Have you been good this year?

So today I came in a bad mood, knowing I had to work with my boss, who had put me in a bad mood the day before, got on my last nerve. My bad mood faded a bit after the cook gave me some oatmeal and we laughed and joked around a bit, the seating part of the diner being cooler now that my boss had put in an A/C unit at one end, it seemed a little bit more bearable , at least in the dining area and on the line. Still hot as hell in the kitchen , though, where I spend the greater part of my day. My boss wasn't there when I got there, he came later. Just as I was walking back from filling the washing machine with water & soap, and on my way to get the towels for washing... he pulls up with his bass boat loaded with restaurant supplies. Never mind that it's kind of gross to have food products laying around on the same areas where someone had had dead fish flopping around hours previously. At any rate, I had to help him unload then and there because he had a LOT of ice (the ice machine barely works) and it was of course melting. I forgot I had started the washing machine and had to get more quarters for that... oh well.
So, I'm going about my business and working very hard as usual; my boss is making a giant mess as usual, and he's being a jerk, trying to get a rise out of any of us. I'm not biting today.
Let me preface what happens next by saying that yesterday, he had been trying to be chatty and friendly and asked me how my other job was going. I said "Well, it's OK, you know? It has kick ass air conditioning, and thats the only reason I'm there, is the A/C. And on that, I can say they excel!"
He didn't say anything to that.
But today, after sitting in his office smoking and surfting e-bay for about an hour, he calls me back to the office. I'm in the middle of something but I go back there, dreading what will come next because he rarely calls me back there.
He says to me "So, have you been good this year?"
I cock my head and say "Define good? "
He gives me this look. The kind of look you give a kid when they say they did not have their hand in the cookie jar when you know they did. It's an accusatory look. I say, "Well, all I know is I got a 4.0 grade point average, so I guess I did something right".
And then he says "Well, ok, then, you can bring that A/C unit back into the kitchen then. Just plug it into that wall there."
And I say thanks and tell him I'll get to it as soon as I can.
I then overheard the server who has the end of the diner where the portable A/C unit is located. She was worried that if the unit was taken into the kitchen, she'd lose business. (Patrons would migrate to the end with the permanent A/C wall unit).
So I, being on this 'do the right thing' kick, decided I didn't want to upset her, despite our differences in the past, she and I have always managed to pull together and get things done so I was reluctant to make her worry about people going to the other end. So I said "Well, I'm not going to take the unit in the back then.That wouldn't be right."
She seemed relieved and said thanks and I gave it no more thought.
Until my boss comes back from wherever he goes off to for an hour at a time and said "You didn't bring the A/C unit back here? How come?"
I said "___________ thinks her customers will go to the other end if we take that back into the back."
He says "Does _________ sign your check?"
I said "What?"
He said "So I told you to do something and you're not going to do it?"
I was taken aback. He's done this before. I'm sort of used to it.
He says " I told you to bring it back here and plug it in."
I said "No, you said I COULD bring it back here. I thought it was a choice I had. If you are ordering me to do it, I'll bring it back immediately."
Which I did. I told the server that I had no choice, and I was sorry, because I didn't want the thing back in the back, because it is NOT VENTED !
So I bring it back and turn it on and suddenly it seems cooler for a minute but soon the temperature in the kitchen has climbed one degree. I know it is from the vent of the A/C unit. It is only cooler directly in front of the unit. Now it is HOTTER in the kitchen that it WAS.
My boss walks back into the kitchen which is demonstrably hotter (there's a thermometer on the A/C unit for pete's sake!) than it was and says "See? It's much cooler in here, huh?"
And I ignore him.
And he comes back a little bit later and says "See? It's cooler, huh?"
And I pretend I didn't hear him.
The moment he leaves I turn the thing off, and within a half hour the temp drops three degrees. And the dining room is cooler without the unit too.
I want the unit gone. I know that tomorrow when he comes in and I have the thing turned off he's going to say "Don't bitch about it being hot in here, I gave you an A/C unit."
But he KNOWS it makes it hotter in there. He's waiting for me to say "It makes it hotter" so he can say I don't know what I'm talking about, that I'm never satisfied, that I'm ungrateful.
Eff that, I'm not going to engage with him ANYMORE. If he wants to fire me for not engaging with him, fine.
Earlier today when he was sitting in his office surfing e-bay and smoking cigarettes, the cook had walked back into the store room to get something, leaving a pot of bacon on the grill cooking. it caught fire. And the fire lept to the grease trap chute, which has not ever been scraped out. It was a pretty good fire, and the whole place was smoked out, most patrons left in a hurry. They had the front door open, and tried to position the fans just so, but I remembered we had one of those giant wavy green guys and the fan that goes with it. I put the fan in the back door and had that place cleared out in no time. I do that sort of thing in stride while everyone else is freaking out. And I got not one word of thanks.
At any rate, I believe that is one of the things OSHA looked at but found to be OK...the grease traps. Guess what, they are NOT ok. That fire could have been way worse, I'm just glad my boss was there to see it. He made a giant mess trying to do something with ice and flour. I ended up scraping the chute out with my elbow length black military chemical gloves. And getting burned in the process of course. NOt badly, just a little bit but still. I got the mess cleaned up, and threw my gloves away... and then my boss tells the cook, M, that M has to take the grill to the car wash to clean it after work.
1) M has worked nine hours on the grill already with only a 15 minute break. M is 18. He was tired as hell.
2) I think it's despicable to take a greasy grill to a car wash to wash it, leaving greasy puddles all over, and gobs of grease for people to track over with their clean cars.
3) M was supposed to have help doing so from the other line cook, who never showed. M had a 5 pm appointment and sat there waiting for the other cook for an hour and a half.
4) My boss wanted M to use M's truck. My boss has a Dodge RAM HEMI with a tonneau cover and all his fishing stuff in the back, he wouldn't want to use HIS truck, no. He also has that big behemoth Chevy something (Blazer?) he just bought for 3,000 bucks that won't run and he's parked it in the front of the diner trying to sell it for parts. Get that fixed and use IT to haul greasy grills around in stead of making your employees ruin thier truck beds and their clothes.
So M just called me to say that the other cook never showed up, and he sounded like he might not be back to work next week. He said "Well, I'll see you around. I don't know if I'll see you next week."
The kid starts university next Monday. He doesn't need that kind of hassle on top of full time college.

