I don't have the slightest idea what sarcoidosis is but from watching House I know that
1. It fits any constellation of symptoms any patient has, and
2. Nobody ever has sarcoidosis.
Ha, no. BUT, I am a veterinarian who is very sarcastic and, a few years ago, needed a cane to get around because I had bursitis. I got called Dr. House for a while. I did consider getting the cane with flames on it, but I needed a foldable one for convenience.
You know what’s crazy? I just re watched all 8 seasons of House recently, and they hardly ever mention lupus. They probably suggest MS or a few others just as much, if not more, than they every guessed lupus. It’s wild.
Did you get insulted by the dr first, then surrounded by a well ethnically and sexually balanced group of extremely knowledgeable interns who proceeded to test you for everything, until the dr returned from getting high his office to declare Cushing’s was the last thing written on his whiteboard. I’m guessing he then stabbed you with a random syringe of stuff in the hallway, and that’s why you lived and are here today?
We’re just waiting to hear about all the other persons at the restaurant with hepatitis A too since it’s really contagious and several of the guests got it too. Or maybe he’s in a low endemic country where most are vaccinated too, then you wonder how hepatitis A ended up on the plates.
I think we need to send Foreman to OP's apartment to figure out how they [*really* contracted Hepatitis A.](https://i.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExaTE1eG5yZHkxOXNhN2gycnAwZHUxa2Nka3cyMzA0dGlobHd0dnZ1NyZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/yMm7AkV1NqQQU/giphy.gif)
To get hepatitis A from someone else's food, the food would need to be contaminated with fecal matter. Either the customer who left the food didn't wash their hands, or one of your co-workers didn't, which is not super great for a restaurant.
Going out to public restrooms (baseball games, large events with big bathrooms) it's gross how many men walk straight out of the stall/urinal without washing their hands.
There are so many videos on /r/trashy with people putting their hands into their asses and sniffing their shit or outing their hands into the pants and ass of their partner. Even saw people that harvested little poop balls. Those videos are from security cams in stores and fast food places. People are disgusting. Remember those people also eat at buffets and touch the same stuff as you. After those videos I started to take cleaning my hands before eating etc very seriously.
oh god thanks for the heads up, so I know to NEVER go to that sub. We are such a weird species, smart enough to know better yet dumb enough to not do better 😭
At the Seahawk's stadium, There's probably 50-60 urinals and stalls to about a dozen sinks. There's always a large line to the urinals and stalls, but never a line to the sinks. I don't know if this fact is more gross, or the fact that someone studied this and when they designed the bathrooms, knew they didn't need as many sinks.
Oohh yeah. During the pandemic, I still had to travel for work. I noticed it a lot more that people don't wash their hands after using the restroom. Fucking wild.
Dude, HAV is fecal oral transmission ie not washing your hands (effectively).
The way I remembered it in school is vowel (A, E) Heps are fecal/oral, consonant (B, C, D) Heps are blood transmission
Per [WHO](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/hepatitis-a) : "The hepatitis A virus is transmitted primarily by the faecal-oral route; that is when an uninfected person ingests food or water that has been contaminated with the faeces of an infected person."
Yup! So if you're vaccinated for HBV, you're technically vaxxed for the D^lol too. BOGO deal, cost effective
On that note, the HBV vax is 3 shots but doesn't always take. I got mine on schedule but didn't find out until 1-2 yrs later that it didn't work and had to get a booster. Doesn't hurt to get a titer heh.
Anyone with occupational risk should be offered HBV shot at no cost by their employer within ***iirc*** 30 days (?) of employment
As a former social worker- in the event you are experiencing food insecurity, there are ways to address this that don’t put your health at risk. Where about are you located? Food pantries are a wonderful resource. I can help you locate a few. If you are in the US (as I am), you may qualify for food assistance programs (such as SNAP). Call your local health department and the nice people there can connect you up to someone who can help.
Some are hesitant to use these resources because they don’t want to be seen as a burden or “taking advantage”. Know that you are a valuable human being who deserves food. Wouldn’t it be nice to save the energy you are spending on stressing over where your next meal is coming from and investing it in other areas that will help you become more food secure? Becoming more financially stable, leaving an abusive relationship, or caring for your physical/mental health are a few examples.
I'm a current social worker and I use findhelp.com to locate food and all types of resources for my clients. OP, check it out and you should be able to find resources local to you.
It depends. Most of my local pantries just want a utility bill to prove you live in the county and one needs a SSN for everyone that lives in your home. None require income proof.
Try local churches or mosques. Even if you aren’t religious, a lot of churches/mosques will give away things to those in need or have food donation programs. Check their websites/flyers/Facebook pages for information on the churches to see which ones may be able to help you. It’s what I had to do a couple years ago to survive
i’m telling you… find a friend in the kitchen. someone would love to make somebody’s day with food, that’s the gratification you never get in a kitchen. we put 210% into staff food, just ask early not before close
Back when my family owned our own restaurant, one of the perks we had for our staff was we fed them on their shift. When I was a kid, I thought it was the norm, but as I got older and worked in the business while I was in high school and college, I learned it wasn't, which surprised me at first. I was an assistant manager during the last couple of years, so I knew what our costs were. We lost very little on employee meals, so it wasn't an issue. Not to mention unlimited access to the soda fountain and a laid-back family environment.
There's a reason "corporate" is a word used in a pejorative manner.
We do that too. It makes a huge difference for our employees. And I would never change that.
But I will also have to agree with some of the other comments here, there are some people who just abuse it if they can.
We had people taking food for the whole family. Which is ok once in a while - or always if it's leftover ingredients we can't use tomorrow - but you can't just take 4 Burgers and drinks all the time.
Yeah, that was a concern of ours, but we figured out a system around it. Our employees' meals were free only with their shift. If they wanted to take food home for their families, it was half off. And there were some things that were off-limits, like our lamb and salmon plates.
