I went on a working holiday to New Zealand in October 2023 and worked at a restaurant for a year. I was at the workplace almost every day, and our pieces of equipment took turns getting broken. I remembered what broke to write this post and was surprised at the number of equipment having got broken. I’m going to write about it. You can see how I got the job here.
A stove broke
One day, I tried to light a stove to open our restaurant and found out it was not working, so we had 4 stoves and used the one we didn’t use instead. The broken one was never fixed while I was working there.
An oven broke
We failed to light an oven that was the only one we had from the other day, so we cooked some food on a pan instead. Our popular food didn’t need the oven to be cooked, so our boss didn’t get a new one.
The oven having broken felt sad to me because I sometimes had cooked my food in the oven and had really enjoyed it. In New Zealand, most houses are originally equipped with an oven, but in Japan, you need to buy one if you need it. I would be sorry if I had been to use ovens at the flats I lived in. Ovens need lots of energy and I didn’t pay for electricity or gas other than rent. When I live in Japan, I won’t own an oven.
A deep-fryer broke
We had 2 deep-fryers and one of them was not working properly. We couldn’t make the temperature high enough, so it took longer to cook and could make customers wait longer. We made deep-fried food so often, so it was the problem. We called a mechanic, but he couldn’t fix it.
Freezers broke
Two freezers broke, one after another. The internal temperature got too high, and the foods inside defrosted. We needed to use a small freezer, which we didn’t use, and move the foods to working freezers.
Then, we took away freezers broken and put new ones where they were. They were really heavy. When the freezer in front of the counter of our restaurant broke, it took a long before we got a new one, so every time customers ordered foods needing frozen materials, we went to the edge of the space to get them.
An ice machine broke
We needed plenty of ice to display our food to customers. One day, it broke. Before it got fixed, we needed to walk to a restaurant of the same owner for about 20 minutes, get a large bag of ice, and take it to our restaurant with a trolley. It was kind of disgusting.
Lights broke
Every time we turned on the lights on our property, we pushed the switch again and again until we successfully switched them on. One day, the switch broke and we couldn’t turn them on. At night, our restaurant was dark. We called an electrician and he fixed it easily soon.
Did I break those?
Actually, I’m a careless person, and I dropped and broke some drinking glasses while holding a plate on which they were, but I didn’t break the equipment mentioned above. I guess the restaurant was just too old, or I was just unlucky.
Comments