Dancing in the Flambe

Prolog (you can skip it because it is just a pep talk)

It’s been a month i did not write anything again. Too much to be think maybe.. For some reason, i am not really confidence with the gossip which flew in my second home. It comes almost every day which is not my responsibility to fix it, or connected directly with my position as Operation Manager in my store.

Story

Ok, here it comes the story. As an operation manager i can enjoy my job. With all my management, crew, head office team (not all), and the customers itself. We open the stores at 10.00 AM and close at 10.00 PM (Am i right?). We have two shifts every day, the opening team and closing team. For a special occasion, we could add the extra shift, which we called Overnight shift. We usually did it for midnight sale event or prepared meal for large order which should be ready at 08.00 AM. And on August 29th, which is my birthday, we have large order.

Days before that date, there is an odd thing happened, there is a smoke came from the patties burner which is not absorbed by the exhaust system. The smoke covered some of the kitchen area and blinked our eyes. Hence, I told all my management team why that is hapenned. Confused with that trouble, we sent the message to the maintanance team through E-mail.

By tomorrow, August 28th, I am in incharged as overnight manager. I came to the store at 22.00 PM. First thing first, i checked the emails. And there is no reply yet. I helped the new manager job and told him to checked all the equipment must be cleaned up for two hours.

My team, which is work in my shift, prepared the condiment and every things out from 23.30. They all know that i was a birthday boy that night. Like all Indonesian guys, they asked me to treat them food , and somehow they planned to splashed my head with pickle juice.

The pickle juice is thick and really soury taste and smelly. Not really pay attention with their wishes. 

I just told them to pray all the best for us before we worked that night.

On 00.15, we started to make the meals, we put the patties into the burner, inserted the bun into the toaster, wiped the bun with mayonaise, squeeze the sauce, and wrap the burger. An hour after that, my crew told me that the burner load bigger flame inside. And seconds after that, the smoke covered the kitchen area, a lot of. Got surprised, I told everyone to turn off the gas system and the burner as soon as possible.

One of my team, runned and brought the fire extinguiseher to extinguish the rest of flame inside the burner. After that, came the second problem, the smoke and the carbondyoxyde gas covered all the kitchen area. The water from sprinkler came out from the ceiling one by one. All my team got panicked, except me.

First thing to do, we cannot breath with this thickness of smoke. Thus, i considered to open the emergency door behind the store. So i ran into manager room, to grabbed the key. Unfortunately, the situation getting worse, the sprinkler water dripped inside the room and now i can heard the emergency alarm ranging.

I ran again into the backdoor through the smelly and poitonous smoke. I was wetted by the sprinkle water that time. Even worse than the pickle water one. The water which is splashed out is harder. This is not just a dripped like i felt in manager room, i thought.

The emergency back door is located in the storage room. The storage room was fulled of water and i can feel my half of shoes was drowned by the water. The tight was getting worse that time. And i can feel the diffetent sensation of the water, it was warmer. Cannot think clearly, i just rapidly opened the door that time. And when i finished open it, the outside was flowed by the water that time and everybody was panicked.

So, I ran again into the front side of my store and blessed that time, the building team already came and helped us to extinguished the fire. So instead, the flame in the burner already gone, in the exhaust system were still existed. I pretend to relax that time, called my upper manager and other ones to inform this disaster.

By the time, i was in the phone, the helper yelled to extinguish the flame, broughty in the hydrant, checked this side, checked that side. The water still dripped upside my head, i just quickly did the multple tasks to locked the  safety box, safe my items such as cellphone and wallet, and told the team to calm down. Not long after that the electricity were turned off. I was like in an action movie that time. I begged for help, advice, and anything in the darkness and emergency.

Minutes after that, they said all the flames were all done turned off. They checked the exhaust system after that. All of the rest of water were cleaned up in the darkness with all the helped by store and building team. Fortunately there is no victim that time.

Rang by rang came to my store, asking for the situation. The order was moved into the 24 hours as the other foods too. My head was spinned out to picked the priority which should we do after that. And then, one of the building team called me out.

He explained to me that there is a broken cables which is burned next into the exhaust system. I was just shocked that time. Did not know what to say about the equipment and the electricity things. I just stand that time, heard what they talk about and smiling.

The store was messy up with the water.

All of us were exhausted emotianally, literally

The casastrophe continued with my birthday celebration: packs of milk which i bought from conv store.

I did not what to do next

I did not know where should i start

Next thing that i should did, is just smiling. 

Pretend that everything gonna be allright. 

Everything gonna be ok.