In which the barn staff are voluntold to tackle the dishes...

One of the best Post Cleans we had this summer was when the barn staff had finished their cleaning early, and had come back requesting a job on the Main Site. Most of the other jobs were either done or close to being done, and the only other job we had for them was washing out the food waste buckets that had recently been emptied (after sitting around for a week with lids on in the hot summer weather, of course).

After we as a kitchen staff (and some other accomplices) had wrestled all of our lovely barn staff into hair nets and aprons, we realized the intense downfall/hilarity of the situation at hand: none of them had ever worked in the kitchen before, so they didn't even know how to turn on the dish machine (the most basic thing. there's even a neon orange poster with foolproof directions on the wall beside the machine), and would have to be guided through each task before they could find a rhythm and flow.

Not long after teaching them the dish process, I realized (by the rising noise level) two things: first, that none of them were used to working inside and had all brought their outside voices into the concrete box that is the kitchen; second, that none of them actually knew what they were fully doing, so each of them had adopted their own version of what was supposed to be happening, and then used the only method of getting others' attention they knew: being louder than everyone else. Almost as if on cue, Alana (the assistant wrangler) stepped into the kitchen and asked me what in the world was going on. I quickly explained the situation as I fought her into her very own hair net, and (before she realized what I was doing) thrust her into the fray saying that they needed a leader to guide them. To her credit, everyone calmed down quite a bit as soon as they realized she was alongside helping them, but it definitely didn't stop all of the kitchen staff from standing around with our cameras, trying to document this historical and hysterical event. Here are some of my favourite pictures:

Alana: "Stop laughing and taking pictures of me and HELP!!"

Me: "Hey Alana! That's a pretty hairnet/apron combo you're sporting!"
(That's my personal apron, for the record.)

Someone from outside the kitchen had just walked by and commented on her pretty outfit. Especially the hairnet.
For those of you who don't know: that's Alana's "Stop talking or there will be dire consequences" face.

They spy a strange tool they've never seen before.
They can't figure out what on earth it could be used for in the kitchen,
so they rapidly it's some kind of medieval torture device.

Alana holding the device in question.
It's actually used for cutting cakes and squares into even pieces,
but I was laughing too hard after their fabricated stories of torture to correct them.

...and they say we never have fun in the kitchen!