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Stupid Pizza People Award

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wa_dave

New member
You know how they have the Darwin Awards for stupid people who have been killed doing something really stupid, well I think there could be a similar one for stupid pizza people who have done stupid things (but not died doing them).

Why did I start this thread?

To tell the truth over the past weeks I have done some really stupid things and I need to confess to get them off my chest 😃

First A couple of months ago I tried to free some stuck dough while it was mixing.
Got my middle finger on my right hand squished between the support beam and the spiral mixing arm. Big Ouch !!! :cry: Lost the nail and it is now just coming back. The top part of the finger (which was flattened) is now 50% fatter than the other. What about the safety guard, I hear you ask? Yes it was attached and working, only that I put my hand in where it shouldn’t be :oops:

Second A couple of weeks ago left the shop after avery long and tiring day and forgot to switch off the oven. When our vegie supplier opened up the store to put the delivery in the coolroom he was almost knocked out by the heat and carbon monoxide build up from over the night. He duly locked up and then my M.I.T. who comes in at 1pm and does some prep and dough rollouts went through the same. He knew what was wrong and opened up the double front doors to let fresh air in and then raced in and turned off the oven. It took an hour or so before it cooled down enough to start working in the shop. :oops:

Third Tonight when making the dough up I only added 15 parts of water and forgot to add the other 10 parts ( do it in two lots due to size of measuring container). Put all the ingredients in and started the mixer. Served a customer, made the pizza and put it in the oven and come back to the mixer with a very dry dough mix churning away. Tried adding the rest of the water but the dry mix repelled the water and left a lumpy, slimy mess in the mixer. Ended up throwing it out - 25kg of flour, plus oil, salt and our sour dough mix :oops:

Fourth Almost did the same with the remake batch 20 minutes later but caught it in time.

Ok then hands up all the others who have stupid things. Let us know what you did 😉

Well Nick, if their aint enough ammo for the next month or so I don’t know what you need to put heaps on me.

Dave
 
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Buying a pizza shop and passing up on a 9-5 job like the rest of the world.
 
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Dave, I can’t risk the Karma bashing you for stupid pizza tricks.

a couple months ago It was my turn to clean the fryer. I didn’t come in before the shift, so had to rush through it during pre-shift prep (30 minute window) while doing other setup. Got it drained, and realized it was boil-out time. Got the water in and fry boil in. Fire to the fryer. I know it will boil over if it BOILS, so we watch carefully. Upon getting involved in the prep work, I heard fryer start to heat up . . . no boil. Got distracted, and it started to seethe over the sides . . . gallons of water and chemicals and grease residue. I reached toward the door to turn off theheat, but the shower of hot water would have cooked me. I finally turned the gas valve off to have about 5 gallons of goo on the floor at 3 minutes to open. Took us 15 to 20 minutes to sop it up, degrease and mop the floor . . . yes, orders were coming in as well.

Flash back 1 week before this. Other guy had not come in to clean fryer. The fry cook turned fryer on as soon as he arrived on shift. BAD NEWS. We HAD to clean the fryer, so we had hot grease to deal with. Not a problem since I have some HDEP pails we can use to hold the oil . . . they were filled with something else because of front of house staff. So, I grabbed an empty grease container (the ones oil is shipped in) and filled it 3/4 up, leaving the lid off to let heat escape. Yeah; right. Oil melted through the plastic, saturated the cardboard, and when I picked up the handle, surged across the floor . . . 5 gallons of hot used grease :shock: Rags, cat litter (important step) and degreaser while orders were coming in. this turned out to be the training session for the week described above.

No rocks to throw at Dave in this glass pizzeria. No injuries for me . . . just lots of frustration and lessons.
 
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got a really nifty new knife sharpener after sharpening everything i own i spotted the pizza rocker cutter 😃 sharpened it up nicely couple of hours later second pizza of a 30 pizza order i went to wipe of with rag sliced rag and finger about 3/4 inch deep got it crazy glued and wraped to finish and deliver pizzas what a night 3 days later same hand but little finger cut it almost plum through with piece of sheet metal band aids and crazy glue rock :lol: all healed it was a rough week !!!
 
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My favorite was, one time a few years ago, after closing time as I was doing my walk through before leaving for the night, I noticed that a 10# bag of sugar sitting on the top shelf of a shelving unit in the prep area had fallen against the exhaust vent in the back of my pizza oven. When I grabbed the bag to remove this potential fire hazard, the paper had become so brittle that my fingers went right through. Imagine my surprise when I found that the sugar inside had gotten hot enough to liquify - coating my fingers with 180 degrees of sticky goo! This forum won’t allow me to repeat any of the words that I used that night.

A close 2nd is about another top shelf, in the storage area … we keep most of our seldom used spices in ziplocks in a box on this top shelf. One time, I was on tip toes pulling this box off the shelf when it caught on something and tipped over straight onto my face. Would have been no big deal, except the ziplock holding the cayenne pepper had not been sealed - got my eyes closed before enough got in to cause serious harm, but they burned for days afterwards!
 
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Been having a real hard time with bubbling dough last week. Couldn’t figure it out.

