Food and Drink On-the-Job Injuries
Illustrator Peter Hoey for Time Out New York
Though typing on the keyboard at a desk job isn't great for your wrists, shaking up a cocktail—in some cases, a whole two minutes—can't be good for the carpal tunnel either. Food and drink professionals are at risk of many physical injuries, as Time Out New York recently noted.
Baristas must watch out for "barista arm," or a tendinitis-like feeling after making hundreds of espressos and lattes in a 40-hour work week. Professional ice cream scoopers fear "scooper's wrist" after yanking out still-frozen flavors, especially if they contain pistachios or hazelnuts, which are harder to scoop.
Servers balance wobbly trays, squat to take your order, and refill your ice water with heavy pitchers. What injuries have you suffered while working in a restaurant or food business? Zesting your hands? The inevitable burn?
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21 Comments:
Ha! I had my right foot ran over when I was a car hop if you can believe it. We weren't of the rollerskating variety though. My foot was badly bruised and very sore for about a month, but there were no broken bones.
yankeesgal at 7:09PM on 09/16/08
I suffer constantly from trigger finger stiffness. It is an ailment caused by trying to quickly click back to whatever I'm supposed to be doing so that the boss doesn't catch me looking at food porn online...
dagoose at 7:13PM on 09/16/08
When I worked in fine dining my fingertips were constantly cut up from rushing to open wine cap foils! Random, but true.
erelmartin at 7:52PM on 09/16/08
Back in 1980 the shortening for the deep fryer came in a 50-lb block. The fryer was lit and the block was sitting on the burner covers, melting into the fryer. As per the Asst. Mgr.'s suggestion I was cutting off chunks of shortening with the side edge of a long spatula. I'm not sure why but, at some point, the spatula slipped, hitting the melted oil flat. The oil splashed onto the thumb and index finger of my right hand, and all that "t'ain't", the fleshy area in-between. Yeah, that hurt!
LunaPierCook at 7:54PM on 09/16/08
When I worked the fryer at R.U.B. BBQ, I had sharp pains in my back for the first few weeks. Eventually that went away, then I managed to splash hot grease all over my left wrist. Left a nasty scar that took months to go away.
Joe DiStefano at 8:03PM on 09/16/08
Shaking cocktails may cause a repetitive strain injury, but probably has minimal effect on the carpel tunnel.
The carpel tunnel is connective tissue and bone sheath that contains the tendons that flex your fingers (ie. the motion of typing) and the median nerve. When overused, one or more of these tendons becomes inflamed (AKA tendonitis). This puts pressure on the median nerve and thus causing carpel tunnel syndrome and why cocktail shaking doesn't cause it.
Sorry about that non-foodie aside. I worked at Panda Express when I was in high school. The orientation material has some complex process for changing those steam table trays safely. But no one does that so we just end up with contact and steam burns.
wunami at 8:39PM on 09/16/08
I was both burned and bruised at work at a bakery once. (A rolling rack holding tubs of hot homemade soup broke, I tried to catch it, the tubs all cascaded onto me, burning my arms. Catching the heavy weight - something like thirty pounds - ended up pulling a tendon as well and spraining my wrist.)
I couldn't work for a week while the burns healed enough for me to be able to do dishes again ... and then I was fired when I returned for filing a workman's comp claim to pay for my doctor's visit.
But yeah, by back pretty much always hurt. There were those nice pads by the cashier station and the cake decorating station, but not the sink. That was my last food-related job. It was all retail after that until I go into office/admin stuff.
cybele at 8:58PM on 09/16/08
back when I worked for SBUX, I was playing around with a pitcher of hot water during some down time. (Don't ask why)...anyway...I accidentally poured some on my hand, and that caused an involuntary reaction to pour the rest of the pitcher as well...some weird shock reflex. Not smart. 180° water on skin....it took a long time to heal up. I wasn't even sure it would.
lawofmurphy at 9:40PM on 09/16/08
I worked over the summer at a bakery as an intern. I was stuck cracking a few hundred eggs a day and tempering chocolate, so I was proud when I finally got the job of pulling sheets of cookies and pies out of the huge brick oven and putting them on cooling racks...until I accidentally forgot that the rag I was using to protect my hands was not an oven mitt. I pressed the back of my hand against a 500 degree pan and ended up with quite a burn. But, in true baker form, the other workers bandaged me up and we kept on going for another (very painful) six or seven hours. :)
teenagefoodie at 9:52PM on 09/16/08
I've been a barista for years now and have yet to see much of "barista arm," or maybe i've just got no clue what tendinitis is. A shop i worked for until recently had a gelato case, though, so i can definitely attest to the shoulder pains discovered after an 8-hour shift on those summer afternoons(In Montgomery, Alabama, no less)...Burns are really the most common thing, but given that usually in that setting you're not dealing with anything past about 160 degrees(ie, not boiling), you get desensitized to it quickly.
rasellers0 at 2:22AM on 09/17/08
In addition to that scooper's wrist...my ice cream scooping friends have shown me their uneven muscle development (in their forearms). It's pretty freaky.