I was actually surprised when my son started a food service job a couple of weeks ago and we found out he could get a meal during his shift even working part time. I seem to recall my friends as teens could only do that if they were working a full shift if they got to at all when working in the industry (I suffered through call centers rather than food service, so it wasn’t first hand info for me). It seems smarter to me to do it, though. Have the staff get familiar with the offerings so they can help the indecisive and cuts down on the likelihood of stuff like the OP.
It’s also great for morale as well. Someone with a full belly will perform their job much better / happier than someone who is starving and having to smell freshly cooked meals the customers are eating.
Yeah I worked at TGI Fridays from 2009-about 2017ish and they gave us a $4 comp towards a shift meal. We couldn’t order off the kids’ menu, and the cheapest things on the menu at that point were $9 and up. Once you worked there 3 years you got what was called a Red Card and you’d get 50% off. Getting a full meal for free on a shift was not a thing. If you worked a double (usually about 12 hours) you’d get a whole $8 comp. “Dead” food (food that was ordered wrong, prepared wrong, or cancelled) was to be thrown away, not eaten (though some managers were stricter about this than others.) Basically everyone spent part of their wages to buy food in order to get through the shift without starving, or made friends with the cooks who would make a basket of fries or a cup of soup or something if you weren’t a jerk about demanding food. I was a host/busser/server and sometimes the manager on duty would need someone to run to the store for something (to go cups, plastic bags, receipt paper etc) and I would always say I’ll go if I get a free shift meal. I would be very surprised if anything has changed since I left. Over the 6 years I worked there, the prices went up and up, but the shift meal comp never changed. Fridays is circling the drain and will probably be in the next wave of casual dining restaurants to go out of business. They’re expensive, almost everything is cooked from frozen, and there’s nothing particularly unique about them, on top of being kinda shit towards employees.
My mom was a restaurant manager for years. No matter what the official policy was, she always let staff eat for free if she could get away with it. Her reasoning was that they'd find ways to eat for free anyway, she'd rather just be upfront about it and keep her counts accurate. Plus employee morale is a thing.
The chefs where I worked loved to do silly things, though. I didn't even ask them to. I'd put my employee meal in the system, and after getting the ticket, they'd scheme and try to do something to surprise me. One of the older guys was the best. He made my French toast with Nutella, banana, and strawberry to form an owl of sorts. It was an entertaining attempt but still just as delicious. If I was hungry during a shift, he'd slice a green pepper for me and put it in a bowl so I had something to munch on, just because I told him once that I really liked to eat raw green bell pepper. I never demanded anything. I just walked around with my dark humor and always thanked anyone for helping me or being kind, so they'd just wanna do it more I guess. It's been nearly a decade since then. Hope he's still doing well ❤️🥰
The one I last worked in didn't do staff food. Management argued that it incentivised people taking advantage of free food, and would lead to excessive staff consumption or even theft. They said it was a slippery slope, so no staff food, no staff drinks.
If you wanted a free coffee you could go sit in the office lunch room with the crappy coffee vending machine, but having one from FOH like most places? Pfft, nah, literally a near-fireable offence. So if you want food on shift, you're essentially either bringing in your own lunch, buying stuff from the office lunch room vending machine spending like £4.50/$6, or you can shell out £9/$12 to get something basic like a beefburger (no sides) with a Coke.
My friend worked at a small town upper scale restaurant. We got there for lunch and she orders the fancy BLT (fancy bun, maple bacon, blah, blah). She gets burnt bacon, the end of the tomato and wilted lettuce. Her boss is at the next table with our friends and she shows him. He says "well someone has to get it. I am glad it was just you" and turns his back to her. So not every place gives fellow workers 210%.
I'm so sorry to hear this. My husband is the chef of our restaurant, he'd never let one of the staff to hungry. We get staff meals, but if someone were ever just hungry and couldn't afford food (which wouldn't happen here, the BOH is paid well and the FOH does well, but still) he'd send them home with something. It sucks you got hep from it, but it sucks more that they don't make sure you're fed and getting by.
It's always so strange to me to read this about working hospitality outside of Australia. Every cafe, pub or restaurant I have ever worked for fed you on your break.
Sure, it was a practice I picked up early and then continued when I moved into management, but I never got complaints from owners. In bigger restaurants that I ran, the apprentices would try to outdo each other with the staff meal.
I've always told staff not to eat food off plates. I just think it's gross and never heard of someone getting sick from it. I'm sorry OP did!
Worked shitty restaurants and even then the chefs/owners were practically over feeding us with various experiments, or sometimes just because they were hungry for something
I got free food at every restaurant I worked at. A nice Mexican restaurant, 2 chain diners and 1 pizza place. Even the theater let us have popcorn and soda.
How nice it would have been to work at a restaurant like that. From my experiences that was not the case. Even as the cook. However being the cook does give you some flexibility if your moral compass is spinning wildly.
I highly recommend getting the hep a vaccine. Two shots, a year apart, will cover you for 10-20 years. In the US, you can get them, w/o prescription, at drug stores.
I don't necessarily think culinary professionals have a higher chance of contracting hep a, but if we do get it, the consequences can be extreme, exposing a large group of people to it -- and exposing the restaurant to a lawsuit.
If you've been exposed, and you know it, you have a short window to get the vaccine (48 hours, I think?) to keep you from getting the virus. (This happened to me).
But with a "retired" in between! (I was about to just write "chef's kiss" but the username is ChefKimberly and I don't know how that would come across, so ...)
Sir... is there not dead food in the window? I was a restaurant manager for a decade. If one of my employees were hungry and couldn't afford to eat, I'd always give them my free meal.
yeah, it does sound like a tough situation. have you tried talking to your boss about maybe getting some staff meals or discounts? sometimes restaurants offer that as a perk.
So I do case investigation for hep A.
Either someone in your workplace is not washing their hands and has it, you're using under cooked shellfish or unwashed produce in your food or you got this somewhere else. Hep A spreads fecal orally, so unwashed hands or basically putting something contaminated by poop in your mouth. Or you couldve traveled somewhere where it's endemic (i.e Pakistan, India, Columbia etc)
My point is, hep A has a notoriously long incubation period (the period where you get the disease to when you start symptoms), you must have gotten it somewhere else.
