The Health and Safety police have stopped me cleaning, made me sit in a room for an hour doing nothing and forced me to throw perfectly good food in the bin and I can’t take it any more.
I know there have been whole rain forests of rants written about the pettiness of certain aspects of health and safety regulation but I’m afraid I’m going to jump on the bandwagon (not while it’s moving , obviously, that could be dangerous and I haven’t done the course in how to jump on moving bandwagons).
For a couple of years now I’ve been cooking lunch at our little village school following a campaign to make hot food available again for primary age children, something I think is really important.
When I was at primary school I had either cooked lunch in school where I regularly got told off by Mr Yeldham for pouring the custard from a height of three feet (seriously dangerous) or trotted home (by myself, aaaaahh!) where mum boiled me an egg with soldiers and I loved it.
And as a mum myself I’ve often felt that a couple of sandwiches and an apple weren’t enough to get my little ones through a six hour day in the middle of winter.
So when I was offered the opportunity to help get this programme of hot food in primary schools off the ground, I grabbed it – and largely I’ve loved it. I know for some of the kids, school lunch is the only decent food they get all day. And I adore the children.
Not long ago, one particular little lad, age six, came to me at the end of service and said, hands on hips, deadly serious, ‘Can I tell you something?’ ‘Of course you can.’ I said.
‘You are the best chef in the whole world,’ he said. ‘I’d die for you.’
I persuaded the same little fella to try melon one day, something he’d never had. He struggled valiantly for a while and when all the other kids had left the dining room, I went and sat with him and said, ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you like it?’
‘I like the top,’ he said. ‘But I don’t really like the bottom.’ I explained it was ok to leave the skin and gave him a sticker for trying something new.
There are five- year- old twins who will go to any lengths to hide the abandoned contents of their lunch boxes to be allowed some of my food; we’ve found tangerines stuffed inside the radiator, sandwiches in their skirts and muesli bars in their socks.
I’ve been there for the birthdays, new kids, blossoming (and failing) little romances, best friends and falling-outs, even parents dying. I will miss their little faces, lopsided compliments and funny comments terribly.
When I started, mine was about the ninth school in the programme and the company I worked for was also relatively new to this particular market. My opinion and experiences were relevant and common sense was expected. Now it is not even allowed.
I know that for any company these days, health and safety is important – and nowhere moreso than in catering. But I am not allowed to clean the top of my fridge because I haven’t done a course in Using a Step Ladder. So it stays dirty. Where’s the sense in that?
And God forbid the children should pour their own custard, from any height. What if they spilt it and then slipped on it (of which more later...)?
If I have fifteen children eating lunch, I must put fifteen chocolate muffins in bowls (unwrapped) with a handful of blueberries in each. Because that’s what it says on the menu. No matter that I’ve known half these kids since before they were born and I can tell you categorically that two of them won’t eat their muffins, three of them will be cajoled into trying a couple of blueberries and another six will tip the whole lot in the bin.
I accept that in this age of litigation, it is necessary to sign every line I write in my daily log book, (despite the fact that there’s mostly only me working there) in case the company needs to prove that it was me who tested the temperature of the fridge, accepted the delivery, or washed the floor.
But as more and more schools join the scheme the rules are getting more and more ridiculous.
I came close to leaving when they introduced the Daily Briefing. Occasionally on busy days, when I have a helper, we chat about how we’re going to split the tasks. ‘How about you serve the meat and I’ll do the veg?’ we say.
This is apparently no longer good enough. It doesn’t ‘cover us’. If a child complains they weren’t given sweetcorn, it is important that you can pin down who is responsible.
So now I have to summon my helper to the Daily Briefing. We record in the log book what time it starts. We say ‘How about you serve the meat and I’ll do the veg?’ Then I have to write in the log book what I said and at what time, and then I sign it. Then she has to agree that she has been briefed and also sign the book. And date it. And put the time next to it.
But I realised I was finished when one of the area bosses came down to teach me about the Spill Box.
I must now place on my windowsill every morning a bin liner, into which I must carefully place a pair of gloves from the glove cupboard and a piece of kitchen roll. If I spill anything, this procedure must be followed: I must go to the Spill Box, pull on the gloves, take out the piece of tissue (not a different piece, mind), and wipe up the spill. I must then dispose of the gloves and the tissue, record the entire incident in my log book and replenish the Spill Box.
‘Phew,’ I said, when they finished instructing me. ‘Thank goodness for that. For two years I’ve had no idea what to do if a bit of custard fell to the floor. I’ve just been falling flat on my face. Now I will be able safely to clean it up.’
I think I’ve jumped just before I was pushed.......
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