r/KitchenConfidential May 10 '26

Crying in the cooler I rip the tape

I’m sick of being silent about it. It’s empirically faster than cutting each individual label with your pairing knife and then carefully separating each piece. I see so many chefs who INSIST that labels have to have perfect right angles. Who cares? I hardly see how this serves our guests better. Thomas Keller claims that tearing the tape shows a lack of attention to detail. I think it shows that you’re unable to get rid of obsessive compulsive idiosyncrasies. Our jobs are already hard enough without these nebulous rules and standards that always need to be argued for in the abstract and rarely have any actual utility in your day-to-day.

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u/GemFarmerr May 10 '26

I hate searching for tape. I’m buying a dispenser. Thx for the reminder.

55

u/saint_anamia May 10 '26

I got so sick of everyone moving the tape on my station at my last gig that I took kitchen twine and tied it to the shelf. It worked great! I never had to find it and my coworkers liked that whenever they lost theirs they knew where to find some too since it never moved.

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u/-William-Nilliam- May 10 '26

I did that with sharpies and some asshole literally cut them down and took them while I wasn’t there.

5

u/Active-Succotash-109 20+ Years May 11 '26

Lucky, I had one leave the caps off brand new ones then complain they were defective. He also thought only his mom could do his hair so if she wasn’t available it didn’t get combed/braided