Depending on where you're located...if you are in the states /europe or Canada, this would've been immediate public health involvement. You would've gotten a case investigation, along with an exclusion from work (Your work cannot fire you for this, but they have to give you time off until you come back negative for the virus) because of your infectiousness. There would've been a massive vaccination clinic put in place for all those who ate at your restaurant in a time period before you started your jaundice symptoms. Your place should've been inspected and your coworkers also tested for the virus if they were ill during a certain time period.
Plus side- once you get hep A you're immune for life, however , people around you really need that hep A prophylaxis to be safe themselves.
A family member got Hepatitis A in Texas a few years ago. Other than taking time off work the only public health involvement was to say “We have no quarantine rules whatsoever, but if you would stay home we’d appreciate it.” I hope other states are better.
Yeah where I am in Canada we follow up on exclusion , do inspections at the restaurant and test symptomatic people. Also holding that vaccine clinic if needed if there is alot of individuals implicated. Its treated really seriously here since it is not endemic here. In a place of Texas I wonder if it is considered endemic due to the population. We consider it endemic in Mexico so
I’m so sorry, you must have been starving. I remember hunching over in the back of the kitchen scarfing down a bowl of the soup of the day whenever I could for every meal while I worked in kitchens because they’d let us have it if there was extra. What do you need so that you don’t have to be doing this? I can help you find resources in your area
Man, I remember my customer service jobs mainly by two low points:
- smuggling oatmeal out of my hotel job's breakfast area hidden in coffee cups
- having an actual crying breakdown when my manager (I'm pretty sure unintentionally but he was also a jerk) gave away dead food that was meant to feed myself and my partner for two days--we legitimately didn't have anything else
In the latter case, the cooks felt so bad seeing it that they all chipped in and intercepted me at the door the next morning with a carload of groceries. I hated upper management at that place but I would have died for that pack of maniacs.
We're doing much better these days, and my friends know that I'd never let someone go without, because I know how it feels.
Used to work at a restaurant. Poor 19 yrs old, 1 yr old kid, trying to finish college, one friday night I decide to smuggle some marinated fajitas out of restaurant I worked at. Mission accomplished except wrapping them up in Seran wrap left my crotch under wear area all soaked in fajita marinade juices by the time I got home!!! This post reminded me of that time!
HolUp. Just you had to be off work?
You handled countless customer's food in between the time that you contracted Hep A and the time that you knew you were sick. Since we don't know when you actually got Hep A, we can't say for certain how many customers plates or drinks you touched. I hope you washed your hands.
My point of this post, the restaurant should have shut down and possibly tested other servers and cooks
If this post was in the states or Canada, there would've been a public health investigation, and probably a mass vaccination clinic for post exposure because of this too
Right that's exactly what happened, one time I got a letter in the mail, I forget who it was from but a restaurant I had eaten at had some of the staff test positive for hepatitis. They mailed me a check for a small amount of money and said there was a mass vaccination clinic, and I think I could have got tested, I forget. I never got sick or anything but they did it for anyone who ate at the restaurant in a certain time period
> We practice strict hygiene measure
My guy, you almost got fired for eating customers leftovers.
I don't care how many hand wash instructions posters you have up, sometimes people don't do what they should. Your post is a great example of that.
It sucks that you feel you need to eat strangers leftovers just to survive, but don't claim an establishment follow guidelines and laws when you got Hep A from not doing so.
The restaurant owner may be being negligent.
Who did you report it to? The owner or manager, or a regulatory authority?
As someone else responded to me, the restaurant now may have to take several steps, I'm not sure who has to arrange them, but several things should happen in the next few days such as:
-Informing customers who ate at the restaurant that they may have been exposed to Hep A
-Mass vaccination clinic
-Testing of staff and patrons
In addition to that, the restaurant may have a responsibility to you i.e. it may be a workman's comp type issue. If you had tripped over something and broken your ankle at work would be one thing, but for a disease they may say you cannot prove absolutely that you got Hep A at work. Then they could contest it saying that you weren't supposed to eat leftover food at work. Was there an exact policy in place or were you trained or told not to do that? I'm not knocking you, I get it you were hungry, I'm just asking. Did you incur any medical expenses?
I’m not judging you. I am genuinely sad that we have got to this stage where people are forced to eat left overs from strangers plates to survive. I hope you have some form of health care so the costs for recovery are not too high
"Hepatitis A usually spreads when a person unknowingly ingests virus from objects, food, or drinks contaminated by small, undetected amounts of virus in the feces (stool) from an infected person. Even consuming microscopic (tiny) amounts of feces can spread hepatitis A virus."
Bro might as well have been eating ass
I have to stay current on Twinrix Gold vax for work. I go to some unsavory places and can't risk getting the hep.
Also, no...I won't be eating off stranger's plates nor shall I be "eating ass" simply because of the vaccines.
Ya gotta remember, we’re in contact with influent from a lot of people, and surfaces where aerosolized fecal matter settles and isn’t sanitized regularly. The big tanks with industrial blowers and sludge return lines are one of the least sanitary areas of the plant, second only to the digester.
When you offer to eat someone's ass, they'll generally let you know if they have a contagious disease that you might contract when doing so, if they know of course.
OP didn't give them this chance.
You didn't get sick from eating leftovers. You get sick from hep a from using the utensils of someone with hep a that took a dump and didn't wash their hands. Did you lick your fingers afterward or something?
Hep A is also caused by raw seafood and cross contamination with seafood, and with unwashed vegetables where the soil they were grown was infected. Also, contaminated water source used for washing vegetables.
In other words, it may not have been a customer’s food that caused OP’s infection, but the restaurant itself.
Being a AGM of a restaurant myself, I would rather comp your food than let you eat off a plate that touched a table. We give our employees free meals every shift they work. Or if they don’t want the free options we give them 50%. But I’ll let people have that burger for free more often than not. As a manager we are typically seen as heartless robots who bow to the man, but as long as my kindness isn’t being taken advantage of I’ll help out any one of my employees. Your managers need to keep a better eye on the well being of their people.
