Estrella mountain ranch presidio

I'm pretty sure that the majority of Barovian content creators have already seen some version of this list. I actually went back to update my original post of the list to discover that I never made my own post of it! I put together the first version of this list a couple of years ago. I'm pretty sure this is the most complete list of its kind anywhere: Alternate areas of Barovia that are commonly needed, besides the commonly published CoS specific battlemaps:
0) The (Dark) Carnival - nobody ever makes maps / assets for this, even though gobs of people always throw it in to their campaign, even though it's old as crap. I understand that there's a Carnival Realm in the new VRGtR book.. I'll probably never use the realm-carnival, but that's a second place the Dark Carnival maps/assets could be used. There are also a trio of third party Ravenloft carnival modules as well that they could be used in.
1) Battlemap sized maps of the towns. At LEAST a 5 foot per square / hex map for the tiger chase. (Obviously modern VTT platforms don't actually need the grid on the map. ;) )
2) Random shops, stables, blacksmiths and generic places the party is likely to go anyway.
3) Generic encounter locations.. country roads / rivers / bridges and combinations of the three. It sounds dumb because you can get generic encounter maps like that anywhere.. but it would be AWESOME to have matching Barovian roads and Svalitch woods on all of your encounter maps. Don't forget the specific crossroads with the gallows from CoS.. I don't recall if there were hanging cages mentioned, but you could throw in some PNG options for them.
4) A covered bridge, including the roof, deck and under views. (To tack on to the Headless Horseman add-in.) The Woodcutters hut as well.
5) Besides the Carnival, there are a few other old school modules that people like to bolt on to CoS (Adam, etc. etc.).
6) DragnaCarta, MandysMod and Pyram King have all developed alternate encounters and a handful of setting that might be able to use an alternate map here and there. (Orphanage.) In particular, I recall battles in/near the bogs, on mountain sides with/without roads and watch towers. Military and outfitter style tent interiors and exteriors and camps placed.. you know what? Make those camps be PNG assets that could be dropped in a bog, next to a river or on a mountain side as needed. ;) I recall Lunch Break Heroes making an encounter for Borgia/Borca, but I don't recall if they made any scenarios / encounters for Barovia. I got a special request for Beneath the Abbey.
7) The Interactive Tome of Strahd sends the party back in time and would be a PHENOMENAL set of maps to expand Barovia. Seriously, you could drop those on DMsGuild and make some bank. Some additionally pre-Strahd bright and shiny versions of the village of Barovia and other basic maps might be nice for some throw-back adventures.
8) Retro Castle Ravenloft.. Castle Ravenloft fully restored to its former glory! (Castle Barovia? I picture it as more of a walled garrison, looking like a giant stone bubble from a distance, but it did have at least one tower overlooking the cliff.) We know that the old pre-Strahd castle had multiple floors located in roughly the same place as Castle Ravenloft, but with significantly different floor plans, as the ghosts walk staircases and pass through doorways that don't exist anymore. :D (Important side-note: Strahd did not grow up in Castle Ravenloft. I believe that there is one (1) painting of him looking out over Yesterhill, through the mists at a vision of the castle he grew up in, but I don't think anyone has ever tackled it.)
9) The caverns and the alter area in and under the Pillarstone of Ravenloft (from Expedition to Ravenloft) are frequently added in to CoS. I've never seen a map of a hidden cavern entrance in the Svalitch woods, let alone a set of creepy Barovian caverns.. or the Castle side of the entrance, for that matter.
10) Around a decade ago, some weirdo drew an artistic image of Castle Ravenloft with the foundation bedrock rotted away under it. I'd like to see a detailed elevation map of the curtain wall and gatehouse with the bedrock still under the curtain wall, because that irritates me to no end. NOBODY would build a massive curtain wall on a questionable foundation. Reference Vlads actual castle (which is admittedly ten times smaller than Ravenloft) for a rather specific example of a (THE) castle built on the side of a cliff. As I recall, if looking at the gatehouse, the left side and back left corner of Vlads actual castle are protected by a cliff, and that's where the inspiration for Castle Ravenloft came from.
11)Speaking of elevation, at the other end of Castle Ravenloft are balconies and windows jutting out over the cliff. I'd love to see detailed maps of those areas, an 'ant sized' map of the Svalitch woods and Barovia as seen from the castle, and an elevation map of the cliff-side reaching from the Svalitch woods up past the windows and balconies to the Curtain wall. Parties occasionally decide to attempt to scale the cliff. Having a cliff and curtain wall that actually matches would be awesome.
12) Odd ball areas we never see. The druids must have huts or a village somewhere. The Roc must have a nest somewhere. The Mad Mage in Barovia has one of either a tower / cavern / pocket dimension somewhere. We could use Barovian flavored versions of all three. Oh, and the woods and encounters with said mage on the backside of the lake.. so a lake / forested area with spread out trees for players to run in terror or attempt to attack at range.. or whatever.
13) UNDER Lake Zarovich, there are a handful of generic encounters. There are also a few river monster encounters, generally near the Berez Swamp, could use a lair map and an underwater river encounter map, Barovia flavored. Speaking of Berez, I've never seen a detailed large scale swamp map for the Berez Swamp.. let alone the whole town being overrun by the swamp.
14) A proper Berez Swamp. A full sized swamp, with river banks, fields of cattail and reeds, murky backwaters, underwater groves of trees, and a couple of dozen oddly shaped islets and sandbanks.. a few dead logs.. not to mention a proper full sized assortment of Berez town ruins.
15) What's the village in the Adventurer's Guild Supplements?? Orasnou! There's a tiny village there (the size most people depict Berez as, because the CoS book doesn't describe the whole town of Berez properly). So that map is needed, along with.. 4 interior maps, if I recall? (Probably more, + a manor.) As well as an alternate werewolf lair and a few others, like a Barovian bluff, again if I recall off of the top of my head. I've had requests for the Gundarak villages Teufeldorf, Zeidenburg and Renika, as well as the other minor villages and..
16) The complete map of Barovia, post Grand Conjunction (done in standard modern style/graphics).
17) Various encounters have been depicted on Mount Baratok. Which would be a stark stone mountain, snowy and generally above the treeline, not like the hilly tree covered mountains where Argynvostholt and the Roc and etc. are located. I think a largish rocky encounter map of the mountainside would be the first needed. I (seem to) recall a three tiered monastery built on the side of a cliff, with a freshwater spring enclosed that would require an elevation map along with three small interioexterior maps showing the wooden stairs going up and down the cliff-side. I recall one encounter involving a lai small cave sized area.
18) Lots of people want Van Richtens magic shop and other stuff described in his escapades. We could also use a handful of Vistani Vardos and Camps. If I recall, there are only two described in the CoS book, but there are many more tribes of Vistani than that, and we're told that they move around frequently. If might be easier to provide PNG files for the vardos, outfitter tents and assets for a large scale camp. Come to think of it, there aren't a whole lot of tokens for those smallish horses they use either, so someone might whip up 10-12 smallish shaggy horses with unique patterns to show off. They don't care one ounce for a horses pedigree, and are more than happy to keep unique looking mongrel horses as their personal caravan animals. They use mountain horse stock when breeding their horses, so they would be a bit hairier and stockier then say an Arabian.. just scaled closer to a pony size. Donkey size! They're donkey sized horses. :D ..real donkey size, if I recall 5e has some weirdness going on with their official donkey/wagon sizes that makes no sense at all for Vardos sized horses and wagons like the Vistani would have.
19) The valley where the village of Barovia is located is described as a massive fertile farming area, yet we never see any medieval farms, ranches, graineries or farmers markets for Barovia. Definitely need a few of those. Barovian farmers and ranchers would SPECIFICALLY all have the buildings that (in the real world) later became fortifications, Thick werewolf proof walls and heavily barricaded doors everywhere. No window on the ground floor. Livestock was housed indoors, in enclosed courtyards with family areas wrapped around them, or with the animals on the ground floor and the family living above on the second floor. Horse stalls and farrowing areas would be fenced off within the area. Graineries would be large round wooden buildings with barricaded doors and sturdy out-buildings. 10 foot tall max, today's 4-5 story tall graineries are a modern invention. There would probably be a large stone community grainery far on the other side of the valley from the Village of Barovia. for that matter, there ought to be a functioning grainery or warehouse somewhere between the Village of Barovia and Bonegrinder. ALSO, if Bonegrinder is no longer being used as a mill, there would HAVE to be another windmill or waterwheel driven mill somewhere else in Barovia. Many artists have envisioned a water-wheel grainery on the River Ivlis near the Village of Barovia. Corn cribs would be on the second floor of a barn for drying grain, doubling up to dry bales of hay, not primarily as a hay loft. PNGs for 2-3 styles of fencing and gates, water troughs, and some medieval horse drawn plows and rakes would be nice. Dog kennels!! Every farm would probably have it's own horse pasture or rink with a training post, and a dog kennel or run for dogs to run during the day. You know those giant mastiffs that the Barovian nobles are so fond of? Yeah, the farmers in the fertile valley near Barovia would be the only ones rich enough to be able to afford to raise those pups for the nobles. Somewhere out here would be a medieval rancher set up to raise mastiff puppies with an assortment of full grown mastiffs. Mongrel pups or runts would be sold off to neighboring farms at a discount. Roaming wolves would stay FAR away from them, and werewolf packs would likely attack them for any reason at all (if they could find a way in to the basin). I picture a LARGE farmers market and stockyards just inside the River Ivlis bridge of the Valley of Barovia. We know that Barovia is a trade center.. so there MUST be one. The bridge would offer protection if needed, and it would be the closest place farmers and ranchers could set up to provide commerce with the other villages and domains and still have the protection of being inside the gates. Hmm.. they might have a dirt race track there for showing off horses going up for sale. Make that very probably, The Vistani/Romani are famous for defending their mountain horses at the drop of a hat. This would be the main place of commerce for farmers goods in Barovia. This is (the main area) where Vistani Caravans would import and export farm goods in to and out of Barovia.
20) There would absolutely be homestead (small) sized farms and ranches carved out up in mountain valleys or even on mountain sides facing south. In fact, a south facing mountain side might get enough sunlight to raise delicate crops, spices and herbs, whereas most of Barovia can't, due to the mists blocking the sunlight. Also, a couple of mountain pastures with matching rocks / trees bordering them would be nice. Honestly though, if you pass out some rock and tree assets that match the ones you already use, anybody could throw together their own mountain pastures, or even their own valley pastures. Rows of crops are hard to find though! You could easily have scenarios of wolves/werewolves hunting the party in a cornfield.. but there are no Barovian cornfield battlemaps. ACTUALLY, I don't think I have any battlemap sized crop assets, and I probably have the largest collection of map assets around. You could probably sell these farming assets/maps on DriveThruRPG and DMsGuild as well, I've never seen them anywhere. ..OR you might ask Forgotten Adventures or Tom Cartos to throw some together, whatever seems clever. :) I've been asked specifically to try to get Yaedrag (barbarian-esque village in the mountains that Dragna wrote up) made up.
21) Jenny Greenteeth's Hut.. perhaps a grove of her untainted trees from the Quivering Forest? (Also the Glumpen Swamp and Vanishing Hills, various locations within these.) I picture the Quivering Forest loaded with fruit and nut trees and songbirds fighting for real estate (the text mentions angry squirrels).. surrounded by classic Svalitch Woods half-dead spooky trees. ;) I recall seeing a couple of versions that roughly followed the description given in DDAL04, but they're just a hut, not the whole barrow surrounding her hut as described. Additionally, many artists have upscaled her hut to be a small trading post, and put it on wooden poles, swamp style (never seen a battlemap of it, though). Lots of room for creative renditions there. :)
22) Another thing that I haven't seen ANYBODY making is small abbeys. The hills and mountains of Barovia are said to be littered with small abbeys. ..some of them abandoned, some not.
23) Abandoned mansions and manors. Strahd massacred the noble families of Barovia for their involvement in his father's murder. There is one legend of a nobleman possessed by a demon that Strahd left alive, as a curse 'worse than death'. At any rate, there ought to be a handful of abandoned / haunted mansions and manors dotting the Barovian countryside for the party to stumble in to (or check out due to a hook dropped by an informative villager).
24) There are currently NO mines in the CoS version of Barovia.. bizarre for a mountain country. It would suit that some of those decimated noble families ran some mines that have since been abandoned. Of course, it wouldn't do to host your standard monsters in a Barovian mine. I'm thinking Lair of the White Worm. Something more horrifying than dungeoneering.
25) It's been mentioned that instead of murdering the losers from the werewolf trials, they might be shipped off to be slaves in a mine, or to a plantation in the swamp. The plantation would be stick construction, as you would expect in a swamp, they would collect tubers and reeds that grow in the swamp, not traditional plantation type crops.
26) The various Barovian villages NOT included on Schleys map of (Central) Barovia usually have a town sized map plotted out and published somewhere, but no really decent overview maps or battlemap sized maps of them exist. (This need might easily be filled by a couple of handfuls of generic Barovian village buildings, field-stone and dirt street assets, and sundry village constructions.
27) Besides the Gates of Barovia, there are supposed to be watch-towers dotting the landscape as well. An operational watchtower and a couple of partially ruined ones would be awesome.
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Assets nobody has made like the Dark Carnival and lake/river encounters and the Mad Mages various lair options would be the most needed. I simply don't understand why EVERY CoS map developer doesn't provide matching roads, forests, rivers and generic shops with matching Barovian assets. The maps I mentioned which you could make money selling on DriveThruRPG and DMsGuild (to me) would just be silly NOT to make. ...Van Richtens magic shop is requested a LOT. When the party first enters Barovia, I can picture them being chased in to a fortified farm by a pack of dire wolves / werewolves at dusk (perhaps the first couple of farms won't unbarricade their doors). I'm sure you can see the utility of the rest. Will everybody need a Roc nest on a cliff above the forest? No. Will DMs derail their campaign for a minute just for the opportunity to make the party loot a Roc nest? Yes. :
Finally, I would note that since I wrote this list, a few cartographers have added some of the above locations to their Library, but the vast majority of these are as of yet, untouched. :)

So yeah, I own 112/113 DLC for Payday, as listed on the steam library by right clicking Payday 2 and going to the DLC Tab.
I've compiled a list of all the DLC I own for the people following at home:

PAYDAY 2: 10th Anniversary Jester Mask PAYDAY 2: A Merry Payday Christmas Soundtrack PAYDAY 2: Alienware Alpha Mask Pack PAYDAY 2: Alienware Alpha Mauler PAYDAY 2: Armored Transport PAYDAY 2: August Event PAYDAY 2: Biker Character Pack PAYDAY 2: Black Cat Heist PAYDAY 2: Border Crossing Heist PAYDAY 2: Breakfast in Tijuana Heist PAYDAY 2: Buluc's Mansion Heist PAYDAY 2: Career Criminal Content PAYDAY 2: Cartel Optics Mod Pack PAYDAY 2: Clover Character Pack PAYDAY 2: Crimefest 2017 PAYDAY 2: Crude Awakening Bundle PAYDAY 2: Crude Awakening Heist PAYDAY 2: Cryptographer's Color PAYDAY 2: Dragan Character Pack PAYDAY 2: Dragon Pack PAYDAY 2: F*uck Cancer - Big Mike Mask PAYDAY 2: Federales Weapon Pack PAYDAY 2: Fugitive Weapon Pack PAYDAY 2: Gage Assault Pack PAYDAY 2: Gage Chivalry Pack PAYDAY 2: Gage Historical Pack PAYDAY 2: Gage Mod Courier PAYDAY 2: Gage Ninja Pack PAYDAY 2: Gage Russian Weapon Pack PAYDAY 2: Gage Shotgun Pack PAYDAY 2: Gage Sniper Pack PAYDAY 2: Gage Spec Ops Pack PAYDAY 2: Gage Weapon Pack #01 PAYDAY 2: Gage Weapon Pack #02 PAYDAY 2: Golden Dagger Tailor Pack PAYDAY 2: Guardians Tailor Pack PAYDAY 2: Gunslinger Weapon Pack PAYDAY 2: h3h3 Character Pack PAYDAY 2: High Octane Tailor Pack PAYDAY 2: Hostile Takeover Bundle PAYDAY 2: Hostile Takeover Heist PAYDAY 2: Hotline Miami PAYDAY 2: Housewarming Party PAYDAY 2: Humble Mask Pack PAYDAY 2: Humble Mask Pack 2 PAYDAY 2: Humble Mask Pack 3 PAYDAY 2: Humble Mask Pack 4 PAYDAY 2: Humble Mask Pack 5 PAYDAY 2: Jiu Feng Smuggler Pack PAYDAY 2: Jiu Feng Smuggler Pack 2 PAYDAY 2: Jiu Feng Smuggler Pack 3 PAYDAY 2: Jiu Feng Smuggler Pack 4 PAYDAY 2: John Wick Heists PAYDAY 2: John Wick Weapon Pack PAYDAY 2: Lawless Tailor Pack PAYDAY 2: Leaf Color PAYDAY 2: Lost in Transit Bundle PAYDAY 2: Lost in Transit Heist PAYDAY 2: McShay Mod Pack PAYDAY 2: McShay Weapon Pack PAYDAY 2: McShay Weapon Pack 2 PAYDAY 2: McShay Weapon Pack 3 PAYDAY 2: McShay Weapon Pack 4 PAYDAY 2: Mega City Tailor Pack PAYDAY 2: Midland Bundle PAYDAY 2: Midland Ranch Heist PAYDAY 2: Mountain Master Heist PAYDAY 2: Offshore Payday PAYDAY 2: PAYDAYCON 2016 PAYDAY 2: Pen Melee Weapon PAYDAY 2: Pre-order Bonus PAYDAY 2: San Martín Bank Heist PAYDAY 2: Scarface Character Pack PAYDAY 2: Scarface Heist PAYDAY 2: Sokol Character Pack PAYDAY 2: Southbound Tailor Pack PAYDAY 2: SteelSeries Troll Mask PAYDAY 2: Street Smart Tailor Pack PAYDAY 2: Sydney Character Pack PAYDAY 2: Sydney Mega Mask PAYDAY 2: Tailor Pack 1 PAYDAY 2: Tailor Pack 2 PAYDAY 2: Tailor Pack 3 PAYDAY 2: Alesso Heist PAYDAY 2: The B-Sides Soundtrack PAYDAY 2: The Big Bank Heist PAYDAY 2: The Biker Heist PAYDAY 2: The Bomb Heists PAYDAY 2: The Butcher's AK/CAR Mod Pack PAYDAY 2: The Butcher's BBQ Pack PAYDAY 2: The Butcher's Western Pack PAYDAY 2: The COMPLETELY OVERKILL Pack PAYDAY 2: The Diamond Heist PAYDAY 2: The Goat Simulator Heist PAYDAY 2: The Golden Grin Casino Heist PAYDAY 2: The Jack Mask Pack PAYDAY 2: The Joker Mask Pack PAYDAY 2: The King Mask Pack PAYDAY 2: The Official Soundtrack PAYDAY 2: The OVERKILL Pack PAYDAY 2: The PAYDAYCON 2015 Mask Pack PAYDAY 2: The Point BReak Heists PAYDAY 2: The Queen Mask Pack PAYDAY 2: The Ukrainian Prisoner Heist PAYDAY 2: The Wolf Pack PAYDAY 2: Tijuana Music Pack PAYDAY 2: Toy PAYDAY 2: VR PAYDAY 2: Weapon Color Pack 1 PAYDAY 2: Weapon Color Pack 2 PAYDAY 2: Weapon Color Pack 3 PAYDAY 2: Winter Ghosts Tailor Pack PAYDAY 2: Yakuza Character Pack 

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Anyone got any leads on the dozer mask code? I've got leads for any missing DLC if you guys need help being pointed the right way.
Like this Steam Guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=933765298
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I had trouble with shipping back in the day and now I fear I might never get it...

IRON BAR HOLDINGS v. BRADLEY H. CAPE, ZACHARY M. SMITH, PHILLIP G. YEOMANS, and JOHN W. SLOWENSKY
Case No. 22-CV-67-SWS, US District Court of Wyoming.
https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/wyoming/wydce/2:2022cv00067/60677/83/0.pdf?ts=1685196257
Due to old land grants to the railroads, private property is often staggered in a checkerboard pattern with public lands, with the public lands touching only at the very corners. A private hunting ranch owner pressed criminal trespassing charges against four hunters, claiming they violated his airspace when they did a corner crossing from public land to public land. The judge dismissed two of three claims in the lawsuit before trial, but a third - whether a digital waypoint in an app proves that there was more trespassing than a simple corner crossing happening - remains to be decided.
Currently the sides are arguing over whether the testimony of a helicopter pilot who was confronted while on public land for flying over the private land can be admitted. The hunters say it shows a pattern, the ranch says it would make them look bad.
The ranch owner's lawyer says he intends to appeal to CA10.

