Ethnographic Moments: Dishwashing Hour at ALMA I

                                                                 23.11.2022

It is already my 19th shift at ALMA. I am now familiar with most of the things around here: The people, rules, how to clean the buffet when the food service ends, when to leave the buffet and start cleaning tables, where to go to find cleaning supplies, what to do if we are out of pasta and so on. I am even comfortable asking for a toilet break now, from which I refrained for a long time as I had been too nervous to ask and did not see many people going there. Although the physical hardships of the job are still very much present, I am feeling more confident and comfortable, especially around the full-time employees, seeing that they have also built a certain level of trust in my abilities. My feelings are especially validated today because my full-time coworker Anne crowned me with the “working student who can do all” title during our shift together behind the food counter. She is the most approachable amongst the full-time workers and was very talkative with everyone, even with me, the only person who did not speak Dutch. I reply to what I assumed to be a compliment with “Not really, because I still do not know how to do the dishes.” This is mainly because I am usually assigned to other duties after the lunch serving ends. Ironically enough, I am assigned to dishwashing duty for the 45 minutes of today's shift.

On my way to the dishwashing area, I spend my time in the kitchen trying to find some gloves, as my hands are getting more and more coarse with each day I work here. Then I find my way to the dishwashing room, which is connected to the kitchen. The space feels very humid and smells like wet food, more specifically fries. It is a medium size room mainly covered by the giant dishwashing machine and the conveyor connected to it. It is like a monster that swallows the dirty trays and plates, digests the remaining food, and lets them out as clean dishes. It was not perfect, however, there were still stubborn stains managing the escape intact from the giant’s fury. That is what the big and deep sinks across the room were for, to go over these dishes again. I feel relieved after seeing that we ought not to do most of the cleaning job and are responsible for sorting the dishes that were going in and out instead. After this first glance, lasting less than a minute, I make myself known, asking what I should do. There are three people in the room beside me, a student employee who has been working here for a while, another student who is here only for the day, and a full-time worker, Adam, who always manages and does the dishwashing. I saw him a couple of times here and there, he is a friendly person who likes to make small talk and smile but I usually struggle to understand him as his English is a little thick for me to comprehend. He tells me to take the dish racks placed in front of the room’s window and put them into the conveyor belt. I do that, but it lasts only 5 minutes as there are not many racks. I ask him again, and he looks a bit confused about what to assign me as there are already two other people working. He tells me something, but I cannot hear it. Upon this failure to communicate, he shows me what to do by practice instead of trying to say it once more. Feeling a little embarrassed about not having understood the first time, I gather he wants me to sort the cutlery. He smiles at my confusion and says it is okay. After a while of sorting, a technician enters the room. He stops the machine and starts inspecting it. I am aware that the machine broke down two times last week, wonder if something happened again. I attempt to understand the issue, but the conversation is mainly in Dutch. He opens the lid of the machine, where the cables and electric unit are. He turns off the machine. The room gets quiet all of a sudden, which emphasizes the loudness there was before. As the dishes stop coming, I and the other girl who is only here for the day start to stand there practically doing nothing. There are still 15 minutes until the end of the shift. I try to find something to do, but my lack of knowledge about the tasks restrains me. I ask the student worker, instead of Adam, if there is anything to do as we already have an acquaintance, but he says no. I listen as Adam cracks a joke in English to the technician, saying that the dishwasher needs a new wife, as it keeps getting broken due to loneliness. I wonder why he thinks of the machine as a man. At this point, the manager of ALMA I overhears this conversation and jokes that what he says is sexist. I do not understand the full context of the conversation, but it comes to a point where the manager tells the girls to stop working humorously, which is, I assume, connected to the dishwashing machine being identified as male. We all laugh as Adam says “No, no, no!” hastily. 

I check the time, still 10 minutes to go. I turn my attention to the technician. He also joins the conversation while tinkering with the machine’s interiors. He then shares his diagnosis; the machine cannot heat the water. That is all I could get. I cannot understand if the issue is serious but I hear Adam asking how much a new one costs in one of the moments he switches to English, which may be because he is  a migrant. The answer is at least $75,000, which creates quite a shock in all of us. Adam says, “It is almost two cars!”, and the  technician replies, “Two really good cars.”  Now that Adam is also done with whatever tasks are left, we all keep watching as the tinkering continues. Having done nothing for a while, and not being able to understand the conversation anymore, I decide to leave. I toss my wet gloves and cap into the trash, go upstairs to the break room, and change. I kill a few minutes there looking at my phone until I hear the church bells ringing to indicate that it is now 3 pm. I walk by the dishwashing room on my way out and see that the machine is up and running again. Maybe I am not destined to do the dishwashing duty, I think, as I leave Alma I for the day.