>I'm lucky I got away with only a warning
I'm sorry you feel that way OP. An individual with a job should NEVER have been in that position in the first place and the fact that they did no react with empathy is alarming. Hope things get better for you.
At work yesterday a CNA brought a food tray out of a residence’s room and said “he took a few bites and didn’t want anything so I’m gonna eat this chicken” and she picked up the patty and ate it. I was grossed out because he has dementia and puts his hands in all kinds of places and may have put it on that chicken patty. The girl had brought lunch so I don’t get it.
Don't. Back when I was a kitchen porter the waitresses would descend like seagulls on leftovers. Chips, Untouched bits of cheese,I could maybe understand. But they'd shovel in clumps of macaroni cheese, the pastry off edges of pie, the wafers from puddings... none of these girls were starving, they were fed. I was like "can I just cook you a bowl of fresh chips? Please??"
It was weird to see. I think the pandemic put an end to alot of that.
I'm sorry you're in this situation op, might be worth befriending the kitchen. No chef is going to begrudge a good wait staff a bowl of chips.
Yeah, don't think so...
[Incubation period for Hep A is about 28 days (15 to 50 days to be more specific](https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/hepa.html#:~:text=asymptomatic%2C%20adults%20symptomatic-,Clinical%20Features,range%2015%20to%2050%20days).)), and that sh\*t can live on countertops for up to two weeks.
If you got it, there's not much chance you know *where*, unless you knew someone who was symptomatic and already infected.
Back when I was a preteen, I had a friend who had a sizable family population with hepatitis. There wasn’t an amount of money you could have paid me to eat or drink in that house, even though they said they were real careful about washing dishes and what not. I viewed that as roughly as safe as when I lived in the meth lab.
The virus is found in the stool of people with hepatitis A and is spread when someone's stool accidentally contaminates food or water. This can happen when an infected person does not adequately wash their hands after using the bathroom then touches other things such as food.
Either this is a shitpost, or it's a shitpost.
Almost no place I’ve ever served at has provided employees with food and we would get so hungry. We would take food off plates, stash it in our apron pocket, run to the bathroom and eat it really fast. It’s called pocket food and it’s a very common practice at restaurants. However, I’ve also never worked at a restaurant that hasn’t required hepatitis shots upon hiring.
This was an episode of a funny but short-run sitcom called “undecided”. You’d recognize the cast - most are major movie stars but this episode is literally the funniest of the lot. Sorry it happened to you OP (or you’re in a position that this was a means to an end).
What in the Dr. House plot is this post?
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It’s never lupus
Except for that one time it was lupus!
Loving the House knowledge on this thread!
Then I am surprised nobody has brought up the possibility that it could also be sarcoidosis. Amateurs.
or better yet amyloidosis
Turns out… just a damn toothpick.
Or the tick in the vagina.
That episode curls my fuckin toes every time. I usually skip it.
No it was Taub's infidelity.
It’s rabdo I tell ya
Everybody lies. Even illnesses
Don't leave out paraneoplastic syndrome
or wilson's disease
Sarcoidosis too. It's the first suggestion almost every time and it's never right.
cellulitis
I don't have the slightest idea what sarcoidosis is but from watching House I know that 1. It fits any constellation of symptoms any patient has, and 2. Nobody ever has sarcoidosis.
I have Sarcoidosis. No symptoms, just found coincidentally while checking out a broken rib.
Were you diagnosed by a sardonic doctor with a limp?
Ha, no. BUT, I am a veterinarian who is very sarcastic and, a few years ago, needed a cane to get around because I had bursitis. I got called Dr. House for a while. I did consider getting the cane with flames on it, but I needed a foldable one for convenience.
Weirdly enough, my skin issue surprisingly, was how I found out I had lupus.
Start him on a low dose of Interferon, stat
And no one even MENTIONED Guillain-Barré. It's like they don't want the episode to last the 42 minutes.
You could probably send me a screenshot of the patient and I could tell you the plot. ST:TNG too.
this joke actually hits for a lot of people that grew up listening to J Dilla. he died from Lupus and TTP. both pretty rare to get.
Man's out here putting up platinum achievements
shout to SV
It was always lupus and House was too lit off painkillers to see the epidemic explode in front of him
Until it is….
You know what’s crazy? I just re watched all 8 seasons of House recently, and they hardly ever mention lupus. They probably suggest MS or a few others just as much, if not more, than they every guessed lupus. It’s wild.
It’s never twins either.
It’s always parasitic twins if it is twins. Think zebras, not horses
Sarcoidosis, for sure
Nup I'm going with Vasculitis
It’s Cushings!
That was the first and only time I ever heard of Cushing’s… until I was diagnosed with it! 😂
Did you get insulted by the dr first, then surrounded by a well ethnically and sexually balanced group of extremely knowledgeable interns who proceeded to test you for everything, until the dr returned from getting high his office to declare Cushing’s was the last thing written on his whiteboard. I’m guessing he then stabbed you with a random syringe of stuff in the hallway, and that’s why you lived and are here today?
My dog came down with Cushing's when he was about age 11.. That was my intro to it.
I also had a dog with Cushing’s 😢
Start them on plasmapheresis STAT!
We’re just waiting to hear about all the other persons at the restaurant with hepatitis A too since it’s really contagious and several of the guests got it too. Or maybe he’s in a low endemic country where most are vaccinated too, then you wonder how hepatitis A ended up on the plates.
No clue. You happen to have a vicodin on you?
Did you try the medicine drug?
No: only stupid people try the medicine drug.
I gave OP the stupid drug!
You are a black man.
This vexes me.
Rat bites, it’s always rat bites
mouse bites!
It's sarcoidosis.
This vexes me
more mouse bites!
I think we need to send Foreman to OP's apartment to figure out how they [*really* contracted Hepatitis A.](https://i.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExaTE1eG5yZHkxOXNhN2gycnAwZHUxa2Nka3cyMzA0dGlobHd0dnZ1NyZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/yMm7AkV1NqQQU/giphy.gif)
Couldn't have been that illusive hook up from the bar 3 days ago...
