…Service Specialist, Part II

The Heart


Every boat I have ever been on – every diesel-stinking, pitching-rolling, gut-busting, rib-bruising, salt-spray-settling-in-your-razor-burn boat I have ever been on has one thing in common: The galley and mess deck are right smack in the middle. Now this may only be a Coast Guard thing, but I think they do it for a reason. The galley is the center of the heart for any unit. Everyday the mess deck becomes the escape for every single non-cook crew member. At least once a day each person may choose to walk through the line, pick up their food, sit down and eat it. Through the whole process they are getting a hugely critical release from the everyday stresses of whatever their job entails. Even if they have to take their food off the mess deck, or if they take a box lunch with them away from the unit, there is always a measure of solace in that food.

Every boat I have ever been on has something else in common. A cook reports aboard and is told the same two things by the command. They always say that the food has a large impact on the morale of the crew, and that the cooks have a thankless job. I never understood these things (and I am not sure they did, either). First of all, I am thanked numerous times a day. I am thanked so much that I get bored with my response to it. Almost without exception every single crew member will thank you at least once per meal. It is simply because they are told the same thing when they get to a unit: “No one ever thanks the cooks, so you better say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ every time. After all, we don’t want our food to taste like Scope.”

I once cooked potatoes on my first buoy tender. They were roasted red potatoes. Now potatoes were something that I always hit out of the park, and my first trip on this boat I had the crew chant Three-Cheers because I didn’t serve Golf-Ball-Chunked-Mashed-Potatoes to them (apparently this was a problem before my arrival). These red potatoes were not my ordinary potatoes. Apparently I stayed to watch the Cubs game too long and these were more the texture of red apples instead. They were rock-hard undercooked. My department head walked up, as he always did, to thank me.

“How were the potatoes sir?” like I didn’t know.

“They were great Brandon!” trying to pretend like his jaw wasn’t sore.

Now I am not trying to say that no matter how lousy the food is, the crew won’t react negatively. The same guy that lead the crew in Three-Cheers also lead them in throwing of overcooked chicken back into the galley at me once….ONCE. The fact is that there are bound to be numerous occasions when negative reactions are bountiful. That’s the chemistry that is created when you put wound up people in a place where they can unwind. Their reaction to the environment – whether it be the food, the mood, the other crewmembers, or the TV – is clearly going to be over the top at times. It’s the moments when this boisterous activity is met with bad food that people remember as the cooks “really gettin’ it”. Thankless job? Hardly. It’s just rough and tumble sometimes.

Now for the morale – and this is where my answer always lies. Why am I a cook? Why am I still a cook? Why am I a Food Service Specialist?

Everyday people break for lunch. They file through that line to unwind. On a boat they also stop by the galley door to see how the cooks are doing occasionally. It’s bound to happen; the galley’s in the center of the boat, remember? Most mess decks also, even though discouraged in regulations, act as a main passageway through the ship. What’s for lunch? What time’s lunch? What’s dessert? What’s the soup? Can I have a cookie? Can I have the cookie dough!?!?! The milk machine’s empty.

Everyday people break for lunch, but the cooks never do. They simply can’t break for lunch. Even though they may sit down to eat, they never really leave their workspace. Nor do they step away from those they work with. So no matter how their day is going, they can’t simply go off to lunch to recharge or relax.