The Art of Washing Dishes

Washing dishes may seem pretty simple, and in many ways it is. However, when I wash dishes, it's an art. Here are some strategies and principles to keep in mind, should you ever find yourself washing dishes commercially.

Note: These principles/strategies apply primarily during busy business hours. If business is slow, just keep moving and you'll be fine.

1) Plan Ahead & Be Aware. Don't mindlessly pack them in. What's needed? If the cafe or restaurant is perilously low on cutlery, more plates won't help. You'll only know this by keeping an eye out. What sort of dish/cup is piling up? Look at the stacks of mugs/cups on the coffee maker. Anything look low? Ask the servers/barristas if they're running out of anything. Try to arrange your next load to accomplish the specific need at that time, if there is one. More simply, make maximum use of each rack load. If you don't fill a rack to capacity, you've effectively just shrank the rack.

2) Be organized. Being organized helps the staff more easily pile dishes before running back to the front, which in turn helps you pack dish racks. Plus, you may be called away to bus a few tables, run some food, or even run some drinks. If this happens, you need the dish pit to survive until you return. If it's messy when you leave, you may return to the aftermath of a tornado. Being organized is being prepared for anything.

3) Always have a cycle going. The limiting reagent (a shout out to chemistry buffs), or the thing limiting your speed, is the 4 minutes or so the dishwasher requires to wash a load. There's no getting around this 4 minutes. The best you can do then, is always have a load going. If the washer is idle for 30 seconds, then it basically took 4 minutes and 30 seconds for the load. Be ready with the next load when a rack is being washed. Number 2 helps with this.

4) Give everything a glance before inserting it into the rack. If I put a dish in the washer with a hunk of crusted... something on it, it may not come out clean. That's gonna cost me time on the tail end. You give it a cursory scrub on anything that's hard, and the dishwasher will to the rest.

5) Be a sharpshooter. Sometimes you have to wash something by hand. If the cafe needs a brown mug NOW, you don't have 4 minutes. Wash two by hand, and have a bunch more in the next load.

6) Have big items on standby. Sometimes load A will finish and you're not ready with load B. Remain calm. Some items, such as giant mixing bowls, won't fit in the washer with anything else; but they still have to be washed. Have those ready, and when this moment comes, throw it in. This is utilizing Numbers 1 & 2, to make sure you accomplish Number 3.

A further update on my back- it's feeling very well. My knees, on the other hand, are beginning to ache. It turns out that lifting with your legs, to save your back, comes at a cost. This is especially true if you squat far enough that your knees move in front of your feet (according to Betsy, and apparently the guy at 24 Hour Fitness in Denver). For clarification on this, imagine a line coming up out of the earth, through your feet, straight up. If your knees cross this line when you squat, it's a bit hard on them over time. Who knew dish washing was so hard on the body? I have been developing strategies for lightening the load on my back, so now I'll do the same for my knees. I'll come up with something.