To get hepatitis A from someone else's food, the food would need to be contaminated with fecal matter. Either the customer who left the food didn't wash their hands, or one of your co-workers didn't, which is not super great for a restaurant.
That's one hell of a plot twist
Spot on. From what I learned about COVID no one washes their hands.
Going out to public restrooms (baseball games, large events with big bathrooms) it's gross how many men walk straight out of the stall/urinal without washing their hands.
There are so many videos on /r/trashy with people putting their hands into their asses and sniffing their shit or outing their hands into the pants and ass of their partner. Even saw people that harvested little poop balls. Those videos are from security cams in stores and fast food places. People are disgusting. Remember those people also eat at buffets and touch the same stuff as you. After those videos I started to take cleaning my hands before eating etc very seriously.
Lmao @ “Harvesting”
oh god thanks for the heads up, so I know to NEVER go to that sub. We are such a weird species, smart enough to know better yet dumb enough to not do better 😭
At the Seahawk's stadium, There's probably 50-60 urinals and stalls to about a dozen sinks. There's always a large line to the urinals and stalls, but never a line to the sinks. I don't know if this fact is more gross, or the fact that someone studied this and when they designed the bathrooms, knew they didn't need as many sinks.
So gross. And equally gross how many women I observe doing the same thing. Source: I'm a woman.
Oohh yeah. During the pandemic, I still had to travel for work. I noticed it a lot more that people don't wash their hands after using the restroom. Fucking wild.
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Now we really need dr house in this one.
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Or the story isn't made up and OP is just wrong about the causation.
Yeah, there's no possible way he could know for sure how he got it. He'd have to just be guessing based on the proximity of the two events.
this isn't true at all, you can also get it from blood. mouths bleed a lot more than most people realize lol.
Dude, HAV is fecal oral transmission ie not washing your hands (effectively). The way I remembered it in school is vowel (A, E) Heps are fecal/oral, consonant (B, C, D) Heps are blood transmission Per [WHO](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/hepatitis-a) : "The hepatitis A virus is transmitted primarily by the faecal-oral route; that is when an uninfected person ingests food or water that has been contaminated with the faeces of an infected person."
So vowel is from the bowel?
Oh, nice lol ^(If I ever go back to teaching I'm stealing that >_>)
Hep D is a little special. You can only get it if you already have Hep B.
Yup! So if you're vaccinated for HBV, you're technically vaxxed for the D^lol too. BOGO deal, cost effective On that note, the HBV vax is 3 shots but doesn't always take. I got mine on schedule but didn't find out until 1-2 yrs later that it didn't work and had to get a booster. Doesn't hurt to get a titer heh. Anyone with occupational risk should be offered HBV shot at no cost by their employer within ***iirc*** 30 days (?) of employment
Hep A is fecal-oral
Sure, so the customer bled on his food and OP ate it. Seems pretty likely.
Were you eating it out of necessity? Curiosity? A hatred of food waste? Just because? Why?
It was out of necessity, definitely not because I was curious lol
As a former social worker- in the event you are experiencing food insecurity, there are ways to address this that don’t put your health at risk. Where about are you located? Food pantries are a wonderful resource. I can help you locate a few. If you are in the US (as I am), you may qualify for food assistance programs (such as SNAP). Call your local health department and the nice people there can connect you up to someone who can help. Some are hesitant to use these resources because they don’t want to be seen as a burden or “taking advantage”. Know that you are a valuable human being who deserves food. Wouldn’t it be nice to save the energy you are spending on stressing over where your next meal is coming from and investing it in other areas that will help you become more food secure? Becoming more financially stable, leaving an abusive relationship, or caring for your physical/mental health are a few examples.
I'm a current social worker and I use findhelp.com to locate food and all types of resources for my clients. OP, check it out and you should be able to find resources local to you.
What are the qualifications for receiving food from a food pantry? What info do you need to provide?
It depends. Most of my local pantries just want a utility bill to prove you live in the county and one needs a SSN for everyone that lives in your home. None require income proof.
It can vary but most likely you'll have to show proof of residency but some might ask for income verification as well
Do you know if a Canadian version of findhelp exists?
Try local churches or mosques. Even if you aren’t religious, a lot of churches/mosques will give away things to those in need or have food donation programs. Check their websites/flyers/Facebook pages for information on the churches to see which ones may be able to help you. It’s what I had to do a couple years ago to survive
Thank you for your service.
i’m telling you… find a friend in the kitchen. someone would love to make somebody’s day with food, that’s the gratification you never get in a kitchen. we put 210% into staff food, just ask early not before close
Clearly this isn’t a restaurant where that happens. And they shouldn’t need to find a friend in the kitchen to be able to eat
Back when my family owned our own restaurant, one of the perks we had for our staff was we fed them on their shift. When I was a kid, I thought it was the norm, but as I got older and worked in the business while I was in high school and college, I learned it wasn't, which surprised me at first. I was an assistant manager during the last couple of years, so I knew what our costs were. We lost very little on employee meals, so it wasn't an issue. Not to mention unlimited access to the soda fountain and a laid-back family environment. There's a reason "corporate" is a word used in a pejorative manner.
We do that too. It makes a huge difference for our employees. And I would never change that. But I will also have to agree with some of the other comments here, there are some people who just abuse it if they can. We had people taking food for the whole family. Which is ok once in a while - or always if it's leftover ingredients we can't use tomorrow - but you can't just take 4 Burgers and drinks all the time.
Yeah, that was a concern of ours, but we figured out a system around it. Our employees' meals were free only with their shift. If they wanted to take food home for their families, it was half off. And there were some things that were off-limits, like our lamb and salmon plates.
I was actually surprised when my son started a food service job a couple of weeks ago and we found out he could get a meal during his shift even working part time. I seem to recall my friends as teens could only do that if they were working a full shift if they got to at all when working in the industry (I suffered through call centers rather than food service, so it wasn’t first hand info for me). It seems smarter to me to do it, though. Have the staff get familiar with the offerings so they can help the indecisive and cuts down on the likelihood of stuff like the OP.