I sampled a chocolate chip cookie straight out of the oven (which I never do) and it was really really salty…

Yup, turns out someone dumped 25 pounds of salt in my sugar cambro.

:oops:
 
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About a month after we opened me and a couple people were out doorhanging. It was getting close to dinner time so I called the store to see if they were getting busy yet. From the way my driver answered the phone I could tell something was wrong but he told me everything was good.

When I got back to the store my assistant admitted to placing a plastic dough tray on the conveyor belt and didn’t notice until it was almost all the way through. It warped and melted into this flat oval looking thing. But when she told me she did it, before I saw the tray, all I could picture was plastic dripping into the oven. I’m glad it wasn’t that bad.

Of course, I refuse to EVER let her live it down and maintain a schedule of reminding her before too much time goes by.
 
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One of many by my ex manager. :x

Just a few weeks after I took over the shop and before we put up the dividing wall between the counter and the kitchen he raced around the prep bench to roll out some dough. As he went by the saucing bucket (10lt) he caught the spoon handle and over it went. Or to put it more accurately, over me it went.

I copped it all down my back, with some going right past me and hitting the till and just missing a couple of customers.

When I turned around to see what happened the whole shop roared with laughter with me with my back to them all covered in rich tomato base sauce.

It was through this episode that I realised the manager had a drink problem (previous owner used to allow him to have a can while on his break - many breaks = many cans) and I put him on notice about drinking or being under the influence while on duty.

Customers still ask occasionally if I’m wearing my full blooded tomato shirts anymore. 🙂

Dave
 
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Did this twice…guess sometimes you just don’t learn.

Had a 15lb bucket of pastry icing for topping my desserts and cinnamon stix. Filled everything up and put it back on the shelf. Apparently I did not get the lid on tight. Next day, you got it, full of ants! Millions of the little buggers all over the place. Tossed into the dumpster. Learned how to make the icing myself from scratch that day!

Also fired up my bottom oven for a day while cleaning the top one. Forgot the paddle was on it and it got a nice heat cured blast! Just couldn’t figure out what that strange smell was!

Kinda funny one but a new employee was being trained by one of my cooks. Showed her how to make a couple pizzas, then we got busy. New employee decided to try and make a meat supreme. She got all the toppings correct, just not the amount. By the time I realized it, the oven was scraping off the 8 inches of meat from the top of it as it was trying to enter the oven! Same employee, same night was making another pizza. When it came out of the oven my cut/wrap person couldn’t figure out why it looked so odd. I about fell out…she forgot to put the cheese on it, and the order called for extra cheese!

While doing my build out, I was putting a new tile floor down. Wanting to get everything right, I followed the directions to the letter. I used my trowel to put down the layer of glue so it could tack up before laying the tile. Stood up to admire my work only to discover I was trapped on all 4 sides by a sticky floor! By the way, it takes about 3 weeks for the glue to wear off the bottom of tennis shoes!
 
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NicksPizza:
Dave, I can’t risk the Karma bashing you for stupid pizza tricks.

a couple months ago It was my turn to clean the fryer. I didn’t come in before the shift, so had to rush through it during pre-shift prep (30 minute window) while doing other setup. Got it drained, and realized it was boil-out time. Got the water in and fry boil in. Fire to the fryer. I know it will boil over if it BOILS, so we watch carefully. Upon getting involved in the prep work, I heard fryer start to heat up . . . no boil. Got distracted, and it started to seethe over the sides . . . gallons of water and chemicals and grease residue. I reached toward the door to turn off theheat, but the shower of hot water would have cooked me. I finally turned the gas valve off to have about 5 gallons of goo on the floor at 3 minutes to open. Took us 15 to 20 minutes to sop it up, degrease and mop the floor . . . yes, orders were coming in as well.

(this has happened to me a few times over my long carreer in the restaurant business. If you can manage to get cold water into the fryer, it will instantly stop the boiling.)

Flash back 1 week before this. Other guy had not come in to clean fryer. The fry cook turned fryer on as soon as he arrived on shift. BAD NEWS. We HAD to clean the fryer, so we had hot grease to deal with. Not a problem since I have some HDEP pails we can use to hold the oil . . . they were filled with something else because of front of house staff. So, I grabbed an empty grease container (the ones oil is shipped in) and filled it 3/4 up, leaving the lid off to let heat escape. Yeah; right. Oil melted through the plastic, saturated the cardboard, and when I picked up the handle, surged across the floor . . . 5 gallons of hot used grease :shock: Rags, cat litter (important step) and degreaser while orders were coming in. this turned out to be the training session for the week described above.

(ecolab makes a product called absorbit, this stuff is the best product I’ve ever used for grease clean up, it comes in little packets and you dump them in hot water. I’ve had 10 gallons of grease on the floor because a cook forgot to close the valve, we used the absorbit and after the floor dried, it was like it never had grease on it)

No rocks to throw at Dave in this glass pizzeria. No injuries for me . . . just lots of frustration and lessons.
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When I worked at Mazzios, I did mess up the weight of the water when making the thin crust…about 3 different times over the course of a month…nothing ticks you off more than to have to remake.

