General Discussion

This line of career sucks.

Most schools don't operate their own school kitchen, there's companies that have contracts with public schools that provide this service. I worked for a company called Aramark.


I came in at 6:45 am until 1pm Monday through Friday, with the exception of any days the students weren't in school . I brought home $200 a week after $40 was deducted for health insurance. I was one of the few lucky ones that received the most hours. Companies like Aramark always want the employees hours cut because they don't want to pay them. This was in 2017 and 2018.


There's a high turn over rate with the basic employees but there was also a high turn over rate with kitchen leads, managers and directors. I had 2 out of 3 kitchen leads that just terrible people in general. They got rid of one in particular and replaced her with someone just as terrible.


The school that I worked in had the highest unpaid balances. I had to either turn kids down for breakfast. High unpaid balances for lunches the students could get a cheese sandwich. That's it. A piece of cheese between two slices of bread. It use to be peanut butter sandwiches but with peanut allergies they switched it to cheese. These students still got charged a full price lunch for a cheese sandwich.

There were a few times I put $20 here and there on a students balance so that they could eat a meal. I couldn't do this very often because again I only brought home $200 a week.


Once when I was a cafeteria aide in an elementary school. I had performed the Heimlich maneuver on a 6th grade girl. I reported the incident to my kitchen lead because the 6th grader that I performed the Heimlich maneuver needed to be seen by the school nurse. I wanted to make sure that I didn't break a rib or something. It was a scary and emotional moment for me.


The kitchen lead was late delivering the cash to another school where the director collected the money. The director scolded the kitchen lead for being late with the cash. The kitchen lead says, "Niagara had to perform the Heimlich maneuver on a 6th grade girl that was chocking on a french fry. Niagara wanted this student to be seen by the school nurse to make sure she didn't break any ribs during this maneuver. This is why I'm late."


It was also while I was at this job that I accused of taking something like a dozen cookies in one days time by another employee behind my back. It wasn't true and I think she was the one taking the cookies and then blaming it on me.


Working in these jobs sound great but the reality is not for the faint of heart. Apply for these jobs at your own mental health risk.