Osha

Osha has fined my boss 6,000 dollars for his infractions. I never did see anything posted on the wall. I hear that originally they were going to fine him upwards of 10,000 dollars. I'm guessing that means that my workplace WAS unsafe. And OSHA backed me up by fining him. BUT: he hasn't fixed anything.
I wonder how long he can get away with not fixing it. I'm going to e-mail the gal that came to inspect and tell her that things didn't change one iota. At any rate, my boss is putting in new air conditioning units IN THE DINING ROOM. Nothing in the back. So it will get busier in there, people will flock back once we get a/c. BUT I'll be hotter, and have no where to cool off because the dining room will be full. *sigh*
The pizza place I'm working at on the weekends is so much cooler. It's not cool that they won't let us have anything to eat. And we can't really wear shorts. But it's air conditioned. They made some noises about putting me at 32 hours a week but that's not enough. They want me to quit my diner job, so I can do 32 hours at the pizza joint, but they won't put me full time due to then I'd get benefits. The only way to go full time is to go to another location. I told the manager, "I'm just trying to survive here : I can't think that far ahead. " She seemed to understand. I told her I'd go to one day a week at the diner. If that's what they want. 32 hours at the pizza joint, one or two days at the diner. I hate that my boss put me in this position due to not taking care of the A/C two summers ago. He has no idea what turmoil my life is in just because I can't physically stand to work at his job the five days I week I was doing because it is too hot.