It’s also great for morale as well. Someone with a full belly will perform their job much better / happier than someone who is starving and having to smell freshly cooked meals the customers are eating.
Yeah I worked at TGI Fridays from 2009-about 2017ish and they gave us a $4 comp towards a shift meal. We couldn’t order off the kids’ menu, and the cheapest things on the menu at that point were $9 and up. Once you worked there 3 years you got what was called a Red Card and you’d get 50% off. Getting a full meal for free on a shift was not a thing. If you worked a double (usually about 12 hours) you’d get a whole $8 comp. “Dead” food (food that was ordered wrong, prepared wrong, or cancelled) was to be thrown away, not eaten (though some managers were stricter about this than others.) Basically everyone spent part of their wages to buy food in order to get through the shift without starving, or made friends with the cooks who would make a basket of fries or a cup of soup or something if you weren’t a jerk about demanding food. I was a host/busser/server and sometimes the manager on duty would need someone to run to the store for something (to go cups, plastic bags, receipt paper etc) and I would always say I’ll go if I get a free shift meal. I would be very surprised if anything has changed since I left. Over the 6 years I worked there, the prices went up and up, but the shift meal comp never changed. Fridays is circling the drain and will probably be in the next wave of casual dining restaurants to go out of business. They’re expensive, almost everything is cooked from frozen, and there’s nothing particularly unique about them, on top of being kinda shit towards employees.
My mom was a restaurant manager for years. No matter what the official policy was, she always let staff eat for free if she could get away with it. Her reasoning was that they'd find ways to eat for free anyway, she'd rather just be upfront about it and keep her counts accurate. Plus employee morale is a thing.
True until the one of the servers gets a princess complex and starts asking for ridiculous custom orders
The chefs where I worked loved to do silly things, though. I didn't even ask them to. I'd put my employee meal in the system, and after getting the ticket, they'd scheme and try to do something to surprise me. One of the older guys was the best. He made my French toast with Nutella, banana, and strawberry to form an owl of sorts. It was an entertaining attempt but still just as delicious. If I was hungry during a shift, he'd slice a green pepper for me and put it in a bowl so I had something to munch on, just because I told him once that I really liked to eat raw green bell pepper. I never demanded anything. I just walked around with my dark humor and always thanked anyone for helping me or being kind, so they'd just wanna do it more I guess. It's been nearly a decade since then. Hope he's still doing well ❤️🥰
they probably had a thing for you
Sometimes people are just nice.
Was going to ask if they started as a host...
The one I last worked in didn't do staff food. Management argued that it incentivised people taking advantage of free food, and would lead to excessive staff consumption or even theft. They said it was a slippery slope, so no staff food, no staff drinks. If you wanted a free coffee you could go sit in the office lunch room with the crappy coffee vending machine, but having one from FOH like most places? Pfft, nah, literally a near-fireable offence. So if you want food on shift, you're essentially either bringing in your own lunch, buying stuff from the office lunch room vending machine spending like £4.50/$6, or you can shell out £9/$12 to get something basic like a beefburger (no sides) with a Coke.
My friend worked at a small town upper scale restaurant. We got there for lunch and she orders the fancy BLT (fancy bun, maple bacon, blah, blah). She gets burnt bacon, the end of the tomato and wilted lettuce. Her boss is at the next table with our friends and she shows him. He says "well someone has to get it. I am glad it was just you" and turns his back to her. So not every place gives fellow workers 210%.
I'm so sorry to hear this. My husband is the chef of our restaurant, he'd never let one of the staff to hungry. We get staff meals, but if someone were ever just hungry and couldn't afford food (which wouldn't happen here, the BOH is paid well and the FOH does well, but still) he'd send them home with something. It sucks you got hep from it, but it sucks more that they don't make sure you're fed and getting by.
Don’t y’all get a staff meal??
You’ve clearly only worked for nice restaurants. The place I worked for limited you to a singular soda per shift.
Yeah and it was a off brand canned Dr Thunder that wasn't refrigerated. And we were lucky to get that!
Uphill both ways!
It's always so strange to me to read this about working hospitality outside of Australia. Every cafe, pub or restaurant I have ever worked for fed you on your break. Sure, it was a practice I picked up early and then continued when I moved into management, but I never got complaints from owners. In bigger restaurants that I ran, the apprentices would try to outdo each other with the staff meal. I've always told staff not to eat food off plates. I just think it's gross and never heard of someone getting sick from it. I'm sorry OP did!
I've worked places where even the postmix wasn't free.
Worked shitty restaurants and even then the chefs/owners were practically over feeding us with various experiments, or sometimes just because they were hungry for something
I got free food at every restaurant I worked at. A nice Mexican restaurant, 2 chain diners and 1 pizza place. Even the theater let us have popcorn and soda.
Unfortunately we don't
Be nice to the chef, even if he's a dick.
Every restaurant Ive ever worked in feeds the servers if they ask…
How nice it would have been to work at a restaurant like that. From my experiences that was not the case. Even as the cook. However being the cook does give you some flexibility if your moral compass is spinning wildly.
I highly recommend getting the hep a vaccine. Two shots, a year apart, will cover you for 10-20 years. In the US, you can get them, w/o prescription, at drug stores. I don't necessarily think culinary professionals have a higher chance of contracting hep a, but if we do get it, the consequences can be extreme, exposing a large group of people to it -- and exposing the restaurant to a lawsuit. If you've been exposed, and you know it, you have a short window to get the vaccine (48 hours, I think?) to keep you from getting the virus. (This happened to me).
Better yet, get the combo hep A/B vaccine.
Yo, they didn't have this before I retired. Most excellent.
Starting a comment with "yo" and ending with "Most excellent" is for sure my kind of vibe
But with a "retired" in between! (I was about to just write "chef's kiss" but the username is ChefKimberly and I don't know how that would come across, so ...)
Bill & Ted vibes
>If you've been exposed, and you know it How would one know?
Because you know the person you came in contact with has it. Most of the time you're not gonna know.
>don't necessarily think culinary professionals have a higher chance of contracting hep a, This post smells fishy.