Another month, another retirement update! A lot of sets changed dates this month, and even more new sets got added! Which reminds me, I'm considering making a /legoleak Discord server in order to expand more on leaks, answer questions, and provide daily retirement updates. If there's interest in that, I'll work on having it done before the next list!
As always, we owe a massive thanks to ZombieYeti from the BrickHound Discord for providing this valuable data. If you're looking for real-time in-stock/deal alerts for Lego.com and other sites, make sure to check out his server: https://discord.gg/BwezK2t5qf
This information is scraped directly from Lego's website, and all dates are subject to change. ZombieYeti is currently developing a website to host this data and offer real-time updates. In the meantime, here is a list of every set and their corresponding retirement date as per LEGO's system!
FULL LIST ON GOOGLE SHEETS HERE <--
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. Due to Reddit's character limits, we can't include everything here, but the full spreadsheet contains every set.
CHANGES IN JUNE:

Theme	Set #	Set Name	Old Date	New Date	Change
Avatar	75577	Mako Submarine	Dec 31, 2024	Dec 31, 2023	-1 year
Avatar	75578	Metkayina Reef Home	Dec 31, 2024	Dec 31, 2023	-1 year
Classic	11020	Build Together	Dec 31, 2024	Dec 31, 2023	-1 year
Duplo	10966	Bath Time Fun: Floating Animal Island	Dec 31, 2024	Dec 31, 2023	-1 year
City	60388	Gaming Tournament Truck	Dec 31, 2023	Dec 31, 2024	+1 year
Creator	31143	Birdhouse	Dec 31, 2023	Dec 31, 2024	+1 year
Friends	41735	Mobile Tiny House	Dec 31, 2023	Dec 31, 2024	+1 year
Harry Potter	75969	Hogwarts Astronomy Tower	Dec 31, 2023	Dec 31, 2024	+1 year
Icons	10306	Atari 2600	Dec 31, 2023	Dec 31, 2024	+1 year
Ideas	21331	Sonic the Hedgehog - Green Hill Zone	Dec 31, 2023	Dec 31, 2024	+1 year
Jurassic Park / World	76946	Blue & Beta Velociraptor Capture	Dec 31, 2023	Dec 31, 2024	+1 year
Jurassic Park / World	76951	Pyroraptor & Dilophosaurus Transport	Dec 31, 2023	Dec 31, 2024	+1 year
Marvel	76226	Spider-Man Figure	Dec 31, 2023	Dec 31, 2024	+1 year
Marvel	76241	Hulk Mech Armor	Dec 31, 2023	Dec 31, 2024	+1 year
Marvel	76243	Rocket Mech Armor	Dec 31, 2023	Dec 31, 2024	+1 year
Marvel	76245	Ghost Rider Mech & Bike	Dec 31, 2023	Dec 31, 2024	+1 year
Marvel	76256	Ant-Man Construction Figure	Dec 31, 2023	Dec 31, 2024	+1 year
Speed Champions	76906	1970 Ferrari 512 M	Dec 31, 2023	Dec 31, 2024	+1 year
Speed Champions	76907	Lotus Evija	Dec 31, 2023	Dec 31, 2024	+1 year
Star Wars	75333	Obi-Wan Kenobi's Jedi Starfighter	Dec 31, 2023	Dec 31, 2024	+1 year
Star Wars	75344	Boba Fett's Starship Microfighter	Dec 31, 2023	Dec 31, 2024	+1 year
Technic	42138	Ford Mustang Shelby GT500	Dec 31, 2023	Dec 31, 2024	+1 year

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NEW SETS ADDED:

Theme	Set #	Set Name	Retirement Date
Holiday / City	60381	City Advent Calendar 2023	Dec 31, 2023
Holiday / Friends	41758	Friends Advent Calendar 2023	Dec 31, 2023
Holiday / Harry Potter	76418	Harry Potter Advent Calendar 2023	Dec 31, 2023
Holiday / Marvel	76267	Marvel Advent Calendar 2023	Dec 31, 2023
Holiday / Star Wars	75366	Star Wars Advent Calendar 2023	Dec 31, 2023
Ninjago	71777	Kai's Dragon Power Flip	Dec 31, 2023
Ninjago	71778	Nya's Dragon Power Drift	Dec 31, 2023
Ninjago	71779	Lloyd's Dragon Power Spin	Dec 31, 2023
Batman	30653	Batman 1992 Polybag	Dec 31, 2024
Batman	76224	Batmobile: Batman vs. The Joker Chase	Dec 31, 2024
Batman	76252	Batcave – Shadow Box	Dec 31, 2024
Batman	76264	Batmobile Pursuit: Batman vs. The Joker (4+)	Dec 31, 2024
Batman	76265	Batwing: Batman vs. The Joker	Dec 31, 2024
City	60367	Passenger Airplane	Dec 31, 2024
City / 2K Drive	60395	Combo Race Pack	Dec 31, 2024
City / 2K Drive	60396	Modified Race Cars	Dec 31, 2024
City / 2K Drive	60397	Monster Truck Race	Dec 31, 2024
Creator	31144	Exotic Pink Parrot	Dec 31, 2024
DREAMZzz	40657	Dream Village	Dec 31, 2024
Friends	41756	Holiday Ski Slope and Café	Dec 31, 2024
Friends	41760	Igloo Holiday Adventure	Dec 31, 2024
Harry Potter	76419	Hogwarts Castle and Grounds	Dec 31, 2024
Harry Potter	76421	Dobby the House-Elf	Dec 31, 2024
Icons	40634	Icons of Play	Dec 31, 2024
Mario	71422	Picnic at Mario's House	Dec 31, 2024
Marvel	76249	Venomised Groot	Dec 31, 2024
Marvel	76261	Spider-Man Final Battle	Dec 31, 2024
Marvel	76262	Captain America's Shield	Dec 31, 2024
Marvel	76263	Iron Man Hulkbuster vs. Thanos (4+)	Dec 31, 2024
Marvel	76266	Endgame Final Battle	Dec 31, 2024
Minecraft	21247	The Axolotl House	Dec 31, 2024
Minecraft	21248	The Pumpkin Farm	Dec 31, 2024
Minecraft	21249	The Crafting Box 4.0	Dec 31, 2024
Minecraft	21250	The Iron Golem Fortress	Dec 31, 2024
Ninjago	71789	Kai and Ras's Car and Bike Battle (4+)	Dec 31, 2024
Ninjago	71790	Imperium Dragon Hunter Hound	Dec 31, 2024
Ninjago	71791	Zane's Dragon Power Spinjitzu Race Car	Dec 31, 2024
Ninjago	71792	Sora's Transforming Mech Bike Racer	Dec 31, 2024
Ninjago	71793	Heatwave Transforming Lava Dragon	Dec 31, 2024
Ninjago	71794	Lloyd and Arin's Ninja Team Mechs	Dec 31, 2024
Ninjago	71795	Temple of the Dragon Energy Cores	Dec 31, 2024
Ninjago	71796	Elemental Dragon vs. The Empress Mech	Dec 31, 2024
Ninjago	71797	Destiny's Bounty - Race Against Time	Dec 31, 2024
Ninjago	71798	Nya and Arin's Baby Dragon Battle (4+)	Dec 31, 2024
Sonic	76993	Sonic vs. Dr. Eggman's Death Egg Robot	Dec 31, 2024
Star Wars	75359	332nd Ahsoka's Clone Trooper Battle Pack	Dec 31, 2024
Star Wars	75360	Yoda's Jedi Starfighter	Dec 31, 2024
Star Wars	75365	Yavin 4 Rebel Base	Dec 31, 2024
Star Wars	75368	Darth Vader Mech	Dec 31, 2024
Star Wars	75369	Boba Fett Mech	Dec 31, 2024
Star Wars	75370	Stormtrooper Mech	Dec 31, 2024
Duplo	10987	Recycling Truck	Dec 31, 2025
Duplo	10994	3-in-1 Family House	Dec 31, 2025
Duplo	10997	Camping Adventure	Dec 31, 2025
Ninjago	71799	NINJAGO City Markets	Dec 31, 2025
Technic	42161	Lamborghini Huracán Tecnica	Dec 31, 2025
Icons	10323	PAC-MAN Arcade	Dec 31, 2026
Technic	42160	Audi RS Q e-tron	Dec 31, 2026

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SETS RETIRING IN 2023:

Theme	Set #	Set Name	Retirement Date
Classic	11015	Around the World	Jul 31, 2023
Creator	31123	Off-Road Buggy	Jul 31, 2023
Disney	10780	Mickey and Friends Castle Defenders	Jul 31, 2023
Disney	43203	Aurora, Merida and Tiana's Enchanted Creations	Jul 31, 2023
Dots	41962	Unicorn Creative Family Pack	Jul 31, 2023
Mario	71404	Goomba's Shoe	Jul 31, 2023
Mario	71407	Cat Peach Suit and Frozen Tower	Jul 31, 2023
Mario	71409	Big Spike's Cloudtop Challenge	Jul 31, 2023
Mario	71412	Big Bad Island	Jul 31, 2023
Mindstorms	51515	Robot Inventor	Jul 31, 2023
Minecraft	21187	The Red Barn	Jul 31, 2023
Ninjago	71738	Zane's Titan Mech Battle	Jul 31, 2023
Ninjago	71754	Water Dragon	Jul 31, 2023
Ninjago	71756	Hydro Bounty	Jul 31, 2023
Ninjago	71759	Ninja Dragon Temple (4+)	Jul 31, 2023
Ninjago	71762	Kai's Fire Dragon EVO	Jul 31, 2023
Ninjago	71770	Zane's Golden Dragon Jet	Jul 31, 2023
Ninjago	71773	Kai's Golden Dragon Raider	Jul 31, 2023
Technic	42129	4x4 Mercedes-Benz Zetros Trial Truck	Jul 31, 2023
Minifigures	71038	LEGO® Minifigures Disney 100	Aug 31, 2023
Architecture	21054	The White House	Dec 31, 2023
Art	31203	World Map	Dec 31, 2023
Art	31205	Jim Lee Batman Collection	Dec 31, 2023
Art	31206	The Rolling Stones	Dec 31, 2023
Art	31207	Floral Art	Dec 31, 2023
Avatar	75571	Neytiri & Thanator vs. AMP Suit Quaritch	Dec 31, 2023
Avatar	75573	Floating Mountains: Site 26 & RDA Samson	Dec 31, 2023
Avatar	75577	Mako Submarine	Dec 31, 2023
Avatar	75578	Metkayina Reef Home	Dec 31, 2023
Batman	76181	Batmobile: The Penguin Chase	Dec 31, 2023
Batman	76220	Batman versus Harley Quinn (4+)	Dec 31, 2023
Brickheadz	40540	Lion Dance Guy	Dec 31, 2023
Brickheadz	40541	Manchester United Go Brick Me	Dec 31, 2023
Brickheadz	40542	FC Barcelona Go Brick Me	Dec 31, 2023
Brickheadz / Avatar	40554	Jake Sully & his Avatar	Dec 31, 2023
BrickHeadz / Disney	40377	Donald Duck	Dec 31, 2023
BrickHeadz / Disney	40378	Goofy & Pluto	Dec 31, 2023
BrickHeadz / Disney	40476	Daisy Duck	Dec 31, 2023
BrickHeadz / Disney	40477	Scrooge McDuck, Huey, Dewey & Louie	Dec 31, 2023
BrickHeadz / Disney	40550	Chip & Dale	Dec 31, 2023
BrickHeadz / Disney	40553	Woody and Bo Peep	Dec 31, 2023
BrickHeadz / Disney	40622	Disney 100th Celebration (Oswald, Mickey, Snow White, Tinker Bell)	Dec 31, 2023
BrickHeadz / Harry Potter	40495	Harry, Hermione, Ron & Hagrid	Dec 31, 2023
BrickHeadz / Harry Potter	40560	Professors of Hogwarts	Dec 31, 2023
BrickHeadz / Minecraft	40624	Alex	Dec 31, 2023
BrickHeadz / Minecraft	40625	Llama	Dec 31, 2023
BrickHeadz / Minecraft	40626	Zombie	Dec 31, 2023
BrickHeadz / Star Wars	40539	Ahsoka Tano	Dec 31, 2023
BrickHeadz / Star Wars	40623	Battle of Endor Heroes	Dec 31, 2023
City	30590	Farm Garden & Scarecrow Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
City	30638	Police Bike Training Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
City	30639	Dog Park and Scooter Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
City	41723	Donut Shop	Dec 31, 2023
City	41726	Holiday Camping Trip	Dec 31, 2023
City	60253	Ice-Cream Truck	Dec 31, 2023
City	60313	Space Ride Amusement Truck	Dec 31, 2023
City	60314	Ice Cream Truck Police Chase	Dec 31, 2023
City	60315	Police Mobile Command Truck	Dec 31, 2023
City	60317	Police Chase at the Bank	Dec 31, 2023
City	60318	Fire Helicopter	Dec 31, 2023
City	60319	Fire Rescue & Police Chase	Dec 31, 2023
City	60320	Fire Station	Dec 31, 2023
City	60321	Fire Brigade	Dec 31, 2023
City	60322	Race Car Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
City	60323	Stunt Plane	Dec 31, 2023
City	60324	Mobile Crane	Dec 31, 2023
City	60325	Cement Mixer Truck	Dec 31, 2023
City	60327	Horse Transporter	Dec 31, 2023
City	60330	Hospital	Dec 31, 2023
City	60332	Reckless Scorpion Stunt Bike	Dec 31, 2023
City	60333	Bathtub Stunt Bike	Dec 31, 2023
City	60335	Train Station	Dec 31, 2023
City	60338	Chimpanzee Smash Stunt Loop	Dec 31, 2023
City	60339	Double Loop Stunt Arena	Dec 31, 2023
City	60341	The Knockdown Stunt Challenge	Dec 31, 2023
City	60342	The Shark Attack Stunt Challenge	Dec 31, 2023
City	60343	Rescue Helicopter Transporter	Dec 31, 2023
City	60346	Barn & Farm Animals	Dec 31, 2023
City	60348	Lunar Roving Vehicle	Dec 31, 2023
City	60349	Lunar Space Station	Dec 31, 2023
City	60350	Lunar Research Base	Dec 31, 2023
City	60351	Rocket Launch Centre	Dec 31, 2023
City	60353	Wild Animal Rescue Missions	Dec 31, 2023
City	60354	Mars Spacecraft Exploration Missions	Dec 31, 2023
City	60355	Water Police Detective Missions	Dec 31, 2023
City	60356	Bear Stunt Bike	Dec 31, 2023
City	60357	Stunt Truck & Ring of Fire Challenge	Dec 31, 2023
City	60358	Cyber Stunt Bike	Dec 31, 2023
City	60359	Dunk Stunt Ramp Challenge	Dec 31, 2023
City	60360	Spinning Stunt Challenge	Dec 31, 2023
City	60361	Ultimate Stunt Riders Challenge	Dec 31, 2023
City	60371	Emergency Vehicles HQ	Dec 31, 2023
City	60382	Vet Van Rescue	Dec 31, 2023
City	60385	Construction Digger	Dec 31, 2023
City	60390	Park Tractor	Dec 31, 2023
City	60393	4x4 Fire Truck Rescue	Dec 31, 2023
City	60394	ATV and Otter Habitat	Dec 31, 2023
City	60398	Family House and Electric Car	Dec 31, 2023
Classic	11014	Bricks and Wheels	Dec 31, 2023
Classic	11018	Creative Ocean Fun	Dec 31, 2023
Classic	11019	Bricks and Functions	Dec 31, 2023
Classic	11020	Build Together	Dec 31, 2023
Classic	11021	90 Years of Play	Dec 31, 2023
Classic	11022	Space Mission	Dec 31, 2023
Classic	11031	Creative Monkey Fun	Dec 31, 2023
Classic	30510	90 Years of Cars Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
Creator	30641	Panda Bear Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
Creator	30644	Vintage Car Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
Creator	31111	Cyber Drone	Dec 31, 2023
Creator	31118	Surfer Beach House	Dec 31, 2023
Creator	31127	Street Racer	Dec 31, 2023
Creator	31128	Dolphin and Turtle	Dec 31, 2023
Creator	31130	Sunken Treasure Mission	Dec 31, 2023
Creator	31131	Downtown Noodle Shop	Dec 31, 2023
Creator	31132	Viking Ship and the Midgard Serpent	Dec 31, 2023
Creator	40461	Tulips	Dec 31, 2023
Creator	40469	Tuk Tuk	Dec 31, 2023
Creator	40568	Paris Postcard	Dec 31, 2023
Creator	40646	Daffodils	Dec 31, 2023
Disney	10777	Mickey and Minnie's Camping Trip	Dec 31, 2023
Disney	30646	Moana's Dolphin Cove Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
Disney	40521	Mini Disney The Haunted Mansion	Dec 31, 2023
Disney	41168	Elsa's Jewellery Box	Dec 31, 2023
Disney	43187	Rapunzel's Tower	Dec 31, 2023
Disney	43189	Elsa and the Nokk Storybook Adventures	Dec 31, 2023
Disney	43194	Anna and Elsa's Frozen Wonderland	Dec 31, 2023
Disney	43196	Belle and the Beast's Castle	Dec 31, 2023
Disney	43197	The Ice Castle	Dec 31, 2023
Disney	43198	Anna's Castle Courtyard	Dec 31, 2023
Disney	43199	Elsa's Castle Courtyard	Dec 31, 2023
Disney	43202	The Madrigal House	Dec 31, 2023
Disney	43204	Anna and Olaf's Castle Fun	Dec 31, 2023
Disney	43207	Ariel's Underwater Palace	Dec 31, 2023
Disney	43208	Jasmine and Mulan's Adventure	Dec 31, 2023
Disney	43209	Elsa and the Nokk's Ice Stable	Dec 31, 2023
Dots	30560	Pineapple Photo Holder & Mini Board Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
Dots	41801	My Pets Bracelet	Dec 31, 2023
Dots	41802	Unicorns Forever Bracelet	Dec 31, 2023
Dots	41803	Extra Dots series 8	Dec 31, 2023
Dots	41805	Creative Animal Drawer	Dec 31, 2023
Dots	41806	Ultimate Party Kit	Dec 31, 2023
Dots	41807	Bracelet Designer Mega Pack	Dec 31, 2023
Dots	41947	Mickey and Friends Bracelets Mega Pack	Dec 31, 2023
Dots	41948	Cute Banana Pen Holder	Dec 31, 2023
Dots	41950	Lots of DOTS - Lettering	Dec 31, 2023
Dots	41951	Message Board	Dec 31, 2023
Dots	41957	Adhesive Patches Mega Pack	Dec 31, 2023
Dots	41959	Cute Panda Tray	Dec 31, 2023
Dots	41960	Big Box	Dec 31, 2023
Dots	41961	Designer Toolkit - Patterns	Dec 31, 2023
Dots / Disney	41963	Mickey Mouse & Minnie Mouse Stitch-on Patch	Dec 31, 2023
Dots / Disney	41964	Mickey Mouse & Minnie Mouse Back-to-School Project Box	Dec 31, 2023
Dots / Harry Potter	41808	Hogwarts Accessories Pack	Dec 31, 2023
Dots / Harry Potter	41809	Hedwig Pencil Holder	Dec 31, 2023
Dots / Harry Potter	41811	Hogwarts Desktop Kit	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo	10411	Learn About Chinese Culture	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo	10872	Train Bridge and Tracks	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo	10882	Train Tracks	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo	10930	Bulldozer	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo	10938	Dinosaur Nursery	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo	10944	Space Shuttle Mission	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo	10948	Parking Garage and Car Wash	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo	10949	Farm Animal Care	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo	10955	Animal Train	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo	10956	Amusement Park	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo	10964	Bath Time Fun: Floating Red Panda	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo	10966	Bath Time Fun: Floating Animal Island	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo	10968	Doctor Visit	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo	10972	Wild Animals of the Ocean	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo	10973	Wild Animals of South America	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo	10974	Wild Animals of Asia	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo	10977	My First Puppy & Kitten with Sounds	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo	10978	Creative Building Time	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo	10979	Wild Animals of Europe	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo	30648	Whale Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo / Disney	10899	Frozen Ice Castle	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo / Disney	10960	Belle's Ballroom	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo / Disney	10962	Buzz Lightyear's Planetary Mission	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo / Holiday	10976	Santa's Gingerbread House	Dec 31, 2023
Duplo / Marvel	10963	Spider-Man & Friends: Funfair Adventure	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	30633	Skate Ramp	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	30634	Friendship Flowers Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41443	Olivia's Electric Car	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41677	Forest Waterfall	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41696	Pony-Washing Stable	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41697	Turtle Protection Vehicle	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41699	Pet Adoption Café	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41703	Friendship Tree House	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41704	Main Street Building	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41705	Heartlake City Pizzeria	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41707	Tree-Planting Vehicle	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41708	Roller Disco Arcade	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41711	Emma's Art School	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41712	Recycling Truck	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41713	Olivia's Space Academy	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41714	Andrea's Theatre School	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41715	Ice Cream Truck	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41716	Stephanie's Sailing Adventure	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41717	Mia's Wildlife Rescue	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41718	Pet Day-Care Center	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41719	Mobile Fashion Boutique	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41720	Water Park	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41721	Organic Farm	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41722	Horse Show Trailer	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41729	Organic Grocery Store	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41732	Downtown Flower and Design Stores	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41733	Mobile Bubble Tea Shop	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41741	Dog Rescue Van	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41742	Cat Hotel	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41743	Hair Salon	Dec 31, 2023
Friends	41751	Skate Park	Dec 31, 2023
Harry Potter	30435	Build Your Own Hogwarts Castle Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
Harry Potter	30651	Quidditch Practice Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
Harry Potter	75968	4 Privet Drive	Dec 31, 2023
Harry Potter	75979	Hedwig	Dec 31, 2023
Harry Potter	76386	Hogwarts: Polyjuice Potion Mistake	Dec 31, 2023
Harry Potter	76398	Hogwarts Hospital Wing	Dec 31, 2023
Harry Potter	76399	Hogwarts Magical Trunk	Dec 31, 2023
Harry Potter	76400	Hogwarts Carriage and Thestrals	Dec 31, 2023
Harry Potter	76401	Hogwarts Courtyard: Sirius's Rescue	Dec 31, 2023
Harry Potter	76403	The Ministry of Magic	Dec 31, 2023
Harry Potter	76406	Hungarian Horntail Dragon	Dec 31, 2023
Harry Potter	76408	12 Grimmauld Place	Dec 31, 2023
Harry Potter	76409	Gryffindor House Banner	Dec 31, 2023
Harry Potter	76410	Slytherin House Banner	Dec 31, 2023
Harry Potter	76411	Ravenclaw House Banner	Dec 31, 2023
Harry Potter	76412	Hufflepuff House Banner	Dec 31, 2023
Holiday	40426	Christmas Wreath 2-in-1	Dec 31, 2023
Holiday	40522	Valentine Lovebirds	Dec 31, 2023
Holiday	40523	Easter Rabbits Display	Dec 31, 2023
Holiday	40570	Halloween Cat and Mouse	Dec 31, 2023
Holiday	40571	Wintertime Polar Bears	Dec 31, 2023
Holiday	80110	Lunar New Year Display	Dec 31, 2023
Holiday	80111	Lunar New Year Parade	Dec 31, 2023
Holiday / City	60381	City Advent Calendar 2023	Dec 31, 2023
Holiday / Creator	30584	Winter Holiday Train Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
Holiday / Creator	30642	Birthday Train Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
Holiday / Creator	30643	Easter Chickens Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
Holiday / Friends	41758	Friends Advent Calendar 2023	Dec 31, 2023
Holiday / Harry Potter	76418	Harry Potter Advent Calendar 2023	Dec 31, 2023
Holiday / Icons	10293	Santa's Visit	Dec 31, 2023
Holiday / Marvel	76267	Marvel Advent Calendar 2023	Dec 31, 2023
Holiday / Star Wars	75366	Star Wars Advent Calendar 2023	Dec 31, 2023
Icons	10265	Ford Mustang	Dec 31, 2023
Icons	10266	NASA Apollo 11 Lunar Lander	Dec 31, 2023
Icons	10273	Haunted House	Dec 31, 2023
Icons	10276	Colosseum	Dec 31, 2023
Icons	10289	Bird of Paradise	Dec 31, 2023
Icons	10290	Pickup Truck	Dec 31, 2023
Icons	10292	The Friends Apartments	Dec 31, 2023
Icons	10299	Real Madrid - Santiago Bernabéu Stadium	Dec 31, 2023
Icons	10497	Galaxy Explorer	Dec 31, 2023
Icons	76989	Horizon Forbidden West: Tallneck	Dec 31, 2023
Icons / Modular	10255	Assembly Square	Dec 31, 2023
Icons / Modular	10270	Bookshop	Dec 31, 2023
Icons / Modular	10278	Police Station	Dec 31, 2023
Ideas	21325	Medieval Blacksmith	Dec 31, 2023
Ideas	21326	Winnie the Pooh	Dec 31, 2023
Ideas	21329	Fender Stratocaster	Dec 31, 2023
Ideas	21337	Table Football	Dec 31, 2023
Jurassic Park / World	76943	Pteranodon Chase (4+)	Dec 31, 2023
Jurassic Park / World	76945	Atrociraptor Dinosaur: Bike Chase	Dec 31, 2023
Jurassic Park / World	76947	Quetzalcoatlus Plane Ambush	Dec 31, 2023
Jurassic Park / World	76948	T. rex & Atrociraptor Dinosaur Breakout	Dec 31, 2023
Jurassic Park / World	76950	Triceratops Pickup Truck Ambush	Dec 31, 2023
Jurassic Park / World	76956	T. rex Breakout	Dec 31, 2023
Lightyear	76830	Zyclops Chase (4+)	Dec 31, 2023
Lightyear	76831	Zurg Battle	Dec 31, 2023
Lightyear	76832	XL-15 Spaceship	Dec 31, 2023
Mario	30509	Yellow Yoshi's Fruit Tree Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
Mario	71406	Yoshi's Gift House	Dec 31, 2023
Mario	71413	Character Packs Series 6	Dec 31, 2023
Mario	71414	Conkdor's Noggin Bopper	Dec 31, 2023
Mario	71415	Ice Mario Suit and Frozen World	Dec 31, 2023
Mario	71416	Lava Wave Ride	Dec 31, 2023
Mario	71417	Fliprus Snow Adventure	Dec 31, 2023
Mario	71418	Creativity Toolbox	Dec 31, 2023
Marvel	10781	Spider-Man's Techno Trike (4+)	Dec 31, 2023
Marvel	10784	Spider-Man Webquarters Hangout (4+)	Dec 31, 2023
Marvel	10790	Team Spidey at Green Goblin's Lighthouse (4+)	Dec 31, 2023
Marvel	30652	Doctor Strange's Interdimensional Portal Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
Marvel	76187	Venom	Dec 31, 2023
Marvel	76193	The Guardians' Ship	Dec 31, 2023
Marvel	76206	Iron Man Figure	Dec 31, 2023
Marvel	76207	Attack on New Asgard	Dec 31, 2023
Marvel	76208	The Goat Boat	Dec 31, 2023
Marvel	76209	Thor's Hammer	Dec 31, 2023
Marvel	76211	Shuri's Sunbird	Dec 31, 2023
Marvel	76212	Shuri's Lab (4+)	Dec 31, 2023
Marvel	76213	King Namor's Throne Room	Dec 31, 2023
Marvel	76214	Black Panther: War on the Water	Dec 31, 2023
Marvel	76215	Black Panther	Dec 31, 2023
Marvel	76216	Iron Man Armory	Dec 31, 2023
Marvel	76225	Miles Morales Figure	Dec 31, 2023
Marvel	76230	Venom Figure	Dec 31, 2023
Marvel	76242	Thanos Mech Armor	Dec 31, 2023
Marvel	76253	Guardians of the Galaxy Headquarters	Dec 31, 2023
Marvel	76255	The New Guardians' Ship	Dec 31, 2023
Minecraft	21164	The Coral Reef	Dec 31, 2023
Minecraft	21170	The Pig House	Dec 31, 2023
Minecraft	21172	The Ruined Portal	Dec 31, 2023
Minecraft	21177	The Creeper Ambush	Dec 31, 2023
Minecraft	21180	The Guardian Battle	Dec 31, 2023
Minecraft	21181	The Rabbit Ranch	Dec 31, 2023
Minecraft	21183	The Training Grounds	Dec 31, 2023
Minecraft	21184	The Bakery	Dec 31, 2023
Minecraft	21185	The Nether Bastion	Dec 31, 2023
Minecraft	21186	The Ice Castle	Dec 31, 2023
Minecraft	21188	The Llama Village	Dec 31, 2023
Minecraft	21190	The Abandoned Village	Dec 31, 2023
Minecraft	30647	The Dripstone Cavern/The Stalactite Cave Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
Miscellaneous	40174	LEGO Chess	Dec 31, 2023
Miscellaneous	40382	Birthday Set	Dec 31, 2023
Miscellaneous	40393	LEGOLAND Fire Academy	Dec 31, 2023
Miscellaneous	40584	Birthday Diorama	Dec 31, 2023
Monkie Kid	30656	Monkey King Marketplace Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
Monkie Kid	80008	Monkie Kid's Cloud Jet	Dec 31, 2023
Monkie Kid	80030	Monkie Kid's Staff Creations	Dec 31, 2023
Monkie Kid	80032	Chang'e Moon Cake Factory	Dec 31, 2023
Monkie Kid	80033	Evil Macaque's Mech	Dec 31, 2023
Monkie Kid	80034	Nezha's Fire Ring	Dec 31, 2023
Monkie Kid	80035	Monkie Kid's Galactic Explorer	Dec 31, 2023
Monkie Kid	80037	Dragon of the East	Dec 31, 2023
Monkie Kid	80038	Monkie Kid's Team Van	Dec 31, 2023
Monkie Kid	80039	The Heavenly Realms	Dec 31, 2023
Ninjago	30649	Ice Dragon Creature Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
Ninjago	71757	Lloyd's Ninja Mech (4+)	Dec 31, 2023
Ninjago	71760	Jay's Thunder Dragon EVO	Dec 31, 2023
Ninjago	71761	Zane's Power Up Mech EVO	Dec 31, 2023
Ninjago	71763	Lloyd's Race Car EVO	Dec 31, 2023
Ninjago	71765	Ninja Ultra Combo Mech	Dec 31, 2023
Ninjago	71766	Lloyd's Legendary Dragon	Dec 31, 2023
Ninjago	71767	Ninja Dojo Temple	Dec 31, 2023
Ninjago	71768	Jay's Golden Dragon Motorbike	Dec 31, 2023
Ninjago	71769	Cole's Dragon Cruiser	Dec 31, 2023
Ninjago	71771	The Crystal King Temple	Dec 31, 2023
Ninjago	71772	The Crystal King	Dec 31, 2023
Ninjago	71774	Lloyd's Golden Ultra Dragon	Dec 31, 2023
Ninjago	71775	Nya's Samurai X MECH	Dec 31, 2023
Ninjago	71776	Jay and Nya's Race Car EVO	Dec 31, 2023
Ninjago	71777	Kai's Dragon Power Flip	Dec 31, 2023
Ninjago	71778	Nya's Dragon Power Drift	Dec 31, 2023
Ninjago	71779	Lloyd's Dragon Power Spin	Dec 31, 2023
Ninjago	71781	Lloyd's Mech Battle EVO	Dec 31, 2023
Speed Champions	30657	McLaren Solus GT Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
Speed Champions	76900	Koenigsegg Jesko	Dec 31, 2023
Speed Champions	76901	Toyota GR Supra	Dec 31, 2023
Speed Champions	76910	Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR Pro and Aston Martin Vantage GT3	Dec 31, 2023
Speed Champions	76911	007 Aston Martin DB5	Dec 31, 2023
Speed Champions	76912	Fast & Furious 1970 Dodge Charger T	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	30654	X-wing Starfighter Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75288	AT-AT	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75292	The Razor Crest	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75300	Imperial TIE Fighter	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75301	Luke Skywalker's X-wing Fighter	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75309	Republic Gunship (Ultimate Collector Series)	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75312	Boba Fett's Starship	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75317	The Mandalorian & The Child	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75318	The Child	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75320	Snowtrooper Battle Pack	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75322	Hoth AT-ST	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75323	The Justifier	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75324	Dark Trooper Attack	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75326	Boba Fett's Throne Room	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75327	Luke Skywalker (Red Five) Helmet	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75329	Death Star Trench Run Diorama	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75330	Dagobah Jedi Training Diorama	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75332	AT-ST (4+)	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75334	Obi-Wan Kenobi vs. Darth Vader	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75335	BD-1	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75336	Inquisitor Transport Scythe	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75338	Ambush on Ferrix	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75339	Death Star Trash Compactor Diorama	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75342	Republic Fighter Tank	Dec 31, 2023
Star Wars	75343	Dark Trooper Helmet	Dec 31, 2023
Technic	30655	Forklift with Pallet Polybag	Dec 31, 2023
Technic	42096	Porsche 911 RSR	Dec 31, 2023
Technic	42107	Ducati Panigale V4 R	Dec 31, 2023
Technic	42111	Dom's Dodge Charger	Dec 31, 2023
Technic	42117	Race Plane	Dec 31, 2023
Technic	42118	Monster Jam Grave Digger	Dec 31, 2023
Technic	42122	Jeep Wrangler	Dec 31, 2023
Technic	42123	McLaren Senna GTR	Dec 31, 2023
Technic	42125	Ferrari 488 GTE 'AF Corse #51'	Dec 31, 2023
Technic	42127	The Batman - Batmobile	Dec 31, 2023
Technic	42128	Heavy-Duty Tow Truck	Dec 31, 2023
Technic	42131	Cat D11 Bulldozer	Dec 31, 2023
Technic	42132	Chopper	Dec 31, 2023
Technic	42133	Telehandler	Dec 31, 2023
Technic	42134	Monster Jam Megalodon	Dec 31, 2023
Technic	42135	Monster Jam El Toro Loco	Dec 31, 2023
Technic	42137	Formula E Porsche 99x Electric	Dec 31, 2023
Technic	42139	All-Terrain Vehicle	Dec 31, 2023
Technic	42140	App-Controlled Transformation Vehicle	Dec 31, 2023
Technic	42144	Material Handler	Dec 31, 2023