Smoosh at 10:00AM on 09/17/08
The scariest thing that ever happened to me:
I was grating massive amounts of Parmesan with a Hobart floor mixer. After a bit I grabbed onto the handle of the pizza oven next to me to get some leverage. All of the sudden I couldn't let go! I saw white. Thankfully the Hobart jumped over and hit the pizza oven, shorting out the circuit breaker, so I was spared. The ground wire on the mixer was repaired the next day...
beano at 10:05AM on 09/17/08
#10 can cut!!!!!
pooch at 12:25PM on 09/17/08
Ow, those can cuts are awful. My arms are covered with scars from burns, I've gotten "bar rot" - a fungus under my fingernails from my hands being in water so much that caused really painful splitting and cracking. Cuts of course, but more from shellfish than knives (and I'm allergic to shellfish...hee! makes for such pretty hands). One time I hit the front of the convection oven with the back of my wet hand. Omg, it *seared* my flesh.
I keep telling my fiancee that I'm going to take two weeks off before our wedding so I don't have any fresh scars!
scarletini at 1:27PM on 09/17/08
Good lord, what injuries haven't I acquired?
There's the dry ice burn from when we were playing around with dry ice ice cream recipes.
The burn on my arm that's now a permanent scar from checking the temperature on a turkey whose pan was resting on my arm and I forgot the fact that I had rolled up my coat.
The permanent callus on my right forefinger and thumb from opening too many bottles of Pabst Blue ribbon.
The edge of my first finger I shaved off while cutting bread during the Friday night rush.
The scar from a duct being picked up and scraped against my leg when we were doing expansion construction.
Oil burns from seeing what tastes good deep fried (tempura battered grapes are the best, chocolate torte the worst).
The boys around here would mention server's butt and their affection for corn starch.
Bridget at 2:17PM on 09/17/08
I melted my contacts once: steam came out of an oven, and all of a sudden my eyes hurt. Then I realized that I couldn't see right. The contacts had shriveled up and fell out when the steam hit them.
At the same job, the boss broke my ring finger by dropping a case of turkeys on it.
Geeka at 2:37PM on 09/17/08
@Bridget: Ah corn starch. Reminds me of my fellow line cooks at Park Avenue Cafe back in the day. It works but makes a slurry after 10 hours, I assure you.
Like everyone so far, I've had my share of cuts and burns (including one my chin that I will never forget), but the strangest on-the-job malady was when a cook I worked next to at Mesa Grill got warts from handling a lot of meat.
BrianPrestonCampbell at 3:48PM on 09/17/08
@rasellers0: Yeah. I don't imagine you'd see it that much. You'd really have to be doing the exact same things the whole day for many days to get it. As far as I can tell, baristas usually are making a variety of different drinks with different methods. So maybe if you were at some kind of trade show and repeatedly making the same exact drink to promote it... Or maybe if you work at a shop that makes only one labor intensive drink...
wunami at 11:41PM on 09/17/08
@ Bridget tell the boys about a powder I found at the drug store called "Anti Monkey Butt" it has calamine in it, it works for sure!! The label is hilarious a big monkey with a red rear end. I used to get cuts from the foil on wine bottles too!! Now its mostly neck strain from looking down so much prepping food. My chiropractor tells me to ice it but I'm too lazy when I get home.
joanpieroni2 at 8:58AM on 09/18/08
I had an employer who refused to fix the oven door. The repairman didn't replace the screws holding the outer and inner pannels when he fixed the springs in the door. I had reported it several times. One night during service, I put a steak in the oven to finish, and the door separated, burning my arm with a nice 500 degree sear. I was furious. I told the owner that unless he had it fixed by the next service, I would file worker's comp, call OSHA, and quit (it was during tourist season, and it was a tiny restaurant). The other line cook said he wouldn't cook anything else that had to go in that oven until it was fixed. The door was fixed by the next day. Why couldn't they just fix it the first time I said something about it?
beth1 at 11:06AM on 09/18/08
The worst definitely had to be the day the chef was having a really bad day and was incredibly pissed off (I can't remember at what). I was working the grill/griddle and when the order came in for some grilled chicken sandwiches, he threw the breasts at full force on the grill, splashing hot grease all over my face and neck. I was quite the attractive guy for the next month.
Then there were the deli slicer fingertip injuries, knife injuries and my favorite was that I developed severe excema on my hands from all my years in the kitchen and pretty much couldn't touch anything (citrus, tomatoes, dishwater, cleaning supplies, you name it) without searing pain for about 3 months. Good Times.
nowonmai11 at 1:51PM on 09/19/08