It's Real Dickens

The new lass broke down at work tonight. Really happens more often than you might think in this industry. Gordon Ramsey's pretty much not all that when it comes to angry chefs; dime a dozen. It's the pressure that does them in. Before service gets started everybody'll be laughing like no tomorrow and having a grand old time swearing at each other and making bad dirty jokes, but when those orders come in, something just clicks and it's a whole different place. Damn shame, really. Most of the time it isn't anything personal, it's all contained there in that mystical plane between planes, but, well, sometimes it's not most of the time.

Six months pregnant, too, poor gal - at nineteen, no less. At nineteen I was just starting that writing course at uni. Somehow, having a creature growing inside of your person manages to overshadow that somewhat. God knows how anybody copes with that at such an age.

In any case, when the chef ducked out for a fag, it was once again my turn to swoop in on hug patrol. I'd like to say that this was the first instance, or even the last, that I held somebody next to a deep frier as they quietly wept into a grease stain on my apron, but past experience suggests that my tour of duty has more than a few days left.