Company Name	Title	City
Yesway	Store Manager in Training	Alamogordo
Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center	Revenue Integrity Analyst - 814004	Alamogordo
National Staffing Solutions	Audiologist	Alamogordo
Bath Planet	Call Center Representative Inside Sales	Albuquerque
Duke City Urgent Care	Medicare Wellness LPN/LVN	Albuquerque
Albuquerque Health Care for the Homeless	Billing Manager	Albuquerque
Dairy Farmers of America, Inc.	Class A CDL Floating Vacation Relief Driver -Premium Pay	Albuquerque
American Trucking Group USA, LLC	CDL A Driver Part Time	Albuquerque
PharMerica	Pharmacist	Albuquerque
Warby Parker	Optometrist, Part-Time - ABQ Uptown	Albuquerque
CAL's Convenience Inc., Owner and Operator of Stripes Convenience Stores	Sales Associate	Artesia
010926,1911 W. Main,,artesia,nm	Delivery	Artesia
Pizza Hut	Delivery Driver	Aztec
Yesway	Sales Associate	Bernalillo
Ampirical	Operations Field Assistant - CDL required	Carlsbad
Yesway	Sales Associate	Carlsbad
Pecos Valley of New Mexico, LLC	Surgical/Patient Care Coord	Carlsbad
Supplemental Health Care	Travel OR RN	Carlsbad
Emerald Health Services	Travel Nurse (RN) ER (Emergency Room)	Carlsbad
Acosta, Inc.	Retail Merchandiser	Carlsbad
Retirement Ranch	Licensed Practical Nurse	Clovis
Pizza Hut - Clovis #1	Driver	Clovis
Valley Health Clinic	Certified Medical Assistant - Valley Health Clinic	Dexter
East Mountain Veterinary Service	Experienced Veterinary Technician	Edgewood
Csb	Outside Sales Representative - Estancia, NM	Estancia

Hey guys, here are some recent job openings in nm. Feel free to comment here or send me a private message if you have any questions, I'm at the community's disposal! If you encounter any problems with any of these job openings please let me know that I will modify the table accordingly. Thanks!

