I've run into a situation which I have to deal with on a fairly regular basis, and which leaves me feeling useless and despicable. The entire situation is caused by baby food.
Occasionally, people staying in the hotel bring their children into the bar. I have no problem with this, as long as the child is quiet and doesn't disturb other guests (for example, by running round, screaming, or getting lost and necessitating a hotel-wide 'child hunt'). The problem stems from parents asking if I can heat up their baby food for them in the microwave. I am assured that this will only take ten seconds on high heat.
The first time I was asked I readily agreed, and proceeded to the kitchen to ask the chef to heat it for me. He adamantly refused - I quote:
"When you use a microwave to heat food, it can cause hot spots to form in the food. If the baby is then fed part of the food from a hot spot, it can burn their throat. If I prepare food for someone and they get sick, I'm covered by the hotel. If I heat that for you, and it hurts the baby, I'm liable."
When I asked what I could do about it, the chef said I was welcome to use the microwave and heat the baby's food. That way, he was no longer liable and the blame would shift to me.
I am now left with a moral dilemma. Do I heat the food, and risk getting sued if something goes wrong, or do I refuse outright to heat baby food and let the child go hungry? The reason this situation leaves me feeling useless and despicable is that I always go with the latter.
On that particular occasion, I put the baby food container into a teapot of boiling water and handed it back to the parents saying it was the only way I could heat it.
Is this the only option (short of having parents fill in a disclaimer) that I have to heat baby food? How do other people in the service industry deal with this, or does it just not come up?
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7 comments:
The chef is right, hot spots CAN occur. However, as a Dad of three children who all had their food "nuked" without incident, I give this suggestion.
Nuke the food, let it stand (as suggested in all nukelear booklets) and tell parent to lip test each spoonful by touching the spoonful to their top lip. Hot spots will almost certainly be quite obvious.
Really hot ones will cause blistering to said lip, resulting in much hilarity and blogworthiness for you.
I get asked if I can eat up baby food quite often, and depending on how nice they are will determine if I do it or not. Our official line is - use the baby food warmer. We don't have one however. So the official line is then don't do it at all. The parents will then go "Well don't you have a microwave?". No we bloody don't. "Why not?" BECAUSE WE DON'T NEED ONE. Then they ask for the boiling water.
If they are nice - I will do this but behind the counter so they can't burn themselves and sue Pizza Hut or worse, me.
So I think there are three options. Microwave = potentially dangerous. Hot water = time consuming/looks unprofessional (?) or a baby food heater...which I think is just a glorified tub of hot water.
I'd stick with what you are doing but keep the hot water with you and ask the parents so come back when it is done.
In this world of lawyers and compensation claims, I would refuse to heat any food for a baby, regardless of how hungry the baby is.
If the child really needs to eat, parents could easily make alternative arragements and not assume that the hotel would have these facilities.
Its just to risky to end up being at fault for hotspots, scolding or something else the parents can think of.
Had similar situations, each time was a polite but flat out refusal and explanation.
Kids? In the restaurant? Not in my bloody section.
Where I work, I a very 'insistant' lady with a baby requested said food-warming. After much squalking and her storming the kitchen, the chef began to warm her food. She was handed a full A4 page disdclaimer to fill in - by the time she was done, the food was cold again!
Isn't the easy solution to hot spots stirring the baby food? I do that to my own food.
That said, I wouldn't do it. The chef is right about liability.
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