Unfiltered Story #258619

I work in a restaurant as a cook second shift. It is a regular occurrence that the cooks who work first shift may start a long prep project, and ask one of the second shift cooks to finish it when we come in. This is one such conversation, between myself and a first-shift cook whose English is pretty good but not quite fluent:

Coworker: [My Name], can you finish cooking the chicken for me? I have to leave.

(He explains how far he has gotten into the recipe and what I still need to do.)

Me: Yeah, no problem.

(I look at the chicken and notice that an ingredient is missing.)

Me: [Coworker], can you just bring the thyme?

Coworker: No, I don’t have time, I have to leave now.

Me: No, not that kind of thyme, I mean the thyme for the chicken.

Coworker: I don’t have time for the chicken! That’s why I asked you to do it!

Me: Not time on the clock, the thyme that goes in the chicken! You forgot to put the thyme in the chicken!

Coworker (shouting now): I TOLD YOU I DON’T HAVE TIME! IF YOU DON’T WANT TO DO IT JUST SAY SO! BUT I HAVE TO GO!

Me (also shouting): NOT! THAT! TIME!

(I storm away into the cooler and bring out the container of thyme and storm back out.)

Me: (shaking the container at him): THIS! THIS THYME! THIS IS WHAT I’VE BEEN ASKING YOU FOR!

Coworker: Ohhhhhh, the thyme! I forgot to put the thyme in the chicken!

(Both of us start laughing. That was years ago, and still every time there is a misunderstanding because of the language barrier among anyone in the kitchen, we say to each other, “Do you have time for the chicken?” then laugh like idiots.