I used to be a supervisor in a resort, reporting weekly at a meeting of dept heads to the food & bev manager, a German guy we all called Chef. I'll never forget one meeting though...
"Adzem, Can you pladhfghaldda"? "Ahh sorry Chef, I didn't quite catch that".
Chef hated repeating himself. He tended to get even more angry and less understandable. "Can you pladhfghalddav"?
Um... I still didn't get it. I look around the table & could see no one was going to come to my aid, they didn't get it either... I laughed nervously, tried again.
"Yeah, sorry Chef, I still didn't understand".
Chef was pissed off now. It was like this was an unprecedented event or something. He looked at me incredulously & said "I said, loiasurbhlajqwn, ok"?
Shit. I still didn't get it. Even I was getting angry by this stage and my inner German came out in an explosive sentence where I said "Chef I’m sorry, but if you would just speak English…"?
You know the saying "If looks could kill"? I’d never understood it until that very moment. I knew it was bad, Chef threw the paper down he was holding, put both hands on the table & said "Adzam! LSDFHBLKFSDJGHLK??? OK"?
I nodded.
As we left the meeting room a few of the other managers said "So what did Chef say, I couldn’t understand him either". I said "I have no idea".
Later in the bar Chef wanders in. He points to two chairs & said "Why haven’t you taken those back yet, I told you in the meeting".
in Twin Waters, Queensland, Australia
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