The Kitchen Story: The Saga Of Kitchen Duty Being Imposed On An Employee, And Why It Shouldn’t Have Happened

¹⁰ “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. ¹¹ If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? ¹² And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? ¹³ No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” – Luke 16:10-13

Today is a hard day that has challenged me to seek the Lord, recapturing strength of the Lord, and faith in the fact that He is the head of my life.  He is the Savior of all of mankind that has a saving belief in Him.

Reading Luke today gave me strength to keep on believing that Jesus Christ has a plan for my life, that he will never let me fall or lose my footing once he has me in his arms.  I believe that.

I know my apartment is a miraculous gift, and the way I was able to obtain it against all odds, being the first in line by going to the wrong appointment time, unknowingly “taking cuts” in front of all other applicants.  What a thrill, this gift from God!

Today I’m taking time to rely upon the Lord Jesus Christ and I’m asking to know the truth about my future, here and in the next life.  We should keep our eyes on the prize; earning the crown of Life and knowing our true home is in Heaven. 

Earthly things come and go and yet I can’t help believe that somehow I am to keep this apartment, even though I don’t have a job at this point.  I have a Saturday job that I will earn a few dollars from but it won’t be enough to pay the rent and bills.  However, I stand strong in my belief that the Lord Jesus Christ knows better than I; that He will Make A Way, Amen!

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” – Jeremiah 29:11 

I do believe that the Lord wanted me to quit my job that was harming me; turning me into a slave of sorts doing kitchen work in a company I was newly hired into.  I came home each day a wreck, emotionally upset and feeling harmed by the fact that these new duties were being sprung on me in ever increasing ways, becoming overwhelmingly intense by my superior at work. 

She never stopped emailing me about the kitchen, and her assistant was continuing to send me emails and wanting to set up phone calls from overseas about the kitchen duties I was to assume.  Even on my day off where I had to take my car into the shop my supervisor called me at home twice, and sent me emails about this issue; my becoming the kitchen “pleaser” who catered to the food desires of my coworkers, identifying me as the kitchen slave.  It was horrifying, and somehow I believe that the more one allows themselves to be treated disrespectfully and pushed around it comes back ever more strongly.  

It’s as if demons strengthen our bad walks right into their fates they have designed for us — they can have people treat us badly and when Christians succumb to their malfeasance the demons win.  That’s why as Christians we should call upon the Lord’s strength, in order to be able to stand strong, righteously fighting for what we know is the right thing.

I didn’t come to that company to work in their kitchen, nor to please my coworkers by doing the dishes and making the snacks appear to be catered.  They were free and that didn’t satisfy my coworkers; they had complaints.  Handling the complaints fell upon me since I was made to be the guilty party with all that went wrong in the kitchen.

My supervisor agreed that I put up a sign reminding employees that snacks were for work to be eaten in the workplace, that was the idea.  Instead, I witnessed one of the employees carrying out an eight-pack of sparkling water while he walked out to the parking lot, obviously to get into his car and take it home.  Toward the end of the day I noticed that large quantities of the free snacks begun to disappear, more than in the earlier hours of the day and I thought it odd.  Why were they being eaten so much before quitting time, I wondered.

When I was confronted a few times by a Vice President there, she didn’t believe me.  “Why did you hang that sign because my staff takes offense at it”, and she flipped her hand out toward the sign as she was complaining.  So when I told her that snacks were being taken home by an employee, she questioned, “did you see it happen?” and I answered that yes, I had seen it happen.  Basically I felt that snacks were to be for employees to eat at work and not to take home, and that stocking up on groceries before they left to go home was not what the snacks were for.  I was amazed at how entitled, and even ungrateful a few of the employees had become at the gracious gifting of providing the free snacks.  Look what happened; there was a theft of the eight-pack of sparkling soda. 

There may have been a few bottles of wine taken from the boxes of wine that had been stacked in the kitchen.  Several of the wine bottles were not in the top of a box, but I’m not certain if the box already was missing those bottles.  Nevertheless I had taped a sign on the box that they were not to be taken under the direction of my supervisor.  I was eventually directed to move the bottles of wine somewhere where people would not have access to them, which I did.  I stacked the boxes of wine in the coat closet right next to my desk so they could not be taken. 