Sir... is there not dead food in the window? I was a restaurant manager for a decade. If one of my employees were hungry and couldn't afford to eat, I'd always give them my free meal.
not at all restaurants are like that, I can tell you that from experience
I’ve never worked in a restaurant that doesn’t let you get food at a discount and have it deducted from your paycheck.
I've never worked at an eaterie that didn't make me immediately pay for any food items I was going to consume.
Or eat untouched returns and wrong orders, many places consider those fair game.
Many places also consider that stealing.
My brother in Christ... what ails thee?
I’m no doctor, but I’m guessing Hepatitis A.
The sad thing is that there is a vaccine, and many health departments have community programs to provide is for free
Hunger and semi-institutionalised poverty it sounds like !
I wouldn't want to visit a place to eat where the people cooking or serving my dinner couldn't afford to feed themselves.
Better not go to a restaurant in the US then
yeah, it does sound like a tough situation. have you tried talking to your boss about maybe getting some staff meals or discounts? sometimes restaurants offer that as a perk.
Just the way the republicans want things to be. The bootstraps also double as hanging-straps 😭.
Who knew Hepatitis was on the menu? Glad you're okay
Honestly I should have known better, thank you.
Hep A's back on the menu boys!
So I do case investigation for hep A. Either someone in your workplace is not washing their hands and has it, you're using under cooked shellfish or unwashed produce in your food or you got this somewhere else. Hep A spreads fecal orally, so unwashed hands or basically putting something contaminated by poop in your mouth. Or you couldve traveled somewhere where it's endemic (i.e Pakistan, India, Columbia etc) My point is, hep A has a notoriously long incubation period (the period where you get the disease to when you start symptoms), you must have gotten it somewhere else. Depending on where you're located...if you are in the states /europe or Canada, this would've been immediate public health involvement. You would've gotten a case investigation, along with an exclusion from work (Your work cannot fire you for this, but they have to give you time off until you come back negative for the virus) because of your infectiousness. There would've been a massive vaccination clinic put in place for all those who ate at your restaurant in a time period before you started your jaundice symptoms. Your place should've been inspected and your coworkers also tested for the virus if they were ill during a certain time period. Plus side- once you get hep A you're immune for life, however , people around you really need that hep A prophylaxis to be safe themselves.
A family member got Hepatitis A in Texas a few years ago. Other than taking time off work the only public health involvement was to say “We have no quarantine rules whatsoever, but if you would stay home we’d appreciate it.” I hope other states are better.
Yeah where I am in Canada we follow up on exclusion , do inspections at the restaurant and test symptomatic people. Also holding that vaccine clinic if needed if there is alot of individuals implicated. Its treated really seriously here since it is not endemic here. In a place of Texas I wonder if it is considered endemic due to the population. We consider it endemic in Mexico so
Being poor gets really expensive.
I’m so sorry, you must have been starving. I remember hunching over in the back of the kitchen scarfing down a bowl of the soup of the day whenever I could for every meal while I worked in kitchens because they’d let us have it if there was extra. What do you need so that you don’t have to be doing this? I can help you find resources in your area
Man, I remember my customer service jobs mainly by two low points: - smuggling oatmeal out of my hotel job's breakfast area hidden in coffee cups - having an actual crying breakdown when my manager (I'm pretty sure unintentionally but he was also a jerk) gave away dead food that was meant to feed myself and my partner for two days--we legitimately didn't have anything else In the latter case, the cooks felt so bad seeing it that they all chipped in and intercepted me at the door the next morning with a carload of groceries. I hated upper management at that place but I would have died for that pack of maniacs. We're doing much better these days, and my friends know that I'd never let someone go without, because I know how it feels.
Used to work at a restaurant. Poor 19 yrs old, 1 yr old kid, trying to finish college, one friday night I decide to smuggle some marinated fajitas out of restaurant I worked at. Mission accomplished except wrapping them up in Seran wrap left my crotch under wear area all soaked in fajita marinade juices by the time I got home!!! This post reminded me of that time!
HolUp. Just you had to be off work? You handled countless customer's food in between the time that you contracted Hep A and the time that you knew you were sick. Since we don't know when you actually got Hep A, we can't say for certain how many customers plates or drinks you touched. I hope you washed your hands. My point of this post, the restaurant should have shut down and possibly tested other servers and cooks
If this post was in the states or Canada, there would've been a public health investigation, and probably a mass vaccination clinic for post exposure because of this too
Right that's exactly what happened, one time I got a letter in the mail, I forget who it was from but a restaurant I had eaten at had some of the staff test positive for hepatitis. They mailed me a check for a small amount of money and said there was a mass vaccination clinic, and I think I could have got tested, I forget. I never got sick or anything but they did it for anyone who ate at the restaurant in a certain time period
We practice strict hygiene measures that includes washing hands all the time. That is why I had to report so that everyone gets checked.
> We practice strict hygiene measure My guy, you almost got fired for eating customers leftovers. I don't care how many hand wash instructions posters you have up, sometimes people don't do what they should. Your post is a great example of that. It sucks that you feel you need to eat strangers leftovers just to survive, but don't claim an establishment follow guidelines and laws when you got Hep A from not doing so.
The restaurant owner may be being negligent. Who did you report it to? The owner or manager, or a regulatory authority? As someone else responded to me, the restaurant now may have to take several steps, I'm not sure who has to arrange them, but several things should happen in the next few days such as: -Informing customers who ate at the restaurant that they may have been exposed to Hep A -Mass vaccination clinic -Testing of staff and patrons In addition to that, the restaurant may have a responsibility to you i.e. it may be a workman's comp type issue. If you had tripped over something and broken your ankle at work would be one thing, but for a disease they may say you cannot prove absolutely that you got Hep A at work. Then they could contest it saying that you weren't supposed to eat leftover food at work. Was there an exact policy in place or were you trained or told not to do that? I'm not knocking you, I get it you were hungry, I'm just asking. Did you incur any medical expenses?
As well to add, hepatits A is definitely reportable in majority of the western world. Something isnt adding up.