I know quitting your job as a cook usually simply comes with two weeks notice or a ragequit walkout, but for eleven months I worked at a new franchise that had such potential which was being squandered by the incompetence of upper management. I present the nearly 6000 word thesis I turned in on my last day. Locations and names have been changed to cartoon references. Brackets represent ambiguous information in place of specific details.
Krusty Krab Careers Jobs
Opening in [Month/Year], Krusty Krab (KK) Bikini Bottom is on its 4th kitchen manager in less than a year. Krusty Krab O-Town has recently let go its inaugural kitchen manager and sous chef. Almost no member of the Bikini Bottom opening management team remains employed by KK. There is a pattern developing where one must question both the choice of employee and the directive given to new franchises. These lingering issues I brought concerns about in the first weeks of opening but was disregarded at every turn despite my experience with festival traffic. As a result I decided this was not a place I wanted to advance, but with a good-enough paycheck I’d be a lowly grunt in the kitchen four days a week, at five days a week I would have quit or been fired over a public outburst long ago. If Krusty Krab alters course slightly while being true to the brand this could be a successful chain.
My unique employment history in brick and mortar restaurants, food trucks, pop up culinary concepts, trade shows/conventions, and the film industry make me an ideal candidate to be on the opening team for new KK locations. My outgoing nature and foresight are valuable assets. For example, on training week before opening when I was standing around idly without a task I took it upon myself to organize the disarray that was dry storage. Overhearing Krabs tell another manager where he wanted the cleaning products placed, I had a jumping off point and the organization I created nine months ago is still largely in place. Since returning from my vacation in early February I have made it my mission to keep the storage area organized because it was again starting to resemble a hoarder’s house rather than a commercial kitchen. This is now part of my weekly routines because every time I turn my back there is more product being placed haphazardly just anywhere with little regard. I also recently reorganized the walk-in cooler because of problematic stocking with items being placed on the same shelf or below raw proteins. I also simply put all the like products together such as cheeses or fruits that were scattered amongst several shelves. With recent overordering I cannot keep up with the organization of the walk in cooler. The pattern recognition of food types and even simple shapes appears to be lost on the Bikini Bottom crew. My daily reorganization of containers is proof of this. Most days I’ll take a few minutes to put all cylinders together, all cambros together in descending volume, all deep and shallow pans next to each other rather than intermixed. My decision to be a kitchen manager at age 19 from 2005 thru 2008 and rarely enter restaurant management since is very calculated.
With my prior knowledge of professional kitchens I was becoming Bikini Bottom’s resident nag to coworkers as I made note of health department violations on a daily basis. I stopped after being largely ignored for two weeks. My regular health department nags include; a battle with jackets and hats being placed only in the designated area (a designated area that did not exist until I created a place for personal items a in January by neatly organizing the dry storage area again), waiting until prepped items are cooled before a cover is placed on top, placement of raw seafood, open containers (very often sugar, flour, and pancake mix bags ripped open and left), and dirty dishes/containers placed back in rotation. The dirty dishes and containers in rotation with the clean ones are at an atrociously high number. I have given up on making the 4th fryer seafood allergy safe too. With the low volume of seafood allergy safe items Bikini Bottom should purchase smaller baskets to visually discourage cross contamination with the other fryers and baskets. My skills to organize the kitchen do not end with simply where to store products to meet minimal health department standards.
Half of the space in the Bikini Bottom kitchen is completely wasted on an ill-advised walkway to the dishpit. An intelligent design would place a second doorway directly to the dishpit connected to the bar or where the bathrooms reside. Numerous times during the opening week of KK Bikini Bottom I said, yelled, sang, and muttered that we have too many food items for the amount of space we have. Icus stated that there was more space than Bluffington. Is Bluffington intelligently designed? Because Bikini Bottom most certainly isn’t. So Bikini Bottom actually has less space even if there is more square footage. See the attached diagram for an intelligent design that could potentially house a menu of this size. Bikini Bottom forces a line design on this kitchen when an open concept is needed for this menu. It’s as if this floorplan was created by a person who had only ever seen one commercial kitchen previously and couldn’t think 4th dimensionally to understand the needs of the workers to smoothly serve customers.
There is not enough counter space for pizzas without getting off the line, the microwave is placed completely out of the way, the freezer’s curved design is a waste of potential counter space and a falling hazard for containers stored on top of it, the toaster is an overcomplicated and overexpensive piece of machinery that serves exactly one purpose when a flat top could be used to toast bread and other purposes like a quesadilla special, sautee was designed without an overhang for spices, the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter for seafood allergies, there are no Frialator fryers which I have worked with at every single kitchen job previously instead we got the cheap Vulcan model (is that logical), the cheap low boy in pantry that doesn’t drain excess water anywhere it’s just supposed to evaporate somehow but doesn’t, the grill and fryer should be placed next to each other (with a higher volume of crossover than other stations), the floors are flat instead on having a mild decline towards the drains (just look at the standing water residing behind the oven right now), in the dishpit the spraying area and the filled sinks are backwards of a logical dipshit, the ramp to the back door is on the wrong side, there is no refrigerated place downstairs to stage extra food for busy shifts (the beer cooler is once again used for such food items because of this massive oversight), the prep station is an afterthought and miniscule, the dishes on the line are difficult to grab for anyone under 5’11” and inaccessible for anyone under 5’6” (instead of putting them underneath tables that also give that desperately needed counterspace I spoke of), there is not enough space to store to-go containers or boats behind the line, expo is lacking a low boy for the numerous items that are supposed to be cold but are instead kept at room temperature all day long, no one in management thought about buying shelves until right before Bikini Bottom opened as a result the clean full sheets sat on the floor for days, we had only the exact amount of 1⁄6 pans for an absurd amount of time making it impossible to rotate and clean them when necessary (which is daily), we still struggle with 1/9 pan supply. And just when I thought I documented all the poor design choices possible I stumbled upon a person whose office holiday party was booked at KK Bikini Bottom. The deck space works just fine as a deck. It does not double well as a gathering space. The space is too long and narrow for parties, it promotes little splitoff groups rather than a coming together of a larger gathering. It may be advantageous to contact a social psychologist for help designing a private party space that promotes intermingling rather than enforcing small pockets to form. The reorganization of the physical kitchen isn’t all that screams for an overhaul.
There are six positions on the line at the Krusty Krab; expo, oven, grill, sautee, fryer, and pantry. But the pantry and fryer positions are forced together like a bad remix. Everyone who mainly works pantry deserves a $6 raise immediately because it is a station and a half. Both Icus and Krumm, while kitchen manager, kind of acknowledged the pantry is too big for one station without outright mentioning the lopsided distribution of work. I imagine in the only location where this works, Bluffington, a second person joins the pantry at noon because of the unreasonable amount of items one person is tasked with. Bikini Bottom only has one person in this position at all times, maybe modify it for one person? The excess of items on the pantry position largely resembles a position I would call “set-up” or “build” at a previous job that made sensible choices. This build position should have tostadas, tacos, butcher’s blocks, toast, salads, lettuce wrap set ups, and preparing plating for whichever station is most bogged down. I have absolutely lost my mind yelling about salads at least once a month, ranting that they do not belong on the fryer position because of how illogical it is that five salads are included on the mountain of other items the pantry has. I have always considered working in a kitchen a kind of dance, and the pantry station demands an unnecessarily convoluted dance to keep up with the demand. Without the salads, tostadas, and tacos the station is already the busiest. Do we really need to combine ballet and swing by including these extra awkward dance steps in this single station? For a kitchen designed this poorly I suppose it is. Again, see attached document for an intelligently designed kitchen that might be able to accommodate this menu. Unless Bikini Bottom is going to close for a month to fix the baffling floor plan design the menu is shouting to be reduced to 30-36 items.
The menu is too big. Krusty Krab is the jack of all foods, master of none. In general I believe individual locations should be allowed 18% omissions, and 18% unique items to this wildly unwieldy menu sitting around 50 food items including sides. The insistence on keeping menu items that don’t sell at Bikini Bottom because of Bluffington is mind boggling. Chicken tenders do not sell at Bikini Bottom. fried sushi does not sell at Bikini Bottom, not enough to justify their place on the line. I don’t care how well these items work in Bluffinton. They. Do. Not. Work. At. Bikini. Bottom. If the KK location in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean sells an incredible amount of live krill does that mean Bikini Bottom and O-Town must sell live krill too? Take the fried sushi off the menu. I had a complete meltdown about this during a Dimmadome service and my valid point was met with indifference. Replace the kid’s tenders with a kid’s fish sticks. We already have the tilapia fish sticks on the line for tacos. Or make the kid’s fish sticks cod. We cut cod to order for fish tacos in spite of health code violations because it is too rare of an order to make beforehand. Saffron in mashed potatoes? If you must. Why are green tomatoes only on the menu during lunch? Bikini Bottom throws away a sizable amount of spoiled green tomatoes each week. Have green tomatoes on the menu all day long or don’t have them at all. The smoked salmon could go on salads or a special taco to justify its place on the line. The corn pico’s place on the line is unjustified. It only goes on one item, tostadas, which are not particularly popular. If we had a taco salad we could throw the corn pico on there. We also have unreasonable waste from unusable taco shells, smash up those imperfect taco shells and throw them on said taco salad. But before we add salads, let's get rid of the pear and kale salads. The pears' position on the line are unjustified, if we threw them on a taco variation maybe their place on the Bikini Bottom line could be argued but for now they only go on a salad that isn’t particularly popular. The kale salad is an issue of space for a 4th green for salads is too much. The krusty salad is my most hated house salad of all time. And it comes down to the toast with goat cheese. This ancillary step of spreading goat cheese on a cracker is an unnecessary step for an overly complicated dance and should be part of the expo dance if expo wasn’t a shoddily designed afterthought lacking a low boy.
There are a plethora of squeeze bottles on the pantry station that have no place on the overloaded station. They belong to an expo station with a low boy to keep them cold. Pantry has an overwhelming ten squeeze bottles: chipotle crema, sweet chili vinaigrette, buffalo, korean bbq, ranch, caesar, wine vinaigrette, lemon vinaigrette, honey mustard, and lemon aioli. Only the first four are justified on an intelligently designed fryer section, the second four belong on the build station, the last two have no place anywhere but expo. With this extra space sautee could keep their bottles and two purees cold in the fryer's lowboy instead of leaving them at room temperature all day inviting a pathogen party. This theorized intelligently designed expo would have room to keep these four squeeze bottles and a double of every sauce chilled to pour them into ramekins, a move that is highly common in the expo dance. The fact that expo doesn’t have a double of all squeeze bottles is foolish. Expo has to bother an overloaded station to pour these side sauces instead.
How many gallons of basil aioli has Bikini Bottom thrown away in 11 months? Four aiolis in general is way too many and most go on a single item; basil aioli on the incredibly unpopular veggie burger, lemon aioli for calamari, sweet chili aioli for the BLT that is only served half of the day, and garlic aioli actually goes on two items…I believe. What a colossal waste of precious little space, lose two aiolis and then you can sing the logical song with me. Perhaps we can put garlic aioli and sweet chili vinaigrette on the BLT separately and accomplish the exact same thing the sweet chili aioli does. The wings too have unneeded complications. Having worked at a sports bar specializing in wings for the better part of a decade I find KK’s plating of wings to be overly pretentious. The carrots, celery, and blue cheese have lost function. Heffer Wolf always said no one eats the carrot/celery julienne with blue cheese. It’s a complete waste of all the ingredients because you’ve gone too far with the presentation. Wings aren’t fancy. Wings are supposed to have a small pool of sauce and be sloppy. It’s like a sloppy joe that’s not sloppy, an unsloppy joe is a failure to sloppy joes just as the KK presentation of wings is a disparagement to the dish. Ever since training week back in 2022 I have used a scale to give Bikini Bottom a passing or failing grade.
Chokey Chicken to Chum Bucket is the scale I use to judge efficiency and sanity at Bikini Bottom. Both establishments are upscale casual dining experiences in Capitol City in the same vein as KK. Chokey had high employee retention and relatively smooth openings for new locations. Chum Bucket’s employee turnover was high and every location opening was chaotic. Which one sounds closer to KK? Chokey Chicken was filled with chefs I respect including Chef Ren Hoek who remains a close friend to this day. Ren lost his lifelong passion for kitchen work after working management at Chum Bucket. He’s actually seeking work in Bikini Bottom. Call him up at [phone number], but KK will give him Nam’ flashbacks of why he chose driving for a living rather than cooking for five years. The pair of us together helming Bikini Bottom with the ability to omit and create 18% of the overloaded menu can bring success to this franchise. We have worked well numerous times in the past on various concepts in the past including creating The Attack of the Pickled Tomatoes Burger for [Promotional live performance of a TV show] at the Capitol City Theater. We served 100 people in 60 at the [sitcom filming] lunch. That’s physically impossible but somehow we did it quite a few times.
A fun anecdote about Ren Hoek’s KK experience from the soft launch; on training week numerous times I brought concerns about being seafood allergy safe that were dismissed. As mentioned earlier the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter, one each of which seafood never touches. Before the soft launch Chef Stimpy from Bluffington insisted all customers just kind of know everything is prone to be seafood contaminated. Well, chef Ren was a customer that night and this absolutely was not communicated to customers. He claimed to have a slight seafood allergy and was not informed of what the crab soup was. In reality he does not have a seafood allergy. I didn’t discuss the seafood issue with Ren, separately we noticed egregious violations of food safety standards and we each responded in our own way. The soft launch service was so awful that night Chef Ren walked out of a free meal to pay for some ramen, never to return to Bikini Bottom. I attribute this oversight, and many of Bikini Bottom’s (and probably O-Town’s) problems to hubris over the Bluffington location.
Chef Chokey would also be hesitant to join the KK team. It will cost a finder’s fee just for me to reveal Chef Chokey’s name. Chef Chokey was a lead in the rapid expansion of Chokey Chicken restaurants. He opened numerous restaurants and was big on the philosophy that each restaurant must have its own personality in order to fit the unique local culture and the variety of working spaces. This is in direct conflict with the KK way that everything must be exactly like the Bluffington location no matter what. There was only one Chokey Chicken location that had the full menu, Chokey Springfield. Chokey Springfield had a large space which was intelligently designed to accommodate such a large menu. The KK menu is all over the place, closing in on 50 menu items which comes up as a failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale. This is not the only area KK comes up as a major failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale.
Has anyone in this company ever worked festival traffic before? Does anyone have the experience of working next to a major venue with 8000 seats before this one? The way Bikini Bottom handles Dimmadome services it certainly appears that the decision-makers fall on the wrong side of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Having all 50 items available during such massive traffic is completely asinine. An unwillingness to serve a partial menu is hindering the Bikini Bottom kitchen staff. I have worked festival traffic before, and Dimmadome events bring in festival traffic. I’ve worked inside a festival whose line never ended but every customer got their order in 5 minutes or less because the line kept flowing with only four items on the menu as that’s what was warranted at the B-Sharps Music Festival. I refuse to be set up for failure the way Bikini Bottom sets up Dimmadome services for failure. The entire week of concerts in [summer] 2022 I was set up for failure every day (it was after this I modified my availability to keep my sanity and my paycheck). When I brought my concerns about running efficiently during Dimmadome services I was labeled a B-worker for the first time in my employment history by Icus and Krabs. It is that moment which I was either going to holler at them both for being 2-dimensional thinkers who were obviously unqualified for the positions they accepted in this company, or just put my head down. If Bikini Bottom has a successful concert day service, hail your team because they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. They swam with concrete shoes. I often wonder how many customers had bad experiences and never returned after concert days. A Dimmadome service should have no more than 25 items and have one or two specials to divert traffic towards an area the kitchen can keep moving. An Open Cup Open Plate (OCOP) special for foot traffic is absolutely needed. When I suggested OCOP special, Heffer was intrigued by this idea and immediately named burgers as the special to keep foot traffic flowing. Smithers wouldn’t hear this idea, babbling on about what’s advertised instead of hearing out a sound idea. This prattle despite radio commercials having inaccurate hours and social media promoting Bikini Bottom’s steak tacos to this day. I always found Smithers to be a better fit as a middle management office pencil pusher than as a hands-on restaurant manager. Overall I find KK managers are selected to be automatons not to question their orders rather than critical thinkers who could take the restaurant to the next level. During brunch service is another period of time that must be modified to lessen the heft of items. Having a full menu that barely works plus brunch is so deep into Chum Bucket territory, in my opinion we now have to use the Tropic Thunder scale of full [R-word censored by jobs] to describe a 60-plus-item brunch. Chef Ren hired back a Chum Bucket cook who had a mental breakdown and stormed out during brunch (plus full menu) service because Ren knew the employee was justified and upper management was completely unreasonable in their brunch requests. It’s not just questionable decisions that hinder KK staff but improper equipment as well.
This is the first restaurant I have worked at which uses a touch screen on the line rather than tickets. From day one I found this to be technology for technology’s sake inferior to tickets. Chef Ren forced a new Chum Bucket location to rip out touch screens from the line and bring in ticket printers because of the higher efficiency. The touch screen is a great idea for expo, not the entire line. My biggest gripe is that each station does not get all the information. Early on I was regularly yelled at for not staggering my items, well I can’t see the rest of the order; a problem I have never had with a ticket system. Touchscreen software is also much more prone to errors and glitches. When I reported an error during a heavy service Icus and Krabs blamed my skills on the line without looking into the malfunctioning screen further. It was glitchy for weeks before the two finally investigated and corrected the issue I brought to their attention long before. Those two gave me an immense amount of ammunition to dislike them in the opening weeks until I stopped caring. The issue I had with being unable to scroll beyond the bottom of a completely filled screen has returned and is still there as of [my last day]. There are also important details that get buried. A frequent meltdown I have is that sauce on side requests and other important modifications are not capitalized or in red to catch the eye as they have been at jobs with tickets. These details get lost on Bikini Bottom’s touchscreens. A sauce on side salad made by me will be wrong 50% of the time because of the instructions being camouflaged in a word salad. This goes for coleslaw on the side and drizzle on the side too. Drizzle in general I dislike because of the pretentiousness, but whatever, drizzle it on top rather than putting it in a ramekin if you must. There are numerous places where Bikini Bottom overcomplicates matters for reasons I cannot ascertain.
Why is there such a large variety of plates? Why do we have a medium circular plate for salads and a large bowl for salads with protein? This just confuses the simplest of matters. I was told this is done because of the high price hike with protein, a larger presentation was desired. But that price hike is the price of protein in 2023. Bikini Bottom should put all salads in the large bowls and use all the circular salad plates in a skeet shooting promotion. I understand why we have both a circular platter plate and a pizza plate but in my restaurant the circular platter plates must go...or maybe the large platter plate instead. Is the large platter used for anything besides fish and chips? That extra space on fish and chips plates are only used for side sauces which can easily be delivered to customers on small circular plates. What is the medium oval plate doing that the medium rectangular plate isn’t? And vice versa. Why do they both exist when they are approximately the same size? Let me write an internet commercial where we break a lot of plates so we can get some logical use out of the superfluous plates. I don’t care which one is destroyed, the ovals or the rectangles but one of them is an unnecessary redundancy in excess done again. Speaking of commercials, the unimaginative radio advertisements for Bikini Bottom are doing little to lure new customers to the restaurant.
The three radio spots I have heard on KBBL all sound like they were produced by a marketing 101 student who wasn’t a natural in the field. The voiceover actor was so uncharismatic I was certain someone from the office was chosen at random to read the copy. Then I heard that same voiceover actor selling pool supplies on another radio station so I concluded that Bikini Bottom must have hired the cheapest guy in town to produce the most basic of commercials. Perhaps there is someone else you could hire more qualified to voiceover these commercials, an actor with experience on an Emmy award winning cable program whose unique place in the film industry was written about on [website] would be a much wiser choice to be the voice of the KK? (See external link). In the ad there was no catchphrase, no jingle, no music whatsoever. This simple approach to commercials lacks the pizazz to catch the attention of radio listeners. The first two commercials I heard would get a C in marketing 101 as they were nearly the exact same and accomplished the bare minimum to sell wares, the third one would maybe get a B- because there was some sort of attempted gimmick with the voiceover whispering to represent thinking inside his head about what he was going to eat later at KK. Not only does this commercial give no reason for the man to think inside his head, the outside world still and unpopulated. To see what a creative person would do with this concept see the attached script. There is an attempted slogan that could become part of an ad campaign. Commercials aren’t the only lost opportunities in promotions.
There are numerous promotional celebrity tie-ins at Bikini Bottom’s fingertips with Dimmadome performers. The restaurant could have a Phish sandwich as a OCOP special on [Phish performance dates], or a pretentious Jelly Roll on [Jelly Roll performance date]. Has anyone reached out to the Dimmadome theater or talent management for approved special menu items to be promoted inside the dome? Perhaps a special 20% discount to ticket holders? Is Bikini Bottom capable of getting permits to extend Open Container hours beyond [cutoff time] for an afterparty or block party throughout a Dimmadome concert? I see additional marketing opportunities left on the table for all new locations.
I believe new KK locations are missing out on a marketing campaign by opening with the entire cumbersome 50 item menu. This is a staggering amount of menu items which is too much to ask new staffers to perfect all at once. After a few months expanding the menu by approximately ten items is catching to customers who haven’t returned after a single visit or infrequently stop into KK. There are ten new food items that might appeal to them. Just like it appears KK doesn’t know what it’s looking for in a good commercial spot, this company doesn’t appear to recognize a talented from an untalented worker until it’s too late.
It is my understanding that KK had a headhunter to find Icus, the first Bikini Bottom kitchen manager. If it were up to me I’d hire someone to break the legs of that headhunter for bringing in a subpar kitchen lead. We are still attempting to recover from the lousy choices she made in the floor plan. If anybody responsible for Bikini Bottom’s floor plan is still giving input, stop them immediately. Once the doors were open to the public Icus had his head in the clouds to a point where I questioned if he saw the writing on the walls of an imminent demotion and stopped trying as a result. I had a full deck of 3x5 cards in an archaic powerpoint presentation bringing numerous concerns to light that he kept putting off listening to until he was fired. Those same cards were broken out for this essay. The second kitchen manager, Krumm, is a good lesson in honesty. According to Heffer, Krumm was given a bill of goods about how smoothly KK Bikini Bottom was running. Since Krumm stepped into a latrine pit which he was led to believe was a heated pool, he left in short time. Krumm also had plans to modify the menu but when his bosses told him to be a rodeo clown rather than a cowboy Krumm didn’t take too kindly to that. Meanwhile Heffer was the savior of the Bikini Bottom kitchen. I didn’t agree with every single decision he made, but I did with a majority of them. Heffer’s overhaul was such a blessing so I didn’t have to fiddle with the organization of 60% of the equipment anymore, only about 20% now. Too bad Heffer’s crippling depression came back after bashing his head into the wall out of frustration with the shackles KK restrained him with.
The current management team is enthusiastic but inexperienced. I see an accumulation of small infractions that might bring down Bikini Bottom’s health department rating significantly. I see the entire management team being inattentive or unaware about organizational issues. Whatever bureaucratic nonsense corporate tasks everyone with from the original sous chef Skeeter to Patty Mayonnaise that makes them walk away from the line between 11am and 1pm especially is infuriating. I have never been left alone on a multi-person line during peak hours so regularly, and I won’t tolerate it anymore. As much as I believe in his drive, I imagine our current kitchen manager SpongeBob will be let go after a disastrous service during the Dimmadome concert season that someone has to take the fall for. Chef Ren and I could help bring experience in management and dealing with festival traffic...if corporate does not force us to follow a failing strategy.
After working nearly a year at KK you may ask why I’m not proficient on more than one station. Excellent question. First, when I move over to another station the squeeze bottles are never labeled (until Stu Pickles was hired, now they’re sometimes labeled), so I always looked at the glut of unlabeled sauces and I’d go back to my station because the basic information is missing (also a health department violation for having numerous unlabeled, unchilled bottles). In his first week the new general manager Stu Pickles pulled out 90% of the containers under the grill station because they were lacking labels despite an expected health department visit. The second reason for my menu ignorance is the mountain of prep for my own and upcoming shifts I have piled up on my station throughout service. My attention to detail appears to be next level with my ability to anticipate stocking all items for all shifts including the weeknd. The third reason I wouldn’t learn multiple stations is a defense against the afternoon conference calls. In [month] the Bikini Bottom line was unprepared for a busy post lunch because one cook was cut and our expo person was busy with a conference call. The two of us remaining on the line had a miserable slog through an unexpectedly busy afternoon. When I brought this up to Krabs he disregarded me, being a good bean counter he quoted the cost percentage. What he didn’t take into account was the missing expo person who could have jumped on the line and expo to help the understaffed two man team. That person was stuck on a conference call. Just recently I saw the company actively lose money because of this poorly thought-out meeting during business hours. A customer wanted to order a dessert that was 86ed but had been restocked by our prep cook an hour before. The server was unable to sell them their dessert because the only person in the building who could help un-86 an item was on a conference call. This conference call calamity is another bone-headed choice that speaks to a larger decision-making problem within the corporate structure. Finish the conference calls by 10:45 am eastern.
In conclusion, I quit my position as a lowly grunt for this company because of its unwarranted perplexing dance steps and below average management. I don’t care how much varnish and lacquer is supplied, I refuse to polish this Bikini Bottom turd as a manager or full-time employee under the current circumstances. You would have to take a pickaxe to the floor, possibly relocate the bathrooms to add a door to the dishpit, get rid of the cheap low boy that doesn’t properly drain excess water, and Mr Gorbachov knock down that wall in the middle of the kitchen to give the proper amount of space to work. Or simply reduce the menu to 36 items (including sides) because that’s the amount of space this dreadful design can comfortably output. Would Gordon Ramsay compliment KK for all the unnecessary convoluted complications abound, or would Chef Ramsay yell about keeping it simple and demand KK chuck it in the flip? Thanks to the numerous pop up restaurants I have been a part of and the hectic world of trade shows/conventions, I may have more experience than anyone else employed by KK in smoothly opening a new location. I would enjoy being part of the opening team to ensure new locations have an efficiency Bikini Bottom lacks, and to keep upper management away from their worst instincts. Work with me and Chef Ren and we will help you become a well oiled machine like Chokey Chicken instead of the Chum Bucket cesspit Bikini Bottom currently embodies.

Company Name	Title	City
Trust Financial, LLC	Office Assistant/ Client Services	Ammon
Idaho Asphalt Supply	Truck Driver	Blackfoot
Bingham Memorial Hospital	Neurology Office Nurse/Medical Assistant (CNA, MA, CMA, LPN)	Blackfoot
Bingham Memorial Hospital	Registered Nurse, L&D - Grove Creek	Blackfoot
Mountain View Hospital Llc	Registered Nurse - Pain and Spine Specialists	Blackfoot
Napa Auto Parts	Counter Sales Associate	Boise
Kimberly Frechette-Farmers Insurance Agency	Billing Specialist/Front Desk	Boise
VELOX Media	Senior Sales Development Representative (Sr. SDR)	Boise
Charles Schwab	Financial Consultant Partner - Boise, ID	Boise
Super 1 Foods	Grocery - Cashier	Bonners Ferry
Jacksons Food Stores, Inc.	Retail Cashier	Caldwell
Capitol Distributing	Warehouse Loading Clerk	Caldwell
Prestige Assisted Living at Autumn Wind	Assistant Health Services Director - LPN - Licensed Practical Nurse	Caldwell
Domino's Boise Pizza	Delivery Driver	Caldwell
Pathways of Idaho	Medical Technician (EMT/LPN)	Caldwell
C-A-L Ranch Stores	Sporting Goods Associate	Chubbuck
Shoe Show Inc	Store Manager	Chubbuck
Caldera Care	LPN Floor Nurse	Coeur Dalene
St. Joseph's Ear, Nose, Throat & Allergy Clinic	Administrative Assistant	Coeur Dalene
Advanced Input Systems	Continuous Improvement Director	Coeur Dalene
Slick Rock Tanning & Spa	Salon Manager - Coeur d' Alene	Coeur Dalene
Caldera Care	Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA)	Coeur Dalene
ExamOne, A Quest Diagnostics Company	Mobile Phlebotomist / Medical Assistant (ID)	Coeur Dalene
VICTRA (ABC Phones of North Carolina)	Sales Consultant Part Time Verizon RetaileVictra (ID-Eagle)	Eagle
Accelerate360	Merchandiser Part Time-Hailey, ID	Hailey

Hey guys, here are some recent job openings in id. Feel free to comment here or send me a private message if you have any questions, I'm at the community's disposal! If you encounter any problems with any of these job openings please let me know that I will modify the table accordingly. Thanks!

