PAYD Bringing ISS To Its Knees

[busby1971]

That's much bigger topic and probably worth a strategic review, lets keep to the food being crap on this thread.

 

[dozyscopie1]

Now I agree the food is crap, sometimes, but I do hope they do not cancel it all together. I for one could not be ars*d going back to my block after having been in work and done my gym sesh to cook for myself. When I lived out it was fine as I had my own kitchen, obviously, so food storage and prep areas a plenty but to do it in the block in a communal kitchen. No chance.
I like going to the mess and having somebody do it for me for the laughable price of £1.89. If when I do go in and it looks absolute toilet I just get an omelette. Not everyones cup of tea, but I love the eggs I do.

I can imagine if they were to cancel it a lot of the lads would not bother eating veg or fruit, or anything which could be classed as a proper meal. Come AFT they would be passing out all over the place. There is a lad in my block just now who never eats in the mess. Just microwave meals and croissants' looks like deaths unwell cousin.

 

[Dragoon]

The new slam blocks have a very large kitchen per floor. The ones at Leeming came fully furnished with several fridges, microwaves, hobs, cupboards and one lockable one per room.

Well that's encouraging, although I agree with a previous comment about asking where the lads are supposed to shop if they don't have a car.

The local Spar shop was pretty useless for anything other than the most basic of food requirements, beer, cereal, pasties toiletries and in the case of the Brize Spar, a whole length of shelving for kiddie sweets, but if people are having to use the shop to buy ingredients for quality meals, they're going to come up seriously lacking if using base shops.

MT to the local Tesco's? I'd love to be in the office when they have a meeting about that option!

 

[muttywhitedog]

If messes were closed and self-catering was the future for everyone, regardless of status, I would expect the likes of Tesco Express to be a lot more interested in setting up stores at the MOD sites than they are now.

 

[XVR RA RA RA]

I can imagine if they were to cancel it a lot of the lads would not bother eating veg or fruit, or anything which could be classed as a proper meal. Come AFT they would be passing out all over the place. There is a lad in my block just now who never eats in the mess. Just microwave meals and croissants' looks like deaths unwell cousin.

There's a lot of unfair stereotyping and presumption in that post.

These guys will have to cook for themselves at some point in their lives. 18 year old students who leave home have been doing it for years... no decades... and you never hear about them dying of malnutrition.

They are big boys now, what they do is upto them.

Whats the difference between a microwave meal and what you get from Weatherspoons or pre made stuff thats reheated in the Mess?

 

[mad_collie]

They are sick of me filling it in I think, valid point about pics, dont think they will be impressed in the mess if I start doing modelling shots though. I think Ill start a diary with pics and present it to them.

That's worthy of it's own thread on here (with pics) - everybody start posting photos naming and shaming the bad eating establishments.

 

[grumpyoldb]

I can just imagine mess managers running around with marker pens and cardboard scribbling signs saying, no camera's in this mess. All phones must be turned off as they are a safety hazard. DT_Xtremez_31:

 

[dozyscopie1]

There's a lot of unfair stereotyping and presumption in that post.

These guys will have to cook for themselves at some point in their lives. 18 year old students who leave home have been doing it for years... no decades... and you never hear about them dying of malnutrition.

They are big boys now, what they do is upto them.

Whats the difference between a microwave meal and what you get from Weatherspoons or pre made stuff thats reheated in the Mess?

May be a bit of streotyping and presumtion but I see the lads on my camp doing it. You cannot tell me that eating sh*te each day and night, missing out the nutrients that your body needs will not have a knock on effect in their day to day military life. If they want to eat crap then so be it. But when they start dozing off in work and being lethargic due to an un balanced diet then it starts to effect other people. Then when you do try do any phys you can't as your body has no energy or you can't be ar*ed as you feel run down.Now I dare say people will disagree but I have a decent enough knowledge about fitness to know that what I saying does happen and I have seen it happen.

As for students, they can do what the feck they like as far as I am concerned as they dont have to pass a fitness test once a year or deploy at short notice on 6 month dets.

As for Weatherspoons, I would rather eat a microwave mealDT_Xtremez_14:

 

[Brick Tamland]

May be a bit of streotyping and presumtion but I see the lads on my camp doing it. You cannot tell me that eating sh*te each day and night, missing out the nutrients that your body needs will not have a knock on effect in their day to day military life. If they want to eat crap then so be it. But when they start dozing off in work and being lethargic due to an un balanced diet then it starts to effect other people. Then when you do try do any phys you can't as your body has no energy or you can't be ar*ed as you feel run down.Now I dare say people will disagree but I have a decent enough knowledge about fitness to know that what I saying does happen and I have seen it happen.

As for students, they can do what the feck they like as far as I am concerned as they dont have to pass a fitness test once a year or deploy at short notice on 6 month dets.

As for Weatherspoons, I would rather eat a microwave mealDT_Xtremez_14:

I thought Wetherspoons served Microwave meals anyway

 

[dozyscopie1]

I thought Wetherspoons served Microwave meals anyway

DT_Xtremez_31:DT_Xtremez_31:

 

[Cooheed]

Now I agree the food is crap, sometimes, but I do hope they do not cancel it all together. I for one could not be ars*d going back to my block after having been in work and done my gym sesh to cook for myself. When I lived out it was fine as I had my own kitchen, obviously, so food storage and prep areas a plenty but to do it in the block in a communal kitchen. No chance.
I like going to the mess and having somebody do it for me for the laughable price of £1.89. If when I do go in and it looks absolute toilet I just get an omelette. Not everyones cup of tea, but I love the eggs I do.