The stupidest thing I did, also working at Mazzios, was when I went to put the pans in the dishwasher for washing…I grabbed the screens as well, and someone else had put some HOT screens on them, too.

Well, I have a VERY high pain tolerance, so I politely put down the screen and went to the back.

My boss (the owner, coincidentally) was griping me out for not coming back to the front to keep on with the rush, and even when he saw me in the back with my hand submerged in a dough pitcher full of cold water, he said I needed to buck it up and go back to the make line.

Well, 30 minutes later, my husband, who was a driver there came back and it had slowed down a bit, so we had to “sneak” me out on the guise of going to my mom who has a medical background to make sure I was okay…and she saw my hand and immediately took me to the ER.

I had 2nd and 3rd degree burns on my left hand, thumb, and fingers and they wouldn’t have gotten that way had he not allowed me to leave…RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
 
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I have 2 up for consideration!
  1. A few weeks after we opened last May, I was on the register and hubby was in the back with an employee. He told me to come to the back. Being a stubborn Irish/German I told him no, and him being a Sicilian, told me YES. I finally caved and went back… to my horror there was blood everywhere…
    Our employee had stuck his hand in the cheese shredder as it was moving. Almost took his finger off…going to college on a basketball scholarship too! I had to take him to the ER. Always fun meeting your employees parents in the ER!
  2. Passion will relate to this one… the other nite hubby and I ordered Chinese before we left to have delivered to our house when we got home. While we are closing up, the phone rings. We don’t answer, rings again. I answer, thinking it might be the Chinese place. It’s someone who wants the owner, so I say he’s busy, caller says it’s important. I put Dwaine on. Caller tells Dwaine his pizza was REALLY salty tonite. Dwaine tastes the sauce, agrees with caller… and realizes he put SALT instead of SUGAR in the sauce!!!
Keep the stories coming… I’m enjoying!
We should vote on who gets the SPP Award :lol:
 
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sweetp1265:
Keep the stories coming… I’m enjoying!
We should vote on who gets the SPP Award :lol:
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It is making me laugh hard as well. BUT, when it comes to voting for the most stupid, Dave. I vote for Dave.

Dave . . . Dave . . . Dave . . . Dave . . . Dave . . . Dave . . . Dave . . . Dave . . . 😃
 
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Well they just keep coming from my end.

Today while we were rolling up my Manager in Training completely $tuffed or dough roller.

We had rolled out 25 smalls (9"), 50 large (13"), 36 Family (15’) and had done 6 Jumbo (18") when MIT tried to put a Jumbo ball through the rollers when it was on the final rollout level. The dough ball immediately stuck between the rollers and the bearings went crash, clunk, grrrrrr.

We couldn’t roll out any more Jumbos but still had 70 larges to roll out. Had to use the small top roller to get first roll out and then do the rest by hand and the spike roller.

You wouldn’t guess but tonight everyone wanted Jumbos and couldn’t have them so they took family. When they ran out they then took multiple larges. We had to keep a tally of skins as they were ordered and then had to pull the pin for the night when they ran out. Of course the phone ran off the hook tonight. At least it was a good takings night but we have the whole weekend of hand rolling to look forward to - only doing large and small - before we can get it in to be fixed on Monday and then it will probably be another couple of days.

To all you guys who hand toss / roll all I can say you really know how to punish yourself. Give me a roller anyday (while they are working that is).

Stay tuned for my next fun-filled installment of the mis-adventures of Pizza Pizzazz Currambine. :oops: :cry:

For once I think I might have to agree with Nick.

Dave
 
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have you ever sent a pizza out without cutting it…more than once???
ever tried to pull that little piece of stainless scrubbie out of a utensil and cut the cr@p out of your finger???
how about dropping a chefs knife and out of reflex…catch it and cut the cr@p out of you finger???
last week changed out the fryer,ended up with about 3 gallons of fryer oil running all over the place…betcha cant guess how i did that.
this morning came in,smelt gas,had a line on the char leaking,went up to the hardware store,locked my self out of the shop
had to break a window to get in…cut the cr@p out of my finger…
 
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SMITH:
have you ever sent a pizza out without cutting it…more than once???
ever tried to pull that little piece of stainless scrubbie out of a utensil and cut the cr@p out of your finger???
how about dropping a chefs knife and out of reflex…catch it and cut the cr@p out of you finger???
last week changed out the fryer,ended up with about 3 gallons of fryer oil running all over the place…betcha cant guess how i did that.
this morning came in,smelt gas,had a line on the char leaking,went up to the hardware store,locked my self out of the shop
had to break a window to get in…cut the cr@p out of my finger…
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And the Cutting the Finger Award goes to … 😉

Dave
 
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how many times has this happen (hope it is not just me)

few months back we needed to replace the pizza paddle because it was real wabbly. Well when taking a large meatlovers out of the oven it flipped and the pizza was headed to the ground and out of instinct I went to catch it…dumb idea hot cheese, toppings and sauce from my fingers to my elbow: /OUCH?
 
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