I know quitting your job as a cook usually simply comes with two weeks notice or a ragequit walkout, but for eleven months I worked at a new franchise that had such potential which was being squandered by the incompetence of upper management. I present the nearly 6000 word thesis I turned in on my last day. Locations and names have been changed to cartoon references. Brackets represent ambiguous information in place of specific details.
Krusty Krab Careers Jobs
Opening in [Month/Year], Krusty Krab (KK) Bikini Bottom is on its 4th kitchen manager in less than a year. Krusty Krab O-Town has recently let go its inaugural kitchen manager and sous chef. Almost no member of the Bikini Bottom opening management team remains employed by KK. There is a pattern developing where one must question both the choice of employee and the directive given to new franchises. These lingering issues I brought concerns about in the first weeks of opening but was disregarded at every turn despite my experience with festival traffic. As a result I decided this was not a place I wanted to advance, but with a good-enough paycheck I’d be a lowly grunt in the kitchen four days a week, at five days a week I would have quit or been fired over a public outburst long ago. If Krusty Krab alters course slightly while being true to the brand this could be a successful chain.
My unique employment history in brick and mortar restaurants, food trucks, pop up culinary concepts, trade shows/conventions, and the film industry make me an ideal candidate to be on the opening team for new KK locations. My outgoing nature and foresight are valuable assets. For example, on training week before opening when I was standing around idly without a task I took it upon myself to organize the disarray that was dry storage. Overhearing Krabs tell another manager where he wanted the cleaning products placed, I had a jumping off point and the organization I created nine months ago is still largely in place. Since returning from my vacation in early February I have made it my mission to keep the storage area organized because it was again starting to resemble a hoarder’s house rather than a commercial kitchen. This is now part of my weekly routines because every time I turn my back there is more product being placed haphazardly just anywhere with little regard. I also recently reorganized the walk-in cooler because of problematic stocking with items being placed on the same shelf or below raw proteins. I also simply put all the like products together such as cheeses or fruits that were scattered amongst several shelves. With recent overordering I cannot keep up with the organization of the walk in cooler. The pattern recognition of food types and even simple shapes appears to be lost on the Bikini Bottom crew. My daily reorganization of containers is proof of this. Most days I’ll take a few minutes to put all cylinders together, all cambros together in descending volume, all deep and shallow pans next to each other rather than intermixed. My decision to be a kitchen manager at age 19 from 2005 thru 2008 and rarely enter restaurant management since is very calculated.
With my prior knowledge of professional kitchens I was becoming Bikini Bottom’s resident nag to coworkers as I made note of health department violations on a daily basis. I stopped after being largely ignored for two weeks. My regular health department nags include; a battle with jackets and hats being placed only in the designated area (a designated area that did not exist until I created a place for personal items a in January by neatly organizing the dry storage area again), waiting until prepped items are cooled before a cover is placed on top, placement of raw seafood, open containers (very often sugar, flour, and pancake mix bags ripped open and left), and dirty dishes/containers placed back in rotation. The dirty dishes and containers in rotation with the clean ones are at an atrociously high number. I have given up on making the 4th fryer seafood allergy safe too. With the low volume of seafood allergy safe items Bikini Bottom should purchase smaller baskets to visually discourage cross contamination with the other fryers and baskets. My skills to organize the kitchen do not end with simply where to store products to meet minimal health department standards.
Half of the space in the Bikini Bottom kitchen is completely wasted on an ill-advised walkway to the dishpit. An intelligent design would place a second doorway directly to the dishpit connected to the bar or where the bathrooms reside. Numerous times during the opening week of KK Bikini Bottom I said, yelled, sang, and muttered that we have too many food items for the amount of space we have. Icus stated that there was more space than Bluffington. Is Bluffington intelligently designed? Because Bikini Bottom most certainly isn’t. So Bikini Bottom actually has less space even if there is more square footage. See the attached diagram for an intelligent design that could potentially house a menu of this size. Bikini Bottom forces a line design on this kitchen when an open concept is needed for this menu. It’s as if this floorplan was created by a person who had only ever seen one commercial kitchen previously and couldn’t think 4th dimensionally to understand the needs of the workers to smoothly serve customers.
There is not enough counter space for pizzas without getting off the line, the microwave is placed completely out of the way, the freezer’s curved design is a waste of potential counter space and a falling hazard for containers stored on top of it, the toaster is an overcomplicated and overexpensive piece of machinery that serves exactly one purpose when a flat top could be used to toast bread and other purposes like a quesadilla special, sautee was designed without an overhang for spices, the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter for seafood allergies, there are no Frialator fryers which I have worked with at every single kitchen job previously instead we got the cheap Vulcan model (is that logical), the cheap low boy in pantry that doesn’t drain excess water anywhere it’s just supposed to evaporate somehow but doesn’t, the grill and fryer should be placed next to each other (with a higher volume of crossover than other stations), the floors are flat instead on having a mild decline towards the drains (just look at the standing water residing behind the oven right now), in the dishpit the spraying area and the filled sinks are backwards of a logical dipshit, the ramp to the back door is on the wrong side, there is no refrigerated place downstairs to stage extra food for busy shifts (the beer cooler is once again used for such food items because of this massive oversight), the prep station is an afterthought and miniscule, the dishes on the line are difficult to grab for anyone under 5’11” and inaccessible for anyone under 5’6” (instead of putting them underneath tables that also give that desperately needed counterspace I spoke of), there is not enough space to store to-go containers or boats behind the line, expo is lacking a low boy for the numerous items that are supposed to be cold but are instead kept at room temperature all day long, no one in management thought about buying shelves until right before Bikini Bottom opened as a result the clean full sheets sat on the floor for days, we had only the exact amount of 1⁄6 pans for an absurd amount of time making it impossible to rotate and clean them when necessary (which is daily), we still struggle with 1/9 pan supply. And just when I thought I documented all the poor design choices possible I stumbled upon a person whose office holiday party was booked at KK Bikini Bottom. The deck space works just fine as a deck. It does not double well as a gathering space. The space is too long and narrow for parties, it promotes little splitoff groups rather than a coming together of a larger gathering. It may be advantageous to contact a social psychologist for help designing a private party space that promotes intermingling rather than enforcing small pockets to form. The reorganization of the physical kitchen isn’t all that screams for an overhaul.
There are six positions on the line at the Krusty Krab; expo, oven, grill, sautee, fryer, and pantry. But the pantry and fryer positions are forced together like a bad remix. Everyone who mainly works pantry deserves a $6 raise immediately because it is a station and a half. Both Icus and Krumm, while kitchen manager, kind of acknowledged the pantry is too big for one station without outright mentioning the lopsided distribution of work. I imagine in the only location where this works, Bluffington, a second person joins the pantry at noon because of the unreasonable amount of items one person is tasked with. Bikini Bottom only has one person in this position at all times, maybe modify it for one person? The excess of items on the pantry position largely resembles a position I would call “set-up” or “build” at a previous job that made sensible choices. This build position should have tostadas, tacos, butcher’s blocks, toast, salads, lettuce wrap set ups, and preparing plating for whichever station is most bogged down. I have absolutely lost my mind yelling about salads at least once a month, ranting that they do not belong on the fryer position because of how illogical it is that five salads are included on the mountain of other items the pantry has. I have always considered working in a kitchen a kind of dance, and the pantry station demands an unnecessarily convoluted dance to keep up with the demand. Without the salads, tostadas, and tacos the station is already the busiest. Do we really need to combine ballet and swing by including these extra awkward dance steps in this single station? For a kitchen designed this poorly I suppose it is. Again, see attached document for an intelligently designed kitchen that might be able to accommodate this menu. Unless Bikini Bottom is going to close for a month to fix the baffling floor plan design the menu is shouting to be reduced to 30-36 items.
The menu is too big. Krusty Krab is the jack of all foods, master of none. In general I believe individual locations should be allowed 18% omissions, and 18% unique items to this wildly unwieldy menu sitting around 50 food items including sides. The insistence on keeping menu items that don’t sell at Bikini Bottom because of Bluffington is mind boggling. Chicken tenders do not sell at Bikini Bottom. fried sushi does not sell at Bikini Bottom, not enough to justify their place on the line. I don’t care how well these items work in Bluffinton. They. Do. Not. Work. At. Bikini. Bottom. If the KK location in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean sells an incredible amount of live krill does that mean Bikini Bottom and O-Town must sell live krill too? Take the fried sushi off the menu. I had a complete meltdown about this during a Dimmadome service and my valid point was met with indifference. Replace the kid’s tenders with a kid’s fish sticks. We already have the tilapia fish sticks on the line for tacos. Or make the kid’s fish sticks cod. We cut cod to order for fish tacos in spite of health code violations because it is too rare of an order to make beforehand. Saffron in mashed potatoes? If you must. Why are green tomatoes only on the menu during lunch? Bikini Bottom throws away a sizable amount of spoiled green tomatoes each week. Have green tomatoes on the menu all day long or don’t have them at all. The smoked salmon could go on salads or a special taco to justify its place on the line. The corn pico’s place on the line is unjustified. It only goes on one item, tostadas, which are not particularly popular. If we had a taco salad we could throw the corn pico on there. We also have unreasonable waste from unusable taco shells, smash up those imperfect taco shells and throw them on said taco salad. But before we add salads, let's get rid of the pear and kale salads. The pears' position on the line are unjustified, if we threw them on a taco variation maybe their place on the Bikini Bottom line could be argued but for now they only go on a salad that isn’t particularly popular. The kale salad is an issue of space for a 4th green for salads is too much. The krusty salad is my most hated house salad of all time. And it comes down to the toast with goat cheese. This ancillary step of spreading goat cheese on a cracker is an unnecessary step for an overly complicated dance and should be part of the expo dance if expo wasn’t a shoddily designed afterthought lacking a low boy.
There are a plethora of squeeze bottles on the pantry station that have no place on the overloaded station. They belong to an expo station with a low boy to keep them cold. Pantry has an overwhelming ten squeeze bottles: chipotle crema, sweet chili vinaigrette, buffalo, korean bbq, ranch, caesar, wine vinaigrette, lemon vinaigrette, honey mustard, and lemon aioli. Only the first four are justified on an intelligently designed fryer section, the second four belong on the build station, the last two have no place anywhere but expo. With this extra space sautee could keep their bottles and two purees cold in the fryer's lowboy instead of leaving them at room temperature all day inviting a pathogen party. This theorized intelligently designed expo would have room to keep these four squeeze bottles and a double of every sauce chilled to pour them into ramekins, a move that is highly common in the expo dance. The fact that expo doesn’t have a double of all squeeze bottles is foolish. Expo has to bother an overloaded station to pour these side sauces instead.
How many gallons of basil aioli has Bikini Bottom thrown away in 11 months? Four aiolis in general is way too many and most go on a single item; basil aioli on the incredibly unpopular veggie burger, lemon aioli for calamari, sweet chili aioli for the BLT that is only served half of the day, and garlic aioli actually goes on two items…I believe. What a colossal waste of precious little space, lose two aiolis and then you can sing the logical song with me. Perhaps we can put garlic aioli and sweet chili vinaigrette on the BLT separately and accomplish the exact same thing the sweet chili aioli does. The wings too have unneeded complications. Having worked at a sports bar specializing in wings for the better part of a decade I find KK’s plating of wings to be overly pretentious. The carrots, celery, and blue cheese have lost function. Heffer Wolf always said no one eats the carrot/celery julienne with blue cheese. It’s a complete waste of all the ingredients because you’ve gone too far with the presentation. Wings aren’t fancy. Wings are supposed to have a small pool of sauce and be sloppy. It’s like a sloppy joe that’s not sloppy, an unsloppy joe is a failure to sloppy joes just as the KK presentation of wings is a disparagement to the dish. Ever since training week back in 2022 I have used a scale to give Bikini Bottom a passing or failing grade.
Chokey Chicken to Chum Bucket is the scale I use to judge efficiency and sanity at Bikini Bottom. Both establishments are upscale casual dining experiences in Capitol City in the same vein as KK. Chokey had high employee retention and relatively smooth openings for new locations. Chum Bucket’s employee turnover was high and every location opening was chaotic. Which one sounds closer to KK? Chokey Chicken was filled with chefs I respect including Chef Ren Hoek who remains a close friend to this day. Ren lost his lifelong passion for kitchen work after working management at Chum Bucket. He’s actually seeking work in Bikini Bottom. Call him up at [phone number], but KK will give him Nam’ flashbacks of why he chose driving for a living rather than cooking for five years. The pair of us together helming Bikini Bottom with the ability to omit and create 18% of the overloaded menu can bring success to this franchise. We have worked well numerous times in the past on various concepts in the past including creating The Attack of the Pickled Tomatoes Burger for [Promotional live performance of a TV show] at the Capitol City Theater. We served 100 people in 60 at the [sitcom filming] lunch. That’s physically impossible but somehow we did it quite a few times.
A fun anecdote about Ren Hoek’s KK experience from the soft launch; on training week numerous times I brought concerns about being seafood allergy safe that were dismissed. As mentioned earlier the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter, one each of which seafood never touches. Before the soft launch Chef Stimpy from Bluffington insisted all customers just kind of know everything is prone to be seafood contaminated. Well, chef Ren was a customer that night and this absolutely was not communicated to customers. He claimed to have a slight seafood allergy and was not informed of what the crab soup was. In reality he does not have a seafood allergy. I didn’t discuss the seafood issue with Ren, separately we noticed egregious violations of food safety standards and we each responded in our own way. The soft launch service was so awful that night Chef Ren walked out of a free meal to pay for some ramen, never to return to Bikini Bottom. I attribute this oversight, and many of Bikini Bottom’s (and probably O-Town’s) problems to hubris over the Bluffington location.
Chef Chokey would also be hesitant to join the KK team. It will cost a finder’s fee just for me to reveal Chef Chokey’s name. Chef Chokey was a lead in the rapid expansion of Chokey Chicken restaurants. He opened numerous restaurants and was big on the philosophy that each restaurant must have its own personality in order to fit the unique local culture and the variety of working spaces. This is in direct conflict with the KK way that everything must be exactly like the Bluffington location no matter what. There was only one Chokey Chicken location that had the full menu, Chokey Springfield. Chokey Springfield had a large space which was intelligently designed to accommodate such a large menu. The KK menu is all over the place, closing in on 50 menu items which comes up as a failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale. This is not the only area KK comes up as a major failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale.
Has anyone in this company ever worked festival traffic before? Does anyone have the experience of working next to a major venue with 8000 seats before this one? The way Bikini Bottom handles Dimmadome services it certainly appears that the decision-makers fall on the wrong side of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Having all 50 items available during such massive traffic is completely asinine. An unwillingness to serve a partial menu is hindering the Bikini Bottom kitchen staff. I have worked festival traffic before, and Dimmadome events bring in festival traffic. I’ve worked inside a festival whose line never ended but every customer got their order in 5 minutes or less because the line kept flowing with only four items on the menu as that’s what was warranted at the B-Sharps Music Festival. I refuse to be set up for failure the way Bikini Bottom sets up Dimmadome services for failure. The entire week of concerts in [summer] 2022 I was set up for failure every day (it was after this I modified my availability to keep my sanity and my paycheck). When I brought my concerns about running efficiently during Dimmadome services I was labeled a B-worker for the first time in my employment history by Icus and Krabs. It is that moment which I was either going to holler at them both for being 2-dimensional thinkers who were obviously unqualified for the positions they accepted in this company, or just put my head down. If Bikini Bottom has a successful concert day service, hail your team because they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. They swam with concrete shoes. I often wonder how many customers had bad experiences and never returned after concert days. A Dimmadome service should have no more than 25 items and have one or two specials to divert traffic towards an area the kitchen can keep moving. An Open Cup Open Plate (OCOP) special for foot traffic is absolutely needed. When I suggested OCOP special, Heffer was intrigued by this idea and immediately named burgers as the special to keep foot traffic flowing. Smithers wouldn’t hear this idea, babbling on about what’s advertised instead of hearing out a sound idea. This prattle despite radio commercials having inaccurate hours and social media promoting Bikini Bottom’s steak tacos to this day. I always found Smithers to be a better fit as a middle management office pencil pusher than as a hands-on restaurant manager. Overall I find KK managers are selected to be automatons not to question their orders rather than critical thinkers who could take the restaurant to the next level. During brunch service is another period of time that must be modified to lessen the heft of items. Having a full menu that barely works plus brunch is so deep into Chum Bucket territory, in my opinion we now have to use the Tropic Thunder scale of full retard to describe a 60-plus-item brunch. Chef Ren hired back a Chum Bucket cook who had a mental breakdown and stormed out during brunch (plus full menu) service because Ren knew the employee was justified and upper management was completely unreasonable in their brunch requests. It’s not just questionable decisions that hinder KK staff but improper equipment as well.
This is the first restaurant I have worked at which uses a touch screen on the line rather than tickets. From day one I found this to be technology for technology’s sake inferior to tickets. Chef Ren forced a new Chum Bucket location to rip out touch screens from the line and bring in ticket printers because of the higher efficiency. The touch screen is a great idea for expo, not the entire line. My biggest gripe is that each station does not get all the information. Early on I was regularly yelled at for not staggering my items, well I can’t see the rest of the order; a problem I have never had with a ticket system. Touchscreen software is also much more prone to errors and glitches. When I reported an error during a heavy service Icus and Krabs blamed my skills on the line without looking into the malfunctioning screen further. It was glitchy for weeks before the two finally investigated and corrected the issue I brought to their attention long before. Those two gave me an immense amount of ammunition to dislike them in the opening weeks until I stopped caring. The issue I had with being unable to scroll beyond the bottom of a completely filled screen has returned and is still there as of [my last day]. There are also important details that get buried. A frequent meltdown I have is that sauce on side requests and other important modifications are not capitalized or in red to catch the eye as they have been at jobs with tickets. These details get lost on Bikini Bottom’s touchscreens. A sauce on side salad made by me will be wrong 50% of the time because of the instructions being camouflaged in a word salad. This goes for coleslaw on the side and drizzle on the side too. Drizzle in general I dislike because of the pretentiousness, but whatever, drizzle it on top rather than putting it in a ramekin if you must. There are numerous places where Bikini Bottom overcomplicates matters for reasons I cannot ascertain.
Why is there such a large variety of plates? Why do we have a medium circular plate for salads and a large bowl for salads with protein? This just confuses the simplest of matters. I was told this is done because of the high price hike with protein, a larger presentation was desired. But that price hike is the price of protein in 2023. Bikini Bottom should put all salads in the large bowls and use all the circular salad plates in a skeet shooting promotion. I understand why we have both a circular platter plate and a pizza plate but in my restaurant the circular platter plates must go...or maybe the large platter plate instead. Is the large platter used for anything besides fish and chips? That extra space on fish and chips plates are only used for side sauces which can easily be delivered to customers on small circular plates. What is the medium oval plate doing that the medium rectangular plate isn’t? And vice versa. Why do they both exist when they are approximately the same size? Let me write an internet commercial where we break a lot of plates so we can get some logical use out of the superfluous plates. I don’t care which one is destroyed, the ovals or the rectangles but one of them is an unnecessary redundancy in excess done again. Speaking of commercials, the unimaginative radio advertisements for Bikini Bottom are doing little to lure new customers to the restaurant.
The three radio spots I have heard on KBBL all sound like they were produced by a marketing 101 student who wasn’t a natural in the field. The voiceover actor was so uncharismatic I was certain someone from the office was chosen at random to read the copy. Then I heard that same voiceover actor selling pool supplies on another radio station so I concluded that Bikini Bottom must have hired the cheapest guy in town to produce the most basic of commercials. Perhaps there is someone else you could hire more qualified to voiceover these commercials, an actor with experience on an Emmy award winning cable program whose unique place in the film industry was written about on [website] would be a much wiser choice to be the voice of the KK? (See external link). In the ad there was no catchphrase, no jingle, no music whatsoever. This simple approach to commercials lacks the pizazz to catch the attention of radio listeners. The first two commercials I heard would get a C in marketing 101 as they were nearly the exact same and accomplished the bare minimum to sell wares, the third one would maybe get a B- because there was some sort of attempted gimmick with the voiceover whispering to represent thinking inside his head about what he was going to eat later at KK. Not only does this commercial give no reason for the man to think inside his head, the outside world still and unpopulated. To see what a creative person would do with this concept see the attached script. There is an attempted slogan that could become part of an ad campaign. Commercials aren’t the only lost opportunities in promotions.
There are numerous promotional celebrity tie-ins at Bikini Bottom’s fingertips with Dimmadome performers. The restaurant could have a Phish sandwich as a OCOP special on [Phish performance dates], or a pretentious Jelly Roll on [Jelly Roll performance date]. Has anyone reached out to the Dimmadome theater or talent management for approved special menu items to be promoted inside the dome? Perhaps a special 20% discount to ticket holders? Is Bikini Bottom capable of getting permits to extend Open Container hours beyond [cutoff time] for an afterparty or block party throughout a Dimmadome concert? I see additional marketing opportunities left on the table for all new locations.
I believe new KK locations are missing out on a marketing campaign by opening with the entire cumbersome 50 item menu. This is a staggering amount of menu items which is too much to ask new staffers to perfect all at once. After a few months expanding the menu by approximately ten items is catching to customers who haven’t returned after a single visit or infrequently stop into KK. There are ten new food items that might appeal to them. Just like it appears KK doesn’t know what it’s looking for in a good commercial spot, this company doesn’t appear to recognize a talented from an untalented worker until it’s too late.
It is my understanding that KK had a headhunter to find Icus, the first Bikini Bottom kitchen manager. If it were up to me I’d hire someone to break the legs of that headhunter for bringing in a subpar kitchen lead. We are still attempting to recover from the lousy choices she made in the floor plan. If anybody responsible for Bikini Bottom’s floor plan is still giving input, stop them immediately. Once the doors were open to the public Icus had his head in the clouds to a point where I questioned if he saw the writing on the walls of an imminent demotion and stopped trying as a result. I had a full deck of 3x5 cards in an archaic powerpoint presentation bringing numerous concerns to light that he kept putting off listening to until he was fired. Those same cards were broken out for this essay. The second kitchen manager, Krumm, is a good lesson in honesty. According to Heffer, Krumm was given a bill of goods about how smoothly KK Bikini Bottom was running. Since Krumm stepped into a latrine pit which he was led to believe was a heated pool, he left in short time. Krumm also had plans to modify the menu but when his bosses told him to be a rodeo clown rather than a cowboy Krumm didn’t take too kindly to that. Meanwhile Heffer was the savior of the Bikini Bottom kitchen. I didn’t agree with every single decision he made, but I did with a majority of them. Heffer’s overhaul was such a blessing so I didn’t have to fiddle with the organization of 60% of the equipment anymore, only about 20% now. Too bad Heffer’s crippling depression came back after bashing his head into the wall out of frustration with the shackles KK restrained him with.
The current management team is enthusiastic but inexperienced. I see an accumulation of small infractions that might bring down Bikini Bottom’s health department rating significantly. I see the entire management team being inattentive or unaware about organizational issues. Whatever bureaucratic nonsense corporate tasks everyone with from the original sous chef Skeeter to Patty Mayonnaise that makes them walk away from the line between 11am and 1pm especially is infuriating. I have never been left alone on a multi-person line during peak hours so regularly, and I won’t tolerate it anymore. As much as I believe in his drive, I imagine our current kitchen manager SpongeBob will be let go after a disastrous service during the Dimmadome concert season that someone has to take the fall for. Chef Ren and I could help bring experience in management and dealing with festival traffic...if corporate does not force us to follow a failing strategy.
After working nearly a year at KK you may ask why I’m not proficient on more than one station. Excellent question. First, when I move over to another station the squeeze bottles are never labeled (until Stu Pickles was hired, now they’re sometimes labeled), so I always looked at the glut of unlabeled sauces and I’d go back to my station because the basic information is missing (also a health department violation for having numerous unlabeled, unchilled bottles). In his first week the new general manager Stu Pickles pulled out 90% of the containers under the grill station because they were lacking labels despite an expected health department visit. The second reason for my menu ignorance is the mountain of prep for my own and upcoming shifts I have piled up on my station throughout service. My attention to detail appears to be next level with my ability to anticipate stocking all items for all shifts including the weeknd. The third reason I wouldn’t learn multiple stations is a defense against the afternoon conference calls. In [month] the Bikini Bottom line was unprepared for a busy post lunch because one cook was cut and our expo person was busy with a conference call. The two of us remaining on the line had a miserable slog through an unexpectedly busy afternoon. When I brought this up to Krabs he disregarded me, being a good bean counter he quoted the cost percentage. What he didn’t take into account was the missing expo person who could have jumped on the line and expo to help the understaffed two man team. That person was stuck on a conference call. Just recently I saw the company actively lose money because of this poorly thought-out meeting during business hours. A customer wanted to order a dessert that was 86ed but had been restocked by our prep cook an hour before. The server was unable to sell them their dessert because the only person in the building who could help un-86 an item was on a conference call. This conference call calamity is another bone-headed choice that speaks to a larger decision-making problem within the corporate structure. Finish the conference calls by 10:45 am eastern.
In conclusion, I quit my position as a lowly grunt for this company because of its unwarranted perplexing dance steps and below average management. I don’t care how much varnish and lacquer is supplied, I refuse to polish this Bikini Bottom turd as a manager or full-time employee under the current circumstances. You would have to take a pickaxe to the floor, possibly relocate the bathrooms to add a door to the dishpit, get rid of the cheap low boy that doesn’t properly drain excess water, and Mr Gorbachov knock down that wall in the middle of the kitchen to give the proper amount of space to work. Or simply reduce the menu to 36 items (including sides) because that’s the amount of space this dreadful design can comfortably output. Would Gordon Ramsay compliment KK for all the unnecessary convoluted complications abound, or would Chef Ramsay yell about keeping it simple and demand KK chuck it in the flip? Thanks to the numerous pop up restaurants I have been a part of and the hectic world of trade shows/conventions, I may have more experience than anyone else employed by KK in smoothly opening a new location. I would enjoy being part of the opening team to ensure new locations have an efficiency Bikini Bottom lacks, and to keep upper management away from their worst instincts. Work with me and Chef Ren and we will help you become a well oiled machine like Chokey Chicken instead of the Chum Bucket cesspit Bikini Bottom currently embodies.

