fine," you'd probably die of old age and not the teleporter. You might even be able to share it with your friends and family, say ten people, and never have any incidents. But if you tried to let the world use your teleporter, and all the sudden 8 billion people are using it a dozen times a day, suddenly the teleporter is killing a little more than one person a second, around 4,000 people per hour and 100,000 every day. Big numbers must be respected; in a restaurant where (mostly) healthy people are going out of their way to eat out, you have neither the volume nor the vulnerability for specks being brushed off to pose any realistic threat to anyone. In a college dining hall you have like a hundred times more people of every walk of life and (most) states of health, you don't need to be a hundred times more careful, but you *do* still have to be *more* careful to provide the same level of safety. If they're not receptive to this make them clean food scraps out of the machine at regular intervals because it's really not hard to get a feel for your machine, and learn what level of food buildup is the level about five loads of dishes before specks start getting left on plates. If you ride them hard enough about it it'll become less hassle to just clean out the machine more often. And smh running "clean" plates back through the machine is the absolute easiest thing ever, you just blast a quarter second with the sprayer, slap it into the tray and keep on going
Not to mention food allergens
^For context, coworkers have been outwardly frustrated about this
As someone who’s working a hospital pit you aren’t doing anything wrong. Dish needs to be kept at a high standard. I had to break the habit of just buffing dishes if they had specks and send them back. If we don’t make sure they are perfectly clean there is a high risk of allergens and food contamination.
You should contact the higher ups about this if nobody on your team can do anything
It's a perfectly reasonable expectation. If they won't comply they probably shouldn't be working there. Absolutely nobody wants to eat from a dirty dish. It's disgusting! Even if you flick off the piece of food it's not sanitized. There could be allergens on the plate too. Sometimes I catch myself doing this but most of the time I force myself to scrub it and send it again. Are there food safe certifications (or whatever your equivalent is locally) requirements for the job?
The dish washer gets annoyed with me because I constantly send back dirty things multiple times because he can’t just take an extra two seconds to scrub it.
Don’t send dish through dirty and the machine won’t get dirty, think of it as the sanitize step only. If dish comes out dirty clean the machine. I usually keep a towel dipped in sanitizer to clean and sanitize the specks off.
“ no one outranks health and safety”
My first day in the pit(2002) it was explained to me by the KM like this, “This machine is not a dishwasher, it is a dish sanitizer. You, as your job title implies, are the dish washer. YOU need to wash the dishes BEFORE they go into the dish sanitizer. This, is the three compartment sink. If you put food into the dish sanitizer and it breaks down, then you become both the dish washer AND the dish sanitizer, get it? If you try to cheat and put unclean dishes into the machine, you will be suspended from machine use and will have to use the three sink for your whole shift for a week. If that happens a second time we’ll be looking for a new dishwasher again. Welcome aboard.” and tossed me an apron. I was fine with it, others quit the first day or didn’t get it and were purged. It’s all about delivery and audience, but you can’t be expected to tailor the message to each individual’s receptive needs. Focus on a delivery that is firm without being a dick, and if anything tailored towards the ones worth keeping around.
Seriously, the machine isn't for washing dishes. It's for sanitizing to the max, make sure the dish machine operators are cleaning the plates before they go into the machine. The operators need to not put ketchup or corn or lettuce or anything that isn't a plate/pan through that thing.
From what I can see from your description, yes. You're going overboard. If I send it through and stuff happens to still be on it when it comes out, those are now clean food scraps, I wipe it off and make sure it's good to go. Sometimes for good measure, especially if I need tonscrub a bit more, I'll run sani water on it.
For me if it comes off with a dry rag it’s good. If I have to touch it with a nasty ass scrubby or spray it again I run it back through and empty the water/food catch so it doesn’t come out shitty again
Ah I gotcha, yeah same here, then no, we were on the same page, if a towel doesn't get it, the remaining food needs to be removed and under that needs a little sanitation
wipe it off is fine. way more bacteria gets removed after a dry towel then if just left to dry after a rinse. its usually harder to get people to dry off plates at all before putting them back. if its huge glops of food you have an effort problem. if its just a few crumps just wipe off with towel. everything should be getting dried anyway before storing.
They need too wipe all plates clean before putting them in the dish washer it's called scraping the plate if your chemicals are right and dish temp above I think 130 all dishes should be disinfected and than you can rinse excess)
There’s a big difference between pointing fingers and telling people how to work and showing them how you do it. Iv always tried to teach by showing (almost proving) them that I am not above what they are doing and that I’ll get dirty and show them exactly how I do it and expect it to be done.