I also bought a locking cabinet where I stored snacks for future use that I had hired a man to assemble, and it was moved right behind my chair at my desk.  I was to keep the count of snacks, among other duties at the front desk, and I did not want to do this but it had fallen on me.  They didn’t believe in having a snack machine, nor did they believe in having all paper or plastic dishes; they had a dishwasher and I was to clean the kitchen up after all the employees all of a sudden.  This was unexpected, I wanted to do office work only and could not concentrate with all the messages that kept falling to me in order that I do more and more of the snack duties, kitchen duties, and keeping the employees happy.

Once again, a Vice President confronted me at my desk to tell me that she was complaining to my supervisor about the kitchen snacks situation and I told her to please go ahead, that I would rather she talk with my supervisor and keep me out of her controversy.  I was only doing what I had been told. 

I had wanted to stay out of the whole snacks issue and was somehow being drawn into the controversy against my will all the more as each week went on.  The place seemed to place a huge importance on the level of snacks we were buying and providing for them free.  It was a major discontent that I kept being corrected on, by the Vice President, her staff, and my supervisor.  Needless to say this did not seem to be the right job for me, thinking I had been asked to perform administrative duties and not be the kitchen maid, caterer and housekeeper.

My supervisor seemed to never help but deflected negativity on me.  She didn’t speak up to publicly explain she had wanted me to do certain things to limit the stealing and messes that people were leaving in the kitchen so people thought I was acting alone and they became angry about that.  My supervisor sent me more and more emails correcting me and telling me that I was now responsible for “making people happy to go to work again”, or something along those lines.

This continued for two months and finally I quit.  The Lord worked in my consciousness about how toxic life had become at my new job, and it was not changing for the better; it was all assumed to be something I had done and not done, all at the same time.  It was hard to take, needlessly reminding me that I, being the new employee, did not have much importance to the company that had gotten out of hand with this one, small issue: free snacks for employees.

I’m sure you get the idea; it became so toxic that I had a hard time being able to think about returning to work, after taking a Monday off to take my car into the shop.  It needed repairs, but that did not stop my supervisor from again calling me during the day because she wanted to give me orders about what I was to set up in the kitchen for the following Thursday’s pizza party I was responsible to throw for my colleagues.  I guess it was such that I was to make amends to them for all the trouble I had caused working in the kitchen.  I was to clean up afterwards. 

I learned later that one of the new administrative assistants in a new office outside of Washington state also gave notice, and she is leaving, also.  This pleases me, I hope they learned a lesson.

I cannot help but to chuckle inside about the mayhem one little topic caused, snacks in the kitchen, and the mess that it had created in my losing my job.  I became stressed and I knew it was the wrong job for me, and I had to leave.  I did not go back after taking my car to the shop that day.

Turning to the Lord in prayer and expressing my angst about this new job and the trouble that providing free snacks had caused, I poured out my heart, and all my emotions cried out to Him to help me deal with the pressure I was under with the snack issue at work and the trouble it had created.  I had become the cleaning woman and did not want to be used for kitchen duty in the first place.  “What happened to the office job I was supposedly hired for?”, I cried.

I told God I was willing to get them through the office party that Thursday as he softened my heart toward the people who were causing me such problems.  I told Him that I would keep working there but continue to look for another position elsewhere.   

He seemed to have different plans for me and I felt deep in my heart that He was forbidding me, yes forbidding me, to return.  

It was almost as if something had taken hold of me and said that I could not go back.  It seemed at the time to be for the best; as I was already hurt in this whole situation. 

Now I am seeking a new job, and while waiting, I feel stress but I know I am holding my ground in knowing that I was made to do something else, and not wait hand-and-foot on a few ungrateful people who take snacks to be so overly important in the work culture.

A scripture was brought to me; 

Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly. – Proverbs 26:11

Today I am happy to have this verse brought to my attention, and the protection of the Lord watches over me.  I pray the Lord watches over your lives and brings you the happiness you deserve, Amen.