I know quitting your job as a cook usually simply comes with two weeks notice or a ragequit walkout, but for eleven months I worked at a new franchise that had such potential which was being squandered by the incompetence of upper management. I present the nearly 6000 word thesis I turned in on my last day. Locations and names have been changed to cartoon references. Brackets represent ambiguous information in place of specific details.
Krusty Krab Careers Jobs
Opening in [Month/Year], Krusty Krab (KK) Bikini Bottom is on its 4th kitchen manager in less than a year. Krusty Krab O-Town has recently let go its inaugural kitchen manager and sous chef. Almost no member of the Bikini Bottom opening management team remains employed by KK. There is a pattern developing where one must question both the choice of employee and the directive given to new franchises. These lingering issues I brought concerns about in the first weeks of opening but was disregarded at every turn despite my experience with festival traffic. As a result I decided this was not a place I wanted to advance, but with a good-enough paycheck I’d be a lowly grunt in the kitchen four days a week, at five days a week I would have quit or been fired over a public outburst long ago. If Krusty Krab alters course slightly while being true to the brand this could be a successful chain.
My unique employment history in brick and mortar restaurants, food trucks, pop up culinary concepts, trade shows/conventions, and the film industry make me an ideal candidate to be on the opening team for new KK locations. My outgoing nature and foresight are valuable assets. For example, on training week before opening when I was standing around idly without a task I took it upon myself to organize the disarray that was dry storage. Overhearing Krabs tell another manager where he wanted the cleaning products placed, I had a jumping off point and the organization I created nine months ago is still largely in place. Since returning from my vacation in early February I have made it my mission to keep the storage area organized because it was again starting to resemble a hoarder’s house rather than a commercial kitchen. This is now part of my weekly routines because every time I turn my back there is more product being placed haphazardly just anywhere with little regard. I also recently reorganized the walk-in cooler because of problematic stocking with items being placed on the same shelf or below raw proteins. I also simply put all the like products together such as cheeses or fruits that were scattered amongst several shelves. With recent overordering I cannot keep up with the organization of the walk in cooler. The pattern recognition of food types and even simple shapes appears to be lost on the Bikini Bottom crew. My daily reorganization of containers is proof of this. Most days I’ll take a few minutes to put all cylinders together, all cambros together in descending volume, all deep and shallow pans next to each other rather than intermixed. My decision to be a kitchen manager at age 19 from 2005 thru 2008 and rarely enter restaurant management since is very calculated.
With my prior knowledge of professional kitchens I was becoming Bikini Bottom’s resident nag to coworkers as I made note of health department violations on a daily basis. I stopped after being largely ignored for two weeks. My regular health department nags include; a battle with jackets and hats being placed only in the designated area (a designated area that did not exist until I created a place for personal items a in January by neatly organizing the dry storage area again), waiting until prepped items are cooled before a cover is placed on top, placement of raw seafood, open containers (very often sugar, flour, and pancake mix bags ripped open and left), and dirty dishes/containers placed back in rotation. The dirty dishes and containers in rotation with the clean ones are at an atrociously high number. I have given up on making the 4th fryer seafood allergy safe too. With the low volume of seafood allergy safe items Bikini Bottom should purchase smaller baskets to visually discourage cross contamination with the other fryers and baskets. My skills to organize the kitchen do not end with simply where to store products to meet minimal health department standards.
Half of the space in the Bikini Bottom kitchen is completely wasted on an ill-advised walkway to the dishpit. An intelligent design would place a second doorway directly to the dishpit connected to the bar or where the bathrooms reside. Numerous times during the opening week of KK Bikini Bottom I said, yelled, sang, and muttered that we have too many food items for the amount of space we have. Icus stated that there was more space than Bluffington. Is Bluffington intelligently designed? Because Bikini Bottom most certainly isn’t. So Bikini Bottom actually has less space even if there is more square footage. See the attached diagram for an intelligent design that could potentially house a menu of this size. Bikini Bottom forces a line design on this kitchen when an open concept is needed for this menu. It’s as if this floorplan was created by a person who had only ever seen one commercial kitchen previously and couldn’t think 4th dimensionally to understand the needs of the workers to smoothly serve customers.
There is not enough counter space for pizzas without getting off the line, the microwave is placed completely out of the way, the freezer’s curved design is a waste of potential counter space and a falling hazard for containers stored on top of it, the toaster is an overcomplicated and overexpensive piece of machinery that serves exactly one purpose when a flat top could be used to toast bread and other purposes like a quesadilla special, sautee was designed without an overhang for spices, the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter for seafood allergies, there are no Frialator fryers which I have worked with at every single kitchen job previously instead we got the cheap Vulcan model (is that logical), the cheap low boy in pantry that doesn’t drain excess water anywhere it’s just supposed to evaporate somehow but doesn’t, the grill and fryer should be placed next to each other (with a higher volume of crossover than other stations), the floors are flat instead on having a mild decline towards the drains (just look at the standing water residing behind the oven right now), in the dishpit the spraying area and the filled sinks are backwards of a logical dipshit, the ramp to the back door is on the wrong side, there is no refrigerated place downstairs to stage extra food for busy shifts (the beer cooler is once again used for such food items because of this massive oversight), the prep station is an afterthought and miniscule, the dishes on the line are difficult to grab for anyone under 5’11” and inaccessible for anyone under 5’6” (instead of putting them underneath tables that also give that desperately needed counterspace I spoke of), there is not enough space to store to-go containers or boats behind the line, expo is lacking a low boy for the numerous items that are supposed to be cold but are instead kept at room temperature all day long, no one in management thought about buying shelves until right before Bikini Bottom opened as a result the clean full sheets sat on the floor for days, we had only the exact amount of 1⁄6 pans for an absurd amount of time making it impossible to rotate and clean them when necessary (which is daily), we still struggle with 1/9 pan supply. And just when I thought I documented all the poor design choices possible I stumbled upon a person whose office holiday party was booked at KK Bikini Bottom. The deck space works just fine as a deck. It does not double well as a gathering space. The space is too long and narrow for parties, it promotes little splitoff groups rather than a coming together of a larger gathering. It may be advantageous to contact a social psychologist for help designing a private party space that promotes intermingling rather than enforcing small pockets to form. The reorganization of the physical kitchen isn’t all that screams for an overhaul.
There are six positions on the line at the Krusty Krab; expo, oven, grill, sautee, fryer, and pantry. But the pantry and fryer positions are forced together like a bad remix. Everyone who mainly works pantry deserves a $6 raise immediately because it is a station and a half. Both Icus and Krumm, while kitchen manager, kind of acknowledged the pantry is too big for one station without outright mentioning the lopsided distribution of work. I imagine in the only location where this works, Bluffington, a second person joins the pantry at noon because of the unreasonable amount of items one person is tasked with. Bikini Bottom only has one person in this position at all times, maybe modify it for one person? The excess of items on the pantry position largely resembles a position I would call “set-up” or “build” at a previous job that made sensible choices. This build position should have tostadas, tacos, butcher’s blocks, toast, salads, lettuce wrap set ups, and preparing plating for whichever station is most bogged down. I have absolutely lost my mind yelling about salads at least once a month, ranting that they do not belong on the fryer position because of how illogical it is that five salads are included on the mountain of other items the pantry has. I have always considered working in a kitchen a kind of dance, and the pantry station demands an unnecessarily convoluted dance to keep up with the demand. Without the salads, tostadas, and tacos the station is already the busiest. Do we really need to combine ballet and swing by including these extra awkward dance steps in this single station? For a kitchen designed this poorly I suppose it is. Again, see attached document for an intelligently designed kitchen that might be able to accommodate this menu. Unless Bikini Bottom is going to close for a month to fix the baffling floor plan design the menu is shouting to be reduced to 30-36 items.
The menu is too big. Krusty Krab is the jack of all foods, master of none. In general I believe individual locations should be allowed 18% omissions, and 18% unique items to this wildly unwieldy menu sitting around 50 food items including sides. The insistence on keeping menu items that don’t sell at Bikini Bottom because of Bluffington is mind boggling. Chicken tenders do not sell at Bikini Bottom. fried sushi does not sell at Bikini Bottom, not enough to justify their place on the line. I don’t care how well these items work in Bluffinton. They. Do. Not. Work. At. Bikini. Bottom. If the KK location in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean sells an incredible amount of live krill does that mean Bikini Bottom and O-Town must sell live krill too? Take the fried sushi off the menu. I had a complete meltdown about this during a Dimmadome service and my valid point was met with indifference. Replace the kid’s tenders with a kid’s fish sticks. We already have the tilapia fish sticks on the line for tacos. Or make the kid’s fish sticks cod. We cut cod to order for fish tacos in spite of health code violations because it is too rare of an order to make beforehand. Saffron in mashed potatoes? If you must. Why are green tomatoes only on the menu during lunch? Bikini Bottom throws away a sizable amount of spoiled green tomatoes each week. Have green tomatoes on the menu all day long or don’t have them at all. The smoked salmon could go on salads or a special taco to justify its place on the line. The corn pico’s place on the line is unjustified. It only goes on one item, tostadas, which are not particularly popular. If we had a taco salad we could throw the corn pico on there. We also have unreasonable waste from unusable taco shells, smash up those imperfect taco shells and throw them on said taco salad. But before we add salads, let's get rid of the pear and kale salads. The pears' position on the line are unjustified, if we threw them on a taco variation maybe their place on the Bikini Bottom line could be argued but for now they only go on a salad that isn’t particularly popular. The kale salad is an issue of space for a 4th green for salads is too much. The krusty salad is my most hated house salad of all time. And it comes down to the toast with goat cheese. This ancillary step of spreading goat cheese on a cracker is an unnecessary step for an overly complicated dance and should be part of the expo dance if expo wasn’t a shoddily designed afterthought lacking a low boy.
There are a plethora of squeeze bottles on the pantry station that have no place on the overloaded station. They belong to an expo station with a low boy to keep them cold. Pantry has an overwhelming ten squeeze bottles: chipotle crema, sweet chili vinaigrette, buffalo, korean bbq, ranch, caesar, wine vinaigrette, lemon vinaigrette, honey mustard, and lemon aioli. Only the first four are justified on an intelligently designed fryer section, the second four belong on the build station, the last two have no place anywhere but expo. With this extra space sautee could keep their bottles and two purees cold in the fryer's lowboy instead of leaving them at room temperature all day inviting a pathogen party. This theorized intelligently designed expo would have room to keep these four squeeze bottles and a double of every sauce chilled to pour them into ramekins, a move that is highly common in the expo dance. The fact that expo doesn’t have a double of all squeeze bottles is foolish. Expo has to bother an overloaded station to pour these side sauces instead.
How many gallons of basil aioli has Bikini Bottom thrown away in 11 months? Four aiolis in general is way too many and most go on a single item; basil aioli on the incredibly unpopular veggie burger, lemon aioli for calamari, sweet chili aioli for the BLT that is only served half of the day, and garlic aioli actually goes on two items…I believe. What a colossal waste of precious little space, lose two aiolis and then you can sing the logical song with me. Perhaps we can put garlic aioli and sweet chili vinaigrette on the BLT separately and accomplish the exact same thing the sweet chili aioli does. The wings too have unneeded complications. Having worked at a sports bar specializing in wings for the better part of a decade I find KK’s plating of wings to be overly pretentious. The carrots, celery, and blue cheese have lost function. Heffer Wolf always said no one eats the carrot/celery julienne with blue cheese. It’s a complete waste of all the ingredients because you’ve gone too far with the presentation. Wings aren’t fancy. Wings are supposed to have a small pool of sauce and be sloppy. It’s like a sloppy joe that’s not sloppy, an unsloppy joe is a failure to sloppy joes just as the KK presentation of wings is a disparagement to the dish. Ever since training week back in 2022 I have used a scale to give Bikini Bottom a passing or failing grade.
Chokey Chicken to Chum Bucket is the scale I use to judge efficiency and sanity at Bikini Bottom. Both establishments are upscale casual dining experiences in Capitol City in the same vein as KK. Chokey had high employee retention and relatively smooth openings for new locations. Chum Bucket’s employee turnover was high and every location opening was chaotic. Which one sounds closer to KK? Chokey Chicken was filled with chefs I respect including Chef Ren Hoek who remains a close friend to this day. Ren lost his lifelong passion for kitchen work after working management at Chum Bucket. He’s actually seeking work in Bikini Bottom. Call him up at [phone number], but KK will give him Nam’ flashbacks of why he chose driving for a living rather than cooking for five years. The pair of us together helming Bikini Bottom with the ability to omit and create 18% of the overloaded menu can bring success to this franchise. We have worked well numerous times in the past on various concepts in the past including creating The Attack of the Pickled Tomatoes Burger for [Promotional live performance of a TV show] at the Capitol City Theater. We served 100 people in 60 at the [sitcom filming] lunch. That’s physically impossible but somehow we did it quite a few times.
A fun anecdote about Ren Hoek’s KK experience from the soft launch; on training week numerous times I brought concerns about being seafood allergy safe that were dismissed. As mentioned earlier the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter, one each of which seafood never touches. Before the soft launch Chef Stimpy from Bluffington insisted all customers just kind of know everything is prone to be seafood contaminated. Well, chef Ren was a customer that night and this absolutely was not communicated to customers. He claimed to have a slight seafood allergy and was not informed of what the crab soup was. In reality he does not have a seafood allergy. I didn’t discuss the seafood issue with Ren, separately we noticed egregious violations of food safety standards and we each responded in our own way. The soft launch service was so awful that night Chef Ren walked out of a free meal to pay for some ramen, never to return to Bikini Bottom. I attribute this oversight, and many of Bikini Bottom’s (and probably O-Town’s) problems to hubris over the Bluffington location.
Chef Chokey would also be hesitant to join the KK team. It will cost a finder’s fee just for me to reveal Chef Chokey’s name. Chef Chokey was a lead in the rapid expansion of Chokey Chicken restaurants. He opened numerous restaurants and was big on the philosophy that each restaurant must have its own personality in order to fit the unique local culture and the variety of working spaces. This is in direct conflict with the KK way that everything must be exactly like the Bluffington location no matter what. There was only one Chokey Chicken location that had the full menu, Chokey Springfield. Chokey Springfield had a large space which was intelligently designed to accommodate such a large menu. The KK menu is all over the place, closing in on 50 menu items which comes up as a failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale. This is not the only area KK comes up as a major failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale.
Has anyone in this company ever worked festival traffic before? Does anyone have the experience of working next to a major venue with 8000 seats before this one? The way Bikini Bottom handles Dimmadome services it certainly appears that the decision-makers fall on the wrong side of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Having all 50 items available during such massive traffic is completely asinine. An unwillingness to serve a partial menu is hindering the Bikini Bottom kitchen staff. I have worked festival traffic before, and Dimmadome events bring in festival traffic. I’ve worked inside a festival whose line never ended but every customer got their order in 5 minutes or less because the line kept flowing with only four items on the menu as that’s what was warranted at the B-Sharps Music Festival. I refuse to be set up for failure the way Bikini Bottom sets up Dimmadome services for failure. The entire week of concerts in [summer] 2022 I was set up for failure every day (it was after this I modified my availability to keep my sanity and my paycheck). When I brought my concerns about running efficiently during Dimmadome services I was labeled a B-worker for the first time in my employment history by Icus and Krabs. It is that moment which I was either going to holler at them both for being 2-dimensional thinkers who were obviously unqualified for the positions they accepted in this company, or just put my head down. If Bikini Bottom has a successful concert day service, hail your team because they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. They swam with concrete shoes. I often wonder how many customers had bad experiences and never returned after concert days. A Dimmadome service should have no more than 25 items and have one or two specials to divert traffic towards an area the kitchen can keep moving. An Open Cup Open Plate (OCOP) special for foot traffic is absolutely needed. When I suggested OCOP special, Heffer was intrigued by this idea and immediately named burgers as the special to keep foot traffic flowing. Smithers wouldn’t hear this idea, babbling on about what’s advertised instead of hearing out a sound idea. This prattle despite radio commercials having inaccurate hours and social media promoting Bikini Bottom’s steak tacos to this day. I always found Smithers to be a better fit as a middle management office pencil pusher than as a hands-on restaurant manager. Overall I find KK managers are selected to be automatons not to question their orders rather than critical thinkers who could take the restaurant to the next level. During brunch service is another period of time that must be modified to lessen the heft of items. Having a full menu that barely works plus brunch is so deep into Chum Bucket territory, in my opinion we now have to use the Tropic Thunder scale of full retard to describe a 60-plus-item brunch. Chef Ren hired back a Chum Bucket cook who had a mental breakdown and stormed out during brunch (plus full menu) service because Ren knew the employee was justified and upper management was completely unreasonable in their brunch requests. It’s not just questionable decisions that hinder KK staff but improper equipment as well.
This is the first restaurant I have worked at which uses a touch screen on the line rather than tickets. From day one I found this to be technology for technology’s sake inferior to tickets. Chef Ren forced a new Chum Bucket location to rip out touch screens from the line and bring in ticket printers because of the higher efficiency. The touch screen is a great idea for expo, not the entire line. My biggest gripe is that each station does not get all the information. Early on I was regularly yelled at for not staggering my items, well I can’t see the rest of the order; a problem I have never had with a ticket system. Touchscreen software is also much more prone to errors and glitches. When I reported an error during a heavy service Icus and Krabs blamed my skills on the line without looking into the malfunctioning screen further. It was glitchy for weeks before the two finally investigated and corrected the issue I brought to their attention long before. Those two gave me an immense amount of ammunition to dislike them in the opening weeks until I stopped caring. The issue I had with being unable to scroll beyond the bottom of a completely filled screen has returned and is still there as of [my last day]. There are also important details that get buried. A frequent meltdown I have is that sauce on side requests and other important modifications are not capitalized or in red to catch the eye as they have been at jobs with tickets. These details get lost on Bikini Bottom’s touchscreens. A sauce on side salad made by me will be wrong 50% of the time because of the instructions being camouflaged in a word salad. This goes for coleslaw on the side and drizzle on the side too. Drizzle in general I dislike because of the pretentiousness, but whatever, drizzle it on top rather than putting it in a ramekin if you must. There are numerous places where Bikini Bottom overcomplicates matters for reasons I cannot ascertain.
Why is there such a large variety of plates? Why do we have a medium circular plate for salads and a large bowl for salads with protein? This just confuses the simplest of matters. I was told this is done because of the high price hike with protein, a larger presentation was desired. But that price hike is the price of protein in 2023. Bikini Bottom should put all salads in the large bowls and use all the circular salad plates in a skeet shooting promotion. I understand why we have both a circular platter plate and a pizza plate but in my restaurant the circular platter plates must go...or maybe the large platter plate instead. Is the large platter used for anything besides fish and chips? That extra space on fish and chips plates are only used for side sauces which can easily be delivered to customers on small circular plates. What is the medium oval plate doing that the medium rectangular plate isn’t? And vice versa. Why do they both exist when they are approximately the same size? Let me write an internet commercial where we break a lot of plates so we can get some logical use out of the superfluous plates. I don’t care which one is destroyed, the ovals or the rectangles but one of them is an unnecessary redundancy in excess done again. Speaking of commercials, the unimaginative radio advertisements for Bikini Bottom are doing little to lure new customers to the restaurant.
The three radio spots I have heard on KBBL all sound like they were produced by a marketing 101 student who wasn’t a natural in the field. The voiceover actor was so uncharismatic I was certain someone from the office was chosen at random to read the copy. Then I heard that same voiceover actor selling pool supplies on another radio station so I concluded that Bikini Bottom must have hired the cheapest guy in town to produce the most basic of commercials. Perhaps there is someone else you could hire more qualified to voiceover these commercials, an actor with experience on an Emmy award winning cable program whose unique place in the film industry was written about on [website] would be a much wiser choice to be the voice of the KK? (See external link). In the ad there was no catchphrase, no jingle, no music whatsoever. This simple approach to commercials lacks the pizazz to catch the attention of radio listeners. The first two commercials I heard would get a C in marketing 101 as they were nearly the exact same and accomplished the bare minimum to sell wares, the third one would maybe get a B- because there was some sort of attempted gimmick with the voiceover whispering to represent thinking inside his head about what he was going to eat later at KK. Not only does this commercial give no reason for the man to think inside his head, the outside world still and unpopulated. To see what a creative person would do with this concept see the attached script. There is an attempted slogan that could become part of an ad campaign. Commercials aren’t the only lost opportunities in promotions.
There are numerous promotional celebrity tie-ins at Bikini Bottom’s fingertips with Dimmadome performers. The restaurant could have a Phish sandwich as a OCOP special on [Phish performance dates], or a pretentious Jelly Roll on [Jelly Roll performance date]. Has anyone reached out to the Dimmadome theater or talent management for approved special menu items to be promoted inside the dome? Perhaps a special 20% discount to ticket holders? Is Bikini Bottom capable of getting permits to extend Open Container hours beyond [cutoff time] for an afterparty or block party throughout a Dimmadome concert? I see additional marketing opportunities left on the table for all new locations.
I believe new KK locations are missing out on a marketing campaign by opening with the entire cumbersome 50 item menu. This is a staggering amount of menu items which is too much to ask new staffers to perfect all at once. After a few months expanding the menu by approximately ten items is catching to customers who haven’t returned after a single visit or infrequently stop into KK. There are ten new food items that might appeal to them. Just like it appears KK doesn’t know what it’s looking for in a good commercial spot, this company doesn’t appear to recognize a talented from an untalented worker until it’s too late.
It is my understanding that KK had a headhunter to find Icus, the first Bikini Bottom kitchen manager. If it were up to me I’d hire someone to break the legs of that headhunter for bringing in a subpar kitchen lead. We are still attempting to recover from the lousy choices she made in the floor plan. If anybody responsible for Bikini Bottom’s floor plan is still giving input, stop them immediately. Once the doors were open to the public Icus had his head in the clouds to a point where I questioned if he saw the writing on the walls of an imminent demotion and stopped trying as a result. I had a full deck of 3x5 cards in an archaic powerpoint presentation bringing numerous concerns to light that he kept putting off listening to until he was fired. Those same cards were broken out for this essay. The second kitchen manager, Krumm, is a good lesson in honesty. According to Heffer, Krumm was given a bill of goods about how smoothly KK Bikini Bottom was running. Since Krumm stepped into a latrine pit which he was led to believe was a heated pool, he left in short time. Krumm also had plans to modify the menu but when his bosses told him to be a rodeo clown rather than a cowboy Krumm didn’t take too kindly to that. Meanwhile Heffer was the savior of the Bikini Bottom kitchen. I didn’t agree with every single decision he made, but I did with a majority of them. Heffer’s overhaul was such a blessing so I didn’t have to fiddle with the organization of 60% of the equipment anymore, only about 20% now. Too bad Heffer’s crippling depression came back after bashing his head into the wall out of frustration with the shackles KK restrained him with.
The current management team is enthusiastic but inexperienced. I see an accumulation of small infractions that might bring down Bikini Bottom’s health department rating significantly. I see the entire management team being inattentive or unaware about organizational issues. Whatever bureaucratic nonsense corporate tasks everyone with from the original sous chef Skeeter to Patty Mayonnaise that makes them walk away from the line between 11am and 1pm especially is infuriating. I have never been left alone on a multi-person line during peak hours so regularly, and I won’t tolerate it anymore. As much as I believe in his drive, I imagine our current kitchen manager SpongeBob will be let go after a disastrous service during the Dimmadome concert season that someone has to take the fall for. Chef Ren and I could help bring experience in management and dealing with festival traffic...if corporate does not force us to follow a failing strategy.
After working nearly a year at KK you may ask why I’m not proficient on more than one station. Excellent question. First, when I move over to another station the squeeze bottles are never labeled (until Stu Pickles was hired, now they’re sometimes labeled), so I always looked at the glut of unlabeled sauces and I’d go back to my station because the basic information is missing (also a health department violation for having numerous unlabeled, unchilled bottles). In his first week the new general manager Stu Pickles pulled out 90% of the containers under the grill station because they were lacking labels despite an expected health department visit. The second reason for my menu ignorance is the mountain of prep for my own and upcoming shifts I have piled up on my station throughout service. My attention to detail appears to be next level with my ability to anticipate stocking all items for all shifts including the weeknd. The third reason I wouldn’t learn multiple stations is a defense against the afternoon conference calls. In [month] the Bikini Bottom line was unprepared for a busy post lunch because one cook was cut and our expo person was busy with a conference call. The two of us remaining on the line had a miserable slog through an unexpectedly busy afternoon. When I brought this up to Krabs he disregarded me, being a good bean counter he quoted the cost percentage. What he didn’t take into account was the missing expo person who could have jumped on the line and expo to help the understaffed two man team. That person was stuck on a conference call. Just recently I saw the company actively lose money because of this poorly thought-out meeting during business hours. A customer wanted to order a dessert that was 86ed but had been restocked by our prep cook an hour before. The server was unable to sell them their dessert because the only person in the building who could help un-86 an item was on a conference call. This conference call calamity is another bone-headed choice that speaks to a larger decision-making problem within the corporate structure. Finish the conference calls by 10:45 am eastern.
In conclusion, I quit my position as a lowly grunt for this company because of its unwarranted perplexing dance steps and below average management. I don’t care how much varnish and lacquer is supplied, I refuse to polish this Bikini Bottom turd as a manager or full-time employee under the current circumstances. You would have to take a pickaxe to the floor, possibly relocate the bathrooms to add a door to the dishpit, get rid of the cheap low boy that doesn’t properly drain excess water, and Mr Gorbachov knock down that wall in the middle of the kitchen to give the proper amount of space to work. Or simply reduce the menu to 36 items (including sides) because that’s the amount of space this dreadful design can comfortably output. Would Gordon Ramsay compliment KK for all the unnecessary convoluted complications abound, or would Chef Ramsay yell about keeping it simple and demand KK chuck it in the flip? Thanks to the numerous pop up restaurants I have been a part of and the hectic world of trade shows/conventions, I may have more experience than anyone else employed by KK in smoothly opening a new location. I would enjoy being part of the opening team to ensure new locations have an efficiency Bikini Bottom lacks, and to keep upper management away from their worst instincts. Work with me and Chef Ren and we will help you become a well oiled machine like Chokey Chicken instead of the Chum Bucket cesspit Bikini Bottom currently embodies.

