The 26 Hour Shift From Hell

I am still working on posting pictures and such, so please bear with me for the next few days...

I am now three days into my working experience, and with each day I encounter more and more challenges. I have been posted at the Green Homeland Media Village. This is where all of the worldwide media stays throughout their time in Beijing. There are two production kitchens in the compound, and six dining rooms (including one 24 hour operation and a bar). Each kitchen will produce 6,000 meals for each meal period, plus the late night crowd. So we could, hypothetically, serve 25,000 people per day!! For those of you who are not in the restaurant business, that is a s*itload! I have all the confidence in the world in my team, and believe that we will be very successful. We have our soft opening tonight for dinner, and then tomorrow breakfast and lunch. We will be serving Chinese officials, Beijing Olympic Committee, etc. It is going to be a long couple of days though. Today I work until 1:00 am, and then I have to be back at 6:00 tomorrow morning! With the hour long commute there and back, it's almost not worth going home. There are a group of us who may just end up working straight through until 4:00 tomorrow afternoon. Sometimes it's easier just to continue working, as opposed to coming home and having to do it all over again, you know? I have Sunday off as of right now, so I will have that day to recover (hopefully).

I have been given the job of receiver/hot food prep. My main responsibility is receiving orders, gathering, organizing, and preparing mise en place (prep ingredients) for the hot food kitchen (both the Asian side and the International side).