Each employee at a restaurant is assigned specific tasks that they are responsible for, but most of the time, people pick up extra little things to help out along the way.

What would you do if you were a runner at a restaurant, but you would also enter the kitchen to grab simple items so that the chef didn’t have to do it himself, but one day the chef yelled at you and said that it was his job?

That is what happened to the runner in this story, so he stopped going into the kitchen. The next time that the restaurant was busy, however, the chef quickly became overwhelmed with all the extra work he had to do and begged the runner to help out again.

I love this story because the runner could have argued with the chef up front, but instead he complied with him and showed the chef the error of his ways. Read through all the details here.

Don’t want me to do the work myself? Ok, then run and do it yourself.

This happened a year ago, now I’m ready to share.

Seems like a pretty normal setup for a restaurant like this.

I worked at a buffet restaurant, and every shift, each staff was assigned one job.

Those being usually: Cashier, runner(person who goes pick up the food when ready), person who changes the food around, table managing, cleaning, washing dishes, etc.

Having a job you are good at can make you enjoy it.

I was usually the Runner, because I was faster than everyone else, and we needed to walk a long way to the kitchen to pick up food and come back, and we had to do it in 3 minutes, or else our leader would call the kitchen/us to ask where we were.

There is a counter between the kitchen and the corridor that you pass through with the cart.

Makes sense; that could save everyone some time.

Usually, you go in, ask for the food, they will put it on the counter in a few seconds to a minute, you put it on the cart, and you can go back to the restaurant

But sometimes they will be understaffed, and if we are in need of something simple like sauces, green onions, or jam, we usually just get inside the kitchen and grab it ourselves. This is not a rule, it is just something that happened sometimes if they were really busy.

You would think the chef would be happy that he was helping out.

In this case, we were in need of some sauces, one or two food items, and green onions. I knew where all the sauces and green onions where, so after asking for them and waiting for more than a minute, I shouted “coming in! Grabbing green onions!” and went in the kitchen.

As I was pouring the pre-cut green onions on a bowl, one of the chefs walked on my direction screaming for me to leave the food, and that that was not my job, and that I was doing it wrong (I was not).

Chef gets what he asked for, even if it makes more work for him.

I asked him why, because we have been doing that for years at that point, and he said that it is his job to do, and that I’m only supposed to ask and wait.

So, next time I needed something, I entered the kitchen, and as the chef was prepping something else, I started screaming “SAUCE ONE, SAUCE TWO, GREEN ONIONS, HONEY, THIS, THAT, THIS ALSO, SOMETHING ELSE”, until I finished the full list, which were all mostly things I knew where they were and could have grabbed it during the time I was screaming the names and waiting.

Nothing will please this guy.

The chef didn’t say anything for a few seconds, so I screamed all of it again, and on the third time, while he was grabbing one of the sauces and placing it on the counter, he said “It’s just me here, stop screaming and just put the paper there and wait”.

I responded that I have to go back to the restaurant in 3 minutes or else they call to check what I’m doing and I would have to say that he was taking too long to bring me the stuff.

I hope that the chef learned his lesson.

So he said “Ok, just go in there and grab it”, and I reminded him that he told me the other day that I was not supposed to touch anything because that was not my job.

But I guess he changed his mind, cause he just said “forget it, just do it”, but I reminded him again that he made it official that I can’t do that, so I would have to contact the leader to make sure that I was allowed to, and the chef had to run around the kitchen for a few minutes to grab everything I needed, and never complained about us being inside the kitchen afterwards.

Sometimes the only way for people to learn that they did something wrong is for you to show them. That’s just what this runner did, and I bet it was a lot of fun.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a software engineer who coded a perfect program, and refused to change it after hardware cards were installed upside down.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about this story.

Kitchens can be dangerous, but you don’t need to yell constantly.

Yeah, this is spot on true.

This would have been a perfect reply.

It seems to be a problem in the restaurant industry.

There is never a need to yell at a coworker.

If the chef wants to do everything himself, let him. There is no reason to be so rude to other employees, but that is just how some people are.

The runner did a great job at complying with exactly what the chef asked for, and showing why he was so wrong.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who works fast and helps her coworkers, but is met with disapproval from her supervisor because of this practice