I know quitting your job as a cook usually simply comes with two weeks notice or a ragequit walkout, but for eleven months I worked at a new franchise that had such potential which was being squandered by the incompetence of upper management. I present the nearly 6000 word thesis I turned in on my last day. Locations and names have been changed to cartoon references. Brackets represent ambiguous information in place of specific details.
Krusty Krab Careers Jobs
Opening in [Month/Year], Krusty Krab (KK) Bikini Bottom is on its 4th kitchen manager in less than a year. Krusty Krab O-Town has recently let go its inaugural kitchen manager and sous chef. Almost no member of the Bikini Bottom opening management team remains employed by KK. There is a pattern developing where one must question both the choice of employee and the directive given to new franchises. These lingering issues I brought concerns about in the first weeks of opening but was disregarded at every turn despite my experience with festival traffic. As a result I decided this was not a place I wanted to advance, but with a good-enough paycheck I’d be a lowly grunt in the kitchen four days a week, at five days a week I would have quit or been fired over a public outburst long ago. If Krusty Krab alters course slightly while being true to the brand this could be a successful chain.
My unique employment history in brick and mortar restaurants, food trucks, pop up culinary concepts, trade shows/conventions, and the film industry make me an ideal candidate to be on the opening team for new KK locations. My outgoing nature and foresight are valuable assets. For example, on training week before opening when I was standing around idly without a task I took it upon myself to organize the disarray that was dry storage. Overhearing Krabs tell another manager where he wanted the cleaning products placed, I had a jumping off point and the organization I created nine months ago is still largely in place. Since returning from my vacation in early February I have made it my mission to keep the storage area organized because it was again starting to resemble a hoarder’s house rather than a commercial kitchen. This is now part of my weekly routines because every time I turn my back there is more product being placed haphazardly just anywhere with little regard. I also recently reorganized the walk-in cooler because of problematic stocking with items being placed on the same shelf or below raw proteins. I also simply put all the like products together such as cheeses or fruits that were scattered amongst several shelves. With recent overordering I cannot keep up with the organization of the walk in cooler. The pattern recognition of food types and even simple shapes appears to be lost on the Bikini Bottom crew. My daily reorganization of containers is proof of this. Most days I’ll take a few minutes to put all cylinders together, all cambros together in descending volume, all deep and shallow pans next to each other rather than intermixed. My decision to be a kitchen manager at age 19 from 2005 thru 2008 and rarely enter restaurant management since is very calculated.
With my prior knowledge of professional kitchens I was becoming Bikini Bottom’s resident nag to coworkers as I made note of health department violations on a daily basis. I stopped after being largely ignored for two weeks. My regular health department nags include; a battle with jackets and hats being placed only in the designated area (a designated area that did not exist until I created a place for personal items a in January by neatly organizing the dry storage area again), waiting until prepped items are cooled before a cover is placed on top, placement of raw seafood, open containers (very often sugar, flour, and pancake mix bags ripped open and left), and dirty dishes/containers placed back in rotation. The dirty dishes and containers in rotation with the clean ones are at an atrociously high number. I have given up on making the 4th fryer seafood allergy safe too. With the low volume of seafood allergy safe items Bikini Bottom should purchase smaller baskets to visually discourage cross contamination with the other fryers and baskets. My skills to organize the kitchen do not end with simply where to store products to meet minimal health department standards.
Half of the space in the Bikini Bottom kitchen is completely wasted on an ill-advised walkway to the dishpit. An intelligent design would place a second doorway directly to the dishpit connected to the bar or where the bathrooms reside. Numerous times during the opening week of KK Bikini Bottom I said, yelled, sang, and muttered that we have too many food items for the amount of space we have. Icus stated that there was more space than Bluffington. Is Bluffington intelligently designed? Because Bikini Bottom most certainly isn’t. So Bikini Bottom actually has less space even if there is more square footage. See the attached diagram for an intelligent design that could potentially house a menu of this size. Bikini Bottom forces a line design on this kitchen when an open concept is needed for this menu. It’s as if this floorplan was created by a person who had only ever seen one commercial kitchen previously and couldn’t think 4th dimensionally to understand the needs of the workers to smoothly serve customers.
There is not enough counter space for pizzas without getting off the line, the microwave is placed completely out of the way, the freezer’s curved design is a waste of potential counter space and a falling hazard for containers stored on top of it, the toaster is an overcomplicated and overexpensive piece of machinery that serves exactly one purpose when a flat top could be used to toast bread and other purposes like a quesadilla special, sautee was designed without an overhang for spices, the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter for seafood allergies, there are no Frialator fryers which I have worked with at every single kitchen job previously instead we got the cheap Vulcan model (is that logical), the cheap low boy in pantry that doesn’t drain excess water anywhere it’s just supposed to evaporate somehow but doesn’t, the grill and fryer should be placed next to each other (with a higher volume of crossover than other stations), the floors are flat instead on having a mild decline towards the drains (just look at the standing water residing behind the oven right now), in the dishpit the spraying area and the filled sinks are backwards of a logical dipshit, the ramp to the back door is on the wrong side, there is no refrigerated place downstairs to stage extra food for busy shifts (the beer cooler is once again used for such food items because of this massive oversight), the prep station is an afterthought and miniscule, the dishes on the line are difficult to grab for anyone under 5’11” and inaccessible for anyone under 5’6” (instead of putting them underneath tables that also give that desperately needed counterspace I spoke of), there is not enough space to store to-go containers or boats behind the line, expo is lacking a low boy for the numerous items that are supposed to be cold but are instead kept at room temperature all day long, no one in management thought about buying shelves until right before Bikini Bottom opened as a result the clean full sheets sat on the floor for days, we had only the exact amount of 1⁄6 pans for an absurd amount of time making it impossible to rotate and clean them when necessary (which is daily), we still struggle with 1/9 pan supply. And just when I thought I documented all the poor design choices possible I stumbled upon a person whose office holiday party was booked at KK Bikini Bottom. The deck space works just fine as a deck. It does not double well as a gathering space. The space is too long and narrow for parties, it promotes little splitoff groups rather than a coming together of a larger gathering. It may be advantageous to contact a social psychologist for help designing a private party space that promotes intermingling rather than enforcing small pockets to form. The reorganization of the physical kitchen isn’t all that screams for an overhaul.
There are six positions on the line at the Krusty Krab; expo, oven, grill, sautee, fryer, and pantry. But the pantry and fryer positions are forced together like a bad remix. Everyone who mainly works pantry deserves a $6 raise immediately because it is a station and a half. Both Icus and Krumm, while kitchen manager, kind of acknowledged the pantry is too big for one station without outright mentioning the lopsided distribution of work. I imagine in the only location where this works, Bluffington, a second person joins the pantry at noon because of the unreasonable amount of items one person is tasked with. Bikini Bottom only has one person in this position at all times, maybe modify it for one person? The excess of items on the pantry position largely resembles a position I would call “set-up” or “build” at a previous job that made sensible choices. This build position should have tostadas, tacos, butcher’s blocks, toast, salads, lettuce wrap set ups, and preparing plating for whichever station is most bogged down. I have absolutely lost my mind yelling about salads at least once a month, ranting that they do not belong on the fryer position because of how illogical it is that five salads are included on the mountain of other items the pantry has. I have always considered working in a kitchen a kind of dance, and the pantry station demands an unnecessarily convoluted dance to keep up with the demand. Without the salads, tostadas, and tacos the station is already the busiest. Do we really need to combine ballet and swing by including these extra awkward dance steps in this single station? For a kitchen designed this poorly I suppose it is. Again, see attached document for an intelligently designed kitchen that might be able to accommodate this menu. Unless Bikini Bottom is going to close for a month to fix the baffling floor plan design the menu is shouting to be reduced to 30-36 items.
The menu is too big. Krusty Krab is the jack of all foods, master of none. In general I believe individual locations should be allowed 18% omissions, and 18% unique items to this wildly unwieldy menu sitting around 50 food items including sides. The insistence on keeping menu items that don’t sell at Bikini Bottom because of Bluffington is mind boggling. Chicken tenders do not sell at Bikini Bottom. fried sushi does not sell at Bikini Bottom, not enough to justify their place on the line. I don’t care how well these items work in Bluffinton. They. Do. Not. Work. At. Bikini. Bottom. If the KK location in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean sells an incredible amount of live krill does that mean Bikini Bottom and O-Town must sell live krill too? Take the fried sushi off the menu. I had a complete meltdown about this during a Dimmadome service and my valid point was met with indifference. Replace the kid’s tenders with a kid’s fish sticks. We already have the tilapia fish sticks on the line for tacos. Or make the kid’s fish sticks cod. We cut cod to order for fish tacos in spite of health code violations because it is too rare of an order to make beforehand. Saffron in mashed potatoes? If you must. Why are green tomatoes only on the menu during lunch? Bikini Bottom throws away a sizable amount of spoiled green tomatoes each week. Have green tomatoes on the menu all day long or don’t have them at all. The smoked salmon could go on salads or a special taco to justify its place on the line. The corn pico’s place on the line is unjustified. It only goes on one item, tostadas, which are not particularly popular. If we had a taco salad we could throw the corn pico on there. We also have unreasonable waste from unusable taco shells, smash up those imperfect taco shells and throw them on said taco salad. But before we add salads, let's get rid of the pear and kale salads. The pears' position on the line are unjustified, if we threw them on a taco variation maybe their place on the Bikini Bottom line could be argued but for now they only go on a salad that isn’t particularly popular. The kale salad is an issue of space for a 4th green for salads is too much. The krusty salad is my most hated house salad of all time. And it comes down to the toast with goat cheese. This ancillary step of spreading goat cheese on a cracker is an unnecessary step for an overly complicated dance and should be part of the expo dance if expo wasn’t a shoddily designed afterthought lacking a low boy.
There are a plethora of squeeze bottles on the pantry station that have no place on the overloaded station. They belong to an expo station with a low boy to keep them cold. Pantry has an overwhelming ten squeeze bottles: chipotle crema, sweet chili vinaigrette, buffalo, korean bbq, ranch, caesar, wine vinaigrette, lemon vinaigrette, honey mustard, and lemon aioli. Only the first four are justified on an intelligently designed fryer section, the second four belong on the build station, the last two have no place anywhere but expo. With this extra space sautee could keep their bottles and two purees cold in the fryer's lowboy instead of leaving them at room temperature all day inviting a pathogen party. This theorized intelligently designed expo would have room to keep these four squeeze bottles and a double of every sauce chilled to pour them into ramekins, a move that is highly common in the expo dance. The fact that expo doesn’t have a double of all squeeze bottles is foolish. Expo has to bother an overloaded station to pour these side sauces instead.
How many gallons of basil aioli has Bikini Bottom thrown away in 11 months? Four aiolis in general is way too many and most go on a single item; basil aioli on the incredibly unpopular veggie burger, lemon aioli for calamari, sweet chili aioli for the BLT that is only served half of the day, and garlic aioli actually goes on two items…I believe. What a colossal waste of precious little space, lose two aiolis and then you can sing the logical song with me. Perhaps we can put garlic aioli and sweet chili vinaigrette on the BLT separately and accomplish the exact same thing the sweet chili aioli does. The wings too have unneeded complications. Having worked at a sports bar specializing in wings for the better part of a decade I find KK’s plating of wings to be overly pretentious. The carrots, celery, and blue cheese have lost function. Heffer Wolf always said no one eats the carrot/celery julienne with blue cheese. It’s a complete waste of all the ingredients because you’ve gone too far with the presentation. Wings aren’t fancy. Wings are supposed to have a small pool of sauce and be sloppy. It’s like a sloppy joe that’s not sloppy, an unsloppy joe is a failure to sloppy joes just as the KK presentation of wings is a disparagement to the dish. Ever since training week back in 2022 I have used a scale to give Bikini Bottom a passing or failing grade.
Chokey Chicken to Chum Bucket is the scale I use to judge efficiency and sanity at Bikini Bottom. Both establishments are upscale casual dining experiences in Capitol City in the same vein as KK. Chokey had high employee retention and relatively smooth openings for new locations. Chum Bucket’s employee turnover was high and every location opening was chaotic. Which one sounds closer to KK? Chokey Chicken was filled with chefs I respect including Chef Ren Hoek who remains a close friend to this day. Ren lost his lifelong passion for kitchen work after working management at Chum Bucket. He’s actually seeking work in Bikini Bottom. Call him up at [phone number], but KK will give him Nam’ flashbacks of why he chose driving for a living rather than cooking for five years. The pair of us together helming Bikini Bottom with the ability to omit and create 18% of the overloaded menu can bring success to this franchise. We have worked well numerous times in the past on various concepts in the past including creating The Attack of the Pickled Tomatoes Burger for [Promotional live performance of a TV show] at the Capitol City Theater. We served 100 people in 60 at the [sitcom filming] lunch. That’s physically impossible but somehow we did it quite a few times.
A fun anecdote about Ren Hoek’s KK experience from the soft launch; on training week numerous times I brought concerns about being seafood allergy safe that were dismissed. As mentioned earlier the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter, one each of which seafood never touches. Before the soft launch Chef Stimpy from Bluffington insisted all customers just kind of know everything is prone to be seafood contaminated. Well, chef Ren was a customer that night and this absolutely was not communicated to customers. He claimed to have a slight seafood allergy and was not informed of what the crab soup was. In reality he does not have a seafood allergy. I didn’t discuss the seafood issue with Ren, separately we noticed egregious violations of food safety standards and we each responded in our own way. The soft launch service was so awful that night Chef Ren walked out of a free meal to pay for some ramen, never to return to Bikini Bottom. I attribute this oversight, and many of Bikini Bottom’s (and probably O-Town’s) problems to hubris over the Bluffington location.
Chef Chokey would also be hesitant to join the KK team. It will cost a finder’s fee just for me to reveal Chef Chokey’s name. Chef Chokey was a lead in the rapid expansion of Chokey Chicken restaurants. He opened numerous restaurants and was big on the philosophy that each restaurant must have its own personality in order to fit the unique local culture and the variety of working spaces. This is in direct conflict with the KK way that everything must be exactly like the Bluffington location no matter what. There was only one Chokey Chicken location that had the full menu, Chokey Springfield. Chokey Springfield had a large space which was intelligently designed to accommodate such a large menu. The KK menu is all over the place, closing in on 50 menu items which comes up as a failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale. This is not the only area KK comes up as a major failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale.
Has anyone in this company ever worked festival traffic before? Does anyone have the experience of working next to a major venue with 8000 seats before this one? The way Bikini Bottom handles Dimmadome services it certainly appears that the decision-makers fall on the wrong side of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Having all 50 items available during such massive traffic is completely asinine. An unwillingness to serve a partial menu is hindering the Bikini Bottom kitchen staff. I have worked festival traffic before, and Dimmadome events bring in festival traffic. I’ve worked inside a festival whose line never ended but every customer got their order in 5 minutes or less because the line kept flowing with only four items on the menu as that’s what was warranted at the B-Sharps Music Festival. I refuse to be set up for failure the way Bikini Bottom sets up Dimmadome services for failure. The entire week of concerts in [summer] 2022 I was set up for failure every day (it was after this I modified my availability to keep my sanity and my paycheck). When I brought my concerns about running efficiently during Dimmadome services I was labeled a B-worker for the first time in my employment history by Icus and Krabs. It is that moment which I was either going to holler at them both for being 2-dimensional thinkers who were obviously unqualified for the positions they accepted in this company, or just put my head down. If Bikini Bottom has a successful concert day service, hail your team because they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. They swam with concrete shoes. I often wonder how many customers had bad experiences and never returned after concert days. A Dimmadome service should have no more than 25 items and have one or two specials to divert traffic towards an area the kitchen can keep moving. An Open Cup Open Plate (OCOP) special for foot traffic is absolutely needed. When I suggested OCOP special, Heffer was intrigued by this idea and immediately named burgers as the special to keep foot traffic flowing. Smithers wouldn’t hear this idea, babbling on about what’s advertised instead of hearing out a sound idea. This prattle despite radio commercials having inaccurate hours and social media promoting Bikini Bottom’s steak tacos to this day. I always found Smithers to be a better fit as a middle management office pencil pusher than as a hands-on restaurant manager. Overall I find KK managers are selected to be automatons not to question their orders rather than critical thinkers who could take the restaurant to the next level. During brunch service is another period of time that must be modified to lessen the heft of items. Having a full menu that barely works plus brunch is so deep into Chum Bucket territory, in my opinion we now have to use the Tropic Thunder scale of full retard to describe a 60-plus-item brunch. Chef Ren hired back a Chum Bucket cook who had a mental breakdown and stormed out during brunch (plus full menu) service because Ren knew the employee was justified and upper management was completely unreasonable in their brunch requests. It’s not just questionable decisions that hinder KK staff but improper equipment as well.
This is the first restaurant I have worked at which uses a touch screen on the line rather than tickets. From day one I found this to be technology for technology’s sake inferior to tickets. Chef Ren forced a new Chum Bucket location to rip out touch screens from the line and bring in ticket printers because of the higher efficiency. The touch screen is a great idea for expo, not the entire line. My biggest gripe is that each station does not get all the information. Early on I was regularly yelled at for not staggering my items, well I can’t see the rest of the order; a problem I have never had with a ticket system. Touchscreen software is also much more prone to errors and glitches. When I reported an error during a heavy service Icus and Krabs blamed my skills on the line without looking into the malfunctioning screen further. It was glitchy for weeks before the two finally investigated and corrected the issue I brought to their attention long before. Those two gave me an immense amount of ammunition to dislike them in the opening weeks until I stopped caring. The issue I had with being unable to scroll beyond the bottom of a completely filled screen has returned and is still there as of [my last day]. There are also important details that get buried. A frequent meltdown I have is that sauce on side requests and other important modifications are not capitalized or in red to catch the eye as they have been at jobs with tickets. These details get lost on Bikini Bottom’s touchscreens. A sauce on side salad made by me will be wrong 50% of the time because of the instructions being camouflaged in a word salad. This goes for coleslaw on the side and drizzle on the side too. Drizzle in general I dislike because of the pretentiousness, but whatever, drizzle it on top rather than putting it in a ramekin if you must. There are numerous places where Bikini Bottom overcomplicates matters for reasons I cannot ascertain.
Why is there such a large variety of plates? Why do we have a medium circular plate for salads and a large bowl for salads with protein? This just confuses the simplest of matters. I was told this is done because of the high price hike with protein, a larger presentation was desired. But that price hike is the price of protein in 2023. Bikini Bottom should put all salads in the large bowls and use all the circular salad plates in a skeet shooting promotion. I understand why we have both a circular platter plate and a pizza plate but in my restaurant the circular platter plates must go...or maybe the large platter plate instead. Is the large platter used for anything besides fish and chips? That extra space on fish and chips plates are only used for side sauces which can easily be delivered to customers on small circular plates. What is the medium oval plate doing that the medium rectangular plate isn’t? And vice versa. Why do they both exist when they are approximately the same size? Let me write an internet commercial where we break a lot of plates so we can get some logical use out of the superfluous plates. I don’t care which one is destroyed, the ovals or the rectangles but one of them is an unnecessary redundancy in excess done again. Speaking of commercials, the unimaginative radio advertisements for Bikini Bottom are doing little to lure new customers to the restaurant.
The three radio spots I have heard on KBBL all sound like they were produced by a marketing 101 student who wasn’t a natural in the field. The voiceover actor was so uncharismatic I was certain someone from the office was chosen at random to read the copy. Then I heard that same voiceover actor selling pool supplies on another radio station so I concluded that Bikini Bottom must have hired the cheapest guy in town to produce the most basic of commercials. Perhaps there is someone else you could hire more qualified to voiceover these commercials, an actor with experience on an Emmy award winning cable program whose unique place in the film industry was written about on [website] would be a much wiser choice to be the voice of the KK? (See external link). In the ad there was no catchphrase, no jingle, no music whatsoever. This simple approach to commercials lacks the pizazz to catch the attention of radio listeners. The first two commercials I heard would get a C in marketing 101 as they were nearly the exact same and accomplished the bare minimum to sell wares, the third one would maybe get a B- because there was some sort of attempted gimmick with the voiceover whispering to represent thinking inside his head about what he was going to eat later at KK. Not only does this commercial give no reason for the man to think inside his head, the outside world still and unpopulated. To see what a creative person would do with this concept see the attached script. There is an attempted slogan that could become part of an ad campaign. Commercials aren’t the only lost opportunities in promotions.
There are numerous promotional celebrity tie-ins at Bikini Bottom’s fingertips with Dimmadome performers. The restaurant could have a Phish sandwich as a OCOP special on [Phish performance dates], or a pretentious Jelly Roll on [Jelly Roll performance date]. Has anyone reached out to the Dimmadome theater or talent management for approved special menu items to be promoted inside the dome? Perhaps a special 20% discount to ticket holders? Is Bikini Bottom capable of getting permits to extend Open Container hours beyond [cutoff time] for an afterparty or block party throughout a Dimmadome concert? I see additional marketing opportunities left on the table for all new locations.
I believe new KK locations are missing out on a marketing campaign by opening with the entire cumbersome 50 item menu. This is a staggering amount of menu items which is too much to ask new staffers to perfect all at once. After a few months expanding the menu by approximately ten items is catching to customers who haven’t returned after a single visit or infrequently stop into KK. There are ten new food items that might appeal to them. Just like it appears KK doesn’t know what it’s looking for in a good commercial spot, this company doesn’t appear to recognize a talented from an untalented worker until it’s too late.
It is my understanding that KK had a headhunter to find Icus, the first Bikini Bottom kitchen manager. If it were up to me I’d hire someone to break the legs of that headhunter for bringing in a subpar kitchen lead. We are still attempting to recover from the lousy choices she made in the floor plan. If anybody responsible for Bikini Bottom’s floor plan is still giving input, stop them immediately. Once the doors were open to the public Icus had his head in the clouds to a point where I questioned if he saw the writing on the walls of an imminent demotion and stopped trying as a result. I had a full deck of 3x5 cards in an archaic powerpoint presentation bringing numerous concerns to light that he kept putting off listening to until he was fired. Those same cards were broken out for this essay. The second kitchen manager, Krumm, is a good lesson in honesty. According to Heffer, Krumm was given a bill of goods about how smoothly KK Bikini Bottom was running. Since Krumm stepped into a latrine pit which he was led to believe was a heated pool, he left in short time. Krumm also had plans to modify the menu but when his bosses told him to be a rodeo clown rather than a cowboy Krumm didn’t take too kindly to that. Meanwhile Heffer was the savior of the Bikini Bottom kitchen. I didn’t agree with every single decision he made, but I did with a majority of them. Heffer’s overhaul was such a blessing so I didn’t have to fiddle with the organization of 60% of the equipment anymore, only about 20% now. Too bad Heffer’s crippling depression came back after bashing his head into the wall out of frustration with the shackles KK restrained him with.
The current management team is enthusiastic but inexperienced. I see an accumulation of small infractions that might bring down Bikini Bottom’s health department rating significantly. I see the entire management team being inattentive or unaware about organizational issues. Whatever bureaucratic nonsense corporate tasks everyone with from the original sous chef Skeeter to Patty Mayonnaise that makes them walk away from the line between 11am and 1pm especially is infuriating. I have never been left alone on a multi-person line during peak hours so regularly, and I won’t tolerate it anymore. As much as I believe in his drive, I imagine our current kitchen manager SpongeBob will be let go after a disastrous service during the Dimmadome concert season that someone has to take the fall for. Chef Ren and I could help bring experience in management and dealing with festival traffic...if corporate does not force us to follow a failing strategy.
After working nearly a year at KK you may ask why I’m not proficient on more than one station. Excellent question. First, when I move over to another station the squeeze bottles are never labeled (until Stu Pickles was hired, now they’re sometimes labeled), so I always looked at the glut of unlabeled sauces and I’d go back to my station because the basic information is missing (also a health department violation for having numerous unlabeled, unchilled bottles). In his first week the new general manager Stu Pickles pulled out 90% of the containers under the grill station because they were lacking labels despite an expected health department visit. The second reason for my menu ignorance is the mountain of prep for my own and upcoming shifts I have piled up on my station throughout service. My attention to detail appears to be next level with my ability to anticipate stocking all items for all shifts including the weeknd. The third reason I wouldn’t learn multiple stations is a defense against the afternoon conference calls. In [month] the Bikini Bottom line was unprepared for a busy post lunch because one cook was cut and our expo person was busy with a conference call. The two of us remaining on the line had a miserable slog through an unexpectedly busy afternoon. When I brought this up to Krabs he disregarded me, being a good bean counter he quoted the cost percentage. What he didn’t take into account was the missing expo person who could have jumped on the line and expo to help the understaffed two man team. That person was stuck on a conference call. Just recently I saw the company actively lose money because of this poorly thought-out meeting during business hours. A customer wanted to order a dessert that was 86ed but had been restocked by our prep cook an hour before. The server was unable to sell them their dessert because the only person in the building who could help un-86 an item was on a conference call. This conference call calamity is another bone-headed choice that speaks to a larger decision-making problem within the corporate structure. Finish the conference calls by 10:45 am eastern.
In conclusion, I quit my position as a lowly grunt for this company because of its unwarranted perplexing dance steps and below average management. I don’t care how much varnish and lacquer is supplied, I refuse to polish this Bikini Bottom turd as a manager or full-time employee under the current circumstances. You would have to take a pickaxe to the floor, possibly relocate the bathrooms to add a door to the dishpit, get rid of the cheap low boy that doesn’t properly drain excess water, and Mr Gorbachov knock down that wall in the middle of the kitchen to give the proper amount of space to work. Or simply reduce the menu to 36 items (including sides) because that’s the amount of space this dreadful design can comfortably output. Would Gordon Ramsay compliment KK for all the unnecessary convoluted complications abound, or would Chef Ramsay yell about keeping it simple and demand KK chuck it in the flip? Thanks to the numerous pop up restaurants I have been a part of and the hectic world of trade shows/conventions, I may have more experience than anyone else employed by KK in smoothly opening a new location. I would enjoy being part of the opening team to ensure new locations have an efficiency Bikini Bottom lacks, and to keep upper management away from their worst instincts. Work with me and Chef Ren and we will help you become a well oiled machine like Chokey Chicken instead of the Chum Bucket cesspit Bikini Bottom currently embodies.