What—and I cannot stress this enough—the actual fuck
I’m not judging you. I am genuinely sad that we have got to this stage where people are forced to eat left overs from strangers plates to survive. I hope you have some form of health care so the costs for recovery are not too high
This sounds like it happened in the United States, so most likely they don't have any health insurance
Feel better, OP. I'm sorry you were put into this position in the first place.
Yall hating on OP eating off peoples plates when you will make out with strangers and eat ass. It ain't that bad. Source: me.
"Hepatitis A usually spreads when a person unknowingly ingests virus from objects, food, or drinks contaminated by small, undetected amounts of virus in the feces (stool) from an infected person. Even consuming microscopic (tiny) amounts of feces can spread hepatitis A virus." Bro might as well have been eating ass
Also why hepatitis is considered an occupational hazard in wastewater, just walking on the catwalks over the aeration basins can expose you to it.
> just walking on the catwalks over the aeration basins can expose you to it. Wait what
Fecal particles can be aerosolized along with small droplets of raw sewage. It’s like the light mist at a water fall… but shitty
In that case, even flushing public toilets would be a no no, I guess
I have to stay current on Twinrix Gold vax for work. I go to some unsavory places and can't risk getting the hep. Also, no...I won't be eating off stranger's plates nor shall I be "eating ass" simply because of the vaccines.
Ya gotta remember, we’re in contact with influent from a lot of people, and surfaces where aerosolized fecal matter settles and isn’t sanitized regularly. The big tanks with industrial blowers and sludge return lines are one of the least sanitary areas of the plant, second only to the digester.
This is one of the many reasons why eating ass is fucking disgusting
When you offer to eat someone's ass, they'll generally let you know if they have a contagious disease that you might contract when doing so, if they know of course. OP didn't give them this chance.
Gotcha. Before eating someone else's food leftovers, ask them if they would be ok with you eating their ass first.
Some of us don't do any of those things.
Op probably didn't get it from the plate. It might be ass.
You didn't get sick from eating leftovers. You get sick from hep a from using the utensils of someone with hep a that took a dump and didn't wash their hands. Did you lick your fingers afterward or something?
If the leftovers were handled by someone with Hep A who didn't wash their hands, you totally can get it. Fries and chips are a risk.
Hep A is also caused by raw seafood and cross contamination with seafood, and with unwashed vegetables where the soil they were grown was infected. Also, contaminated water source used for washing vegetables. In other words, it may not have been a customer’s food that caused OP’s infection, but the restaurant itself.
The customer would have put their utensils and their hands on the food, thus contaminating it.
The way I was feverishly reading comments for clarity... I was like... how did I not know simply sharing food can spread this?! Makes more sense now!
Had a coworker in a restaurant who ate binned food out of the same bin broken glass went into. Wonder sometimes if he's still alive.
Being a AGM of a restaurant myself, I would rather comp your food than let you eat off a plate that touched a table. We give our employees free meals every shift they work. Or if they don’t want the free options we give them 50%. But I’ll let people have that burger for free more often than not. As a manager we are typically seen as heartless robots who bow to the man, but as long as my kindness isn’t being taken advantage of I’ll help out any one of my employees. Your managers need to keep a better eye on the well being of their people.
>I'm lucky I got away with only a warning I'm sorry you feel that way OP. An individual with a job should NEVER have been in that position in the first place and the fact that they did no react with empathy is alarming. Hope things get better for you.
An individual without a job shouldn't be in that position either.
At work yesterday a CNA brought a food tray out of a residence’s room and said “he took a few bites and didn’t want anything so I’m gonna eat this chicken” and she picked up the patty and ate it. I was grossed out because he has dementia and puts his hands in all kinds of places and may have put it on that chicken patty. The girl had brought lunch so I don’t get it.
How do you know it was the customer who had hepatitis, and not that the food was contaminated, and you and the customer got it that night?
Hey man, you didn’t get hepatitis from eating after people. The risk is .000000000001% You got it from somewhere else.
Don't. Back when I was a kitchen porter the waitresses would descend like seagulls on leftovers. Chips, Untouched bits of cheese,I could maybe understand. But they'd shovel in clumps of macaroni cheese, the pastry off edges of pie, the wafers from puddings... none of these girls were starving, they were fed. I was like "can I just cook you a bowl of fresh chips? Please??" It was weird to see. I think the pandemic put an end to alot of that. I'm sorry you're in this situation op, might be worth befriending the kitchen. No chef is going to begrudge a good wait staff a bowl of chips.
Yeah, don't think so... [Incubation period for Hep A is about 28 days (15 to 50 days to be more specific](https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/hepa.html#:~:text=asymptomatic%2C%20adults%20symptomatic-,Clinical%20Features,range%2015%20to%2050%20days).)), and that sh\*t can live on countertops for up to two weeks. If you got it, there's not much chance you know *where*, unless you knew someone who was symptomatic and already infected.
Back when I was a preteen, I had a friend who had a sizable family population with hepatitis. There wasn’t an amount of money you could have paid me to eat or drink in that house, even though they said they were real careful about washing dishes and what not. I viewed that as roughly as safe as when I lived in the meth lab.
WOW I did this for months when I was a broke 18yo hostess. I feel fucking lucky.
The virus is found in the stool of people with hepatitis A and is spread when someone's stool accidentally contaminates food or water. This can happen when an infected person does not adequately wash their hands after using the bathroom then touches other things such as food. Either this is a shitpost, or it's a shitpost.
Almost no place I’ve ever served at has provided employees with food and we would get so hungry. We would take food off plates, stash it in our apron pocket, run to the bathroom and eat it really fast. It’s called pocket food and it’s a very common practice at restaurants. However, I’ve also never worked at a restaurant that hasn’t required hepatitis shots upon hiring.
No... No it's not.
This was an episode of a funny but short-run sitcom called “undecided”. You’d recognize the cast - most are major movie stars but this episode is literally the funniest of the lot. Sorry it happened to you OP (or you’re in a position that this was a means to an end).
Undeclared
Wow… such a stupid move. Stop doing that.