Spotless Oven? Who’s Complaining?
This happened to me when I was a field tech for a commercial restaurant repair company. The company charged $110 an hour, port to port, meaning from the time I left the shop until I returned. Being from the Southwest, I resemble much of the back-of-house staff, and working on ovens, I was usually dirty, as well.
On this particular day, the chef had called in a service call for a convection oven that wasn’t working, and I had just finished ordering the parts when some top brass from the front office came into the kitchen — to harass the staff, I suppose.
One dude in a pair of khakis and a button-up asked me why the ovens were as dirty as they were.
Me: “I’ve got no idea.”
Dude: “Well, you need to get them cleaned up!”
Usually, I would have told him to kiss my a** and walked out, but this particular day, I decided to help him out. I stayed a couple of hours and cleaned up his oven… at $110 an hour.
Of course, he disputed the invoice and threatened not to pay, but I had parts on order for another piece of equipment, and if you don’t pay, I don’t come back and put your s*** back together, so yeah, he paid.