You could say Arthur’s biggest mistakes were going to collect the Downes Debt, or going to save Micah, but the thing is, none of that ever would have happened if it weren’t for Dutch bringing Micah into the gang.
Micah got in Dutch’s ear and enticed him to rob the Blackwater ferry. What did that lead to? The gang losing nearly everything- their home, money, food, and even the Callander brothers, Jenny, and Sean getting captured. It also ended up with them having to flee wayyyy up north from Blackwater into the grizzly mountains.
What I’m saying is that if Micah hadn’t persuaded Dutch to do the Blackwater robbery, they never would have had to move west, and have Strauss start doing his loan sharking(it’s possible he loan sharked before, too) and him sending Arthur to collect the debts, which led to him getting Tuberculosis from Thomas Downes.
So it wasn’t Arthur’s mistake going to the Downes ranch, because he didn’t know. It wasn’t necessarily Arthur’s mistake to save Micah, Dutch wanted him to.
Dutch seemed to care for Micah above anyone else other than Arthur and Hosea.

Many praises to u/SpacePaladin15 for this universe.
Credit again to u/TheManwithaNoPlan for helping edit!
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Memory transcript: Tarlim, Venbig. Date: [Standardized human time] September 28th, 2136
Jacob sat on my couch, speaking on his phone to his parents. Lightyears separated them, but the communications had gotten to the point that they were finally able to talk with instant transmission.
“And you think they will approve?” He asked on the phone. I couldn’t hear, even with a Venlil’s superior hearing, but I could tell by his expression that whatever was being said was good! “So there’s a chance? That’s awesome! Then ah wish y’all luck!”
His cheeks rise once more in his toothless grin as he listens. I set the rest of the stringfruit I had been eating onto the table, feeling that their conversation was wrapping up. I really hoped to talk to him as well. “Love y’all too! Ah guess ah’ll let all’a y’all go. Hmm?” He hummed joyfully, “Thank y’all so much. Ah’m always a call away! Any time y’all want! Love ya!… bye!”
I let my tail wag as he hung up his phone and placed it on the table. “So what is the verdict?”
“Their prospects are looking good,” he replied, “lot of people have been signing up to sponsor a refugee. Their ranch could accommodate some workers for the goats and orchard. And they could even give them proper pay!”
“Impressive. Are your parents that wealthy?”
He wiggled his hand to signal the ‘kinda’ sign. “They got lucky with some investments. They’re country folk at heart, so they put a good amount into peach groves and expandin’ the property for the goats.”
That last word caught my attention. It was translated as a form of cattle. Cattle that they currently had. Steady, Tarlim. You don’t know what it truly means yet. I wasn’t about to let an unspoken fear fester in my mind. I had to know. “Goats? What are… goats?”
Jacob froze a bit. He had been swinging his braces ankle up to rest on my table, so it was obvious how it hung in the air. “Crap. Okay! Look, this is a long explanation, and it goes into our ability to eat meat.” He set his leg on the table, turning his head so that he looked at me with both eyes. “We ain’t supposed to talk much ‘bout that stuff, but if ya really want to know, ah will tell ya.”
I did want to know. Jacob had done so much for me. He talked to me in the program. Greeted me with open arms. Built me up when the world felt like it was going to tear me down.
I didn’t want him to think I would fear him for the actions of his people. Never.
“Please,” I say, “Explain all that you can. I will listen.”
He patted his hand against his knee and grinned at me. “Kay! Kay… where should ah start…”
A moment of silence passed as he thought. I do hope he isn’t overthinking.
Thankfully, my fears appeared unfounded as he spoke again. “Ah ain’t an expert in this, but ah know a bit. The goat is a four-legged animal that ah believe originally lived in hilly or mountainous areas on earth. Think… well, remember that Putyl plush? How its body looked?”
“Yeah,” I replied, “go on?”
“Okay, imagine that body but with a head shaped similar to a Venlil but with a nose on it. That would be the average goat.”
I blinked in surprise at the mental image. “So we Venlil look like one of your cattle?”
“Slightly,” he admitted, “but ah can’t really call it an exact likeness. Kinda like how the Krakotl look kinda like those blue birds y’all have round here.”
I nodded. A human gesture I had come to include in with my ear gestures.
“Well, on average, their shoulders come up to our waist, though there are some breeds that who could stand as tall as us.” He chuckled to himself, and I also whistled in amusement at the thought. Those would be some big animals. “Anyway, you know how humans keep animals around us, right?”
I flicked my ears in the affirmative. “Your dogs, cats, and that stuff.”
“Yeah, well, while dogs were the first animals we humans kept around as our companions, goats and a similar species called sheep were the very first animals we specifically bred to feel safe around us.” He held up his hand in a calming gesture, “note that this took a long time. Goats and sheep have been domesticated- a word that means bred for human use- for something over 10,000 years. Our bond with those animals is practically on an instinctual level.”
It was astonishing. Ten. Thousand. Years. How does one even begin to conceive such a history? Even the founding of the Federation seemed ancient to many.
“Way-ell, that may be an exaggeration,” he corrected himself, “Maybe not quite instinct. Ah, for one, whenever ah see a baby goat, ah just think ‘protect. Feed baby. Keep safe. Raise healthy and strong!’ They are great animals. Can be stubborn and absolute crybabies, but still great animals.”
He leaned back on the couch and glanced up at me. “Any questions so far?”
“Nothing… too major,” I admit. “Mainly the usual about what they were… used for.”
“Yeah, ya know one of ‘em already.”
I keep my expression neutral. “Meat.” We sat in silence for a bit as I watched him nod. “It’s… with all you’ve done for me, it’s sometimes hard to remember that you’re predators.”
He nodded. “Ah won’t get into anything bout morality ‘n all that. Survival and time don’t really care about that. But ah can sum up the basic stance humans have had about how we treat our animals.” He sat straight and moved his hand up and down to emphasize his words. “A farmer should keep their animals Happy, Healthy, and Respected. Whenever one of those things were forgotten, people would get upset and move to try and make things better. Ah won’t lie and say it always worked, but ah can say somebody was always tryin’ to make sure the animals were treated well.”
I absorbed the information he told me. “But why? I know that you aren’t like the Arxur, so…” I sigh, “why do you treat your… cattle… so well?”
“Again, ah won’t go into the morality and all that,” he explained, “ah ain’t qualified to talk ‘bout that. But there is a practical reason as well.” He cleared his throat, “a happy, healthy, and respected animal can do and give more than an animal that isn’t. Being good to them results in more good coming back to us. Simple as that.”
Part of me wanted to find a flaw in that logic. The part that still grasped to what I had been taught all my life. But… but those teachings said I myself was dangerous. That caused the facilities to be built.
By the tenants, the humans treat the animals they eat better than we treat other people.
“As for goats in moder times,” Jacob continued, ignorant of the thoughts going through my mind, “eh, modern times, we have other uses fer ‘em that isn’t meat. Mah parents got a few kinds’a goats, an’ somma them are fer grass care.”
My train of thought stalls in confusion at his words. “I’m sorry, grass care?”
“Yeah!” He laughed, “see, goats will eat grass and shrubs, and their poop acts like a natural fertilizer. The goats can be rented out to people for their lawns, though they usually get rented by farmers so they can graze in their fields before planting their next crops so there’s less weeds and the area’s fertilized.”
I needed a moment to process that. One of the things they do to help…is eat food and defecate? That’s it? “So…one of their jobs is literally just eating and pooping? And people are willing to pay for that? Why not just buy fertilizer? Wouldn’t that be easier?”
“Sometimes, but not as good fer the environment.” He shrugged, “besides, fertilizers don’t get rid of the weeds as well. So when given the choice between paying for a plane or people to come out and spray the fertilizer and weed killers or pay us for our goats to do the same thing naturally, a good number will rent the goats.”
It was strange logic that only worked in the context of cattle, but I couldn’t find any flaws in his reasoning. “And if a goat eats the wrong thing? Are they…y’know…” I couldn’t find it in myself to continue the morbid question. What other use would defective cattle have other than being slaughtered?
“Then it’s the farmers fault fer letting them in the crop field.”
I blink. “Wrong field?”
“Yeah. The farming fields are in sections, and are frankly massive, so it’s usually easy to keep them in the correct area for grazing.” He was so calm when he said that. Maybe he didn’t understand my question.
“Well, what if one isn’t easy? What if it… attacks someone or… or just refuses to obey?”
He shrugged. “Then it’s just a goat being a goat. Like ah said, they can be stubborn. Will even headbutt ya. Just gotta work around them.”
Work around… “They attack you and you… do nothing?”
He shrugged again. “Yeah, pretty much. It’s usually nothing major. They’re usually pretty friendly most of the time.”
I couldn’t wrap my head around this. They kept cattle…but treated them well and allowed themselves to be abused by them? Where’s the sadism? The cruelty? The…the…
My line of thought trailed off as I realized in horror what I was doing. In some small way, I was equating Jacob to the Arxur. My friend to those monsters. I…was I really still that far gone? I noticed Jacob stepping in front of me, waving his arm rhythmically. “Hello, Venlil Prime to Tarlim! You okay? You, uh, started lookin’ two ways there for a bit.”
“S-sorry,” I stuttered. “I just, I…”
“Look, ah can stop if it’s getting too much. Ah know that-”
“No!” I shouted, “it- it’s not that! I- I just realized that I… I was still thinking of you as like those… like the Grays.” I take a deep breath to calm myself. Jacob is silent as he recognizes that I have more to say. “I don’t… I don’t want to think of you like them. L-like the Federation says you are.”
He reaches over and gives my back a comforting scratch. “You’ve been taught that stuff all yer life. Ah ain’t gonna blame ya for taking time to adjust to new stuff.” We fell silent as I controlled my breathing. Focus. Breathe. Calm… His grin had become a comforting sight since I had first met him. He shifted back in his seat. “We can still talk about something else, if ya want.”
“Thank you, but…” I let out my breath, preparing myself. “I still want to know more. About… Y’all, and your goats. You said that… y’all used them in other ways, right?”
He seemed comforted by my imitation of his words. He picked up his phone and clicked it once. “This next one will likely need a bit of a visual explanation. Thankfully, ah was able to get this past as a personal memory.”
I cocked my head in curiosity. “What is it?”
He pointed the screen towards me. “Mah first time milking a goat with the milking machine!”
The what.
10 Minutes Later
I didn’t even realize it was possible for my soul to be dirty. Can I clean it, or will it be that dirty forever? By the Tenants, what would Sharnet think?
… could those suckers work on her- NO! BAD BRAIN!
“And do the Goats feel… do they feel pain?”
Jacob shrugged. “Yeah, it’s why they walk right up to the milking machines. Having swollen udders can be painful fer them.”
“No, no.” Shuck Shuck Shu-- STOP IT!! “aHEM. Does the machine hurt them?”
He shook his head. “Not at all. The suction is gentle enough that it is just like one of their own kids suckling.”
White liquid flowing through tubes into a container. The machine being set on- CEASE! “And you… Use this milk?”
“As food, is the shortest answer. Animal milk is extremely nutrient dense so it was essential to our survival in northern climates in early history. Nowadays, goat’s milk is mostly processed for Cheese and Yogurt, both of which are eaten for health and for pleasure.”
They can do that? “You are… you are able to eat another animal’s milk? Not just your own?”
“Yeah! Well, Not all of us! This is actually really interesting:” Jacob sat on the edge of his seat and met my eye, an excited gleam behind it, “So humans who raised goats lived in these mostly hilly areas that got cold. Not many things we could eat would grow there, but plenty that the goats could eat. Now, this is slightly related to our ability to eat meat, so you ready?”
Anything to get my mind off Sharnet in- “Yes, I’m ready.”
He clapped his hands together. “Okay! So, because not as much would grow, there would be times when people didn’t have much food, so they’d go hungry.”
And so they ate the goat.
“Now you’re probably thinking we ate it, but no!” My ears flicked up in surprise as he continued. “See, a goat as a meal would only last so long, but a goat that was lactating would feed the family for much longer, as well as give nutrients that the humans weren’t getting otherwise! So, with time, it became an evolutionary advantage for humans to be able to drink milk into adulthood!”
I gave my head a quizzical tilt, “but didn’t you say not all humans could?”
“Right! Because the animals that gave us milk weren’t everywhere! Humans in places with more sun and fields didn’t need as much milk, so they never developed the ability; milk tolerance was probably our most recent evolutionary trait! So, yeah! Keeping goats around literally caused us to evolve.”
So much history. Animals that literally changed how they evolved. “And… and these are the animals some Gojid refugees would work with?”
“Yep!” He leaned back in his seat, confident in his words. “Milking, cleaning, moving, all that stuff.”
I wag my tail. “I hope that they come to realize how great an honor they would be being given.”
Jacob let out a content sigh. “Fer those that stay, ah hope so too.”
​
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