I can imagine if they were to cancel it a lot of the lads would not bother eating veg or fruit, or anything which could be classed as a proper meal. Come AFT they would be passing out all over the place. There is a lad in my block just now who never eats in the mess. Just microwave meals and croissants' looks like deaths unwell cousin.

Here you go. Loads of fine bananas for a quid. ISS want about 50p each. Go figure.... http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=266125900

 

[grumpyoldb]

Here you go. Loads of fine bananas for a quid. ISS want about 50p each. Go figure.... http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=266125900

.......... and home delivery, too! DT_Xtremez_31:

 

[XVR RA RA RA]

May be a bit of streotyping and presumtion but I see the lads on my camp doing it. You cannot tell me that eating sh*te each day and night, missing out the nutrients that your body needs will not have a knock on effect in their day to day military life. If they want to eat crap then so be it. But when they start dozing off in work and being lethargic due to an un balanced diet then it starts to effect other people. Then when you do try do any phys you can't as your body has no energy or you can't be ar*ed as you feel run down.Now I dare say people will disagree but I have a decent enough knowledge about fitness to know that what I saying does happen and I have seen it happen.

As for students, they can do what the feck they like as far as I am concerned as they dont have to pass a fitness test once a year or deploy at short notice on 6 month dets.

As for Weatherspoons, I would rather eat a microwave mealDT_Xtremez_14:

Not only, you shouldn't presume that lads who live-in will automatically die of malnutrition while everyone who lives out is ok.
You also shouldn't wrap them up in cotton wool ether, they are big boys now and should learn to be responsible for themselves like the rest of the nation. And at the end of the day, what they eat is up to them and you'll never be able to change that. They could live out, get promoted twice and still choose to eat sh*te each day. Or they might go to the mess and only choose chips and beans.
What I do agree on is... if the lads choose to cook in the block, they should have better facilities available, rather than just one microwave. If they choose to eat in the mess, ISS must provide a good service.

From my experience, reduced budgets and SDSR has more of a knock on effect in our day to day military life, than Tommy eating a microwaveable pasta bake.

 

[Barch]

Here you go. Loads of fine bananas for a quid. ISS want about 50p each. Go figure.... http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=266125900

And ISS are probably not making much on them either.

When James Martin did Scarborough Hospital he discovered that they could only afford crap ingredients because everything came out of a central depot.

Fish from Whitby (less than 20 miles from the hospital) were being delivered to the hospital by lorry from a central depot in the south west, the cost was almost treble that of locally purchased fish.

I bet ISS are paying high prices for crap ingredients because the majority of the costs are taken up in administration, storage and delivery.

Let the local manager purchase locally and buy his ingredients at competitive prices.

 

[dozyscopie1]

Not only, you shouldn't presume that lads who live-in will automatically die of malnutrition while everyone who lives out is ok.
You also shouldn't wrap them up in cotton wool ether, they are big boys now and should learn to be responsible for themselves like the rest of the nation. And at the end of the day, what they eat is up to them and you'll never be able to change that. They could live out, get promoted twice and still choose to eat sh*te each day. Or they might go to the mess and only choose chips and beans.
What I do agree on is... if the lads choose to cook in the block, they should have better facilities available, rather than just one microwave. If they choose to eat in the mess, ISS must provide a good service.

From my experience, reduced budgets and SDSR has more of a knock on effect in our day to day military life, than Tommy eating a microwaveable pasta bake.

I agree, I want the choice of being able to cook in the block. I do it at the weekends, but what I don't want, and what I said originally is that I wouldn't want to have the choice of PAYD taken away from me. It may be crap but it is still an option. I would like to go back to having the money taken out each month, have RAF chefs back in and I can eat as much as I want. Back int he day when if you wanted fruit you could take as much as you liked from the mess, well I did anyway.
Don't get me started on having to pay ten bob for a bannana, although apparently if you buy 4 pieces of fruit you get the 5th free, so £2 on sh*te fruit I get another bit for nothing.....brilliant.

 

[sillybilly]

I agree, I want the choice of being able to cook in the block. I do it at the weekends, but what I don't want, and what I said originally is that I wouldn't want to have the choice of PAYD taken away from me. It may be crap but it is still an option. I would like to go back to having the money taken out each month, have RAF chefs back in and I can eat as much as I want. Back int he day when if you wanted fruit you could take as much as you liked from the mess, well I did anyway.
Don't get me started on having to pay ten bob for a bannana, although apparently if you buy 4 pieces of fruit you get the 5th free, so £2 on sh*te fruit I get another bit for nothing.....brilliant.

I was chatting with some SAC USAF equivalent ranks about the USAF Mess (all ranks chow hall) system on base. If you live on base there is no charge to use the Mess (no charge for accommodation either) and they have facilities in their dorms to cook. The dorms are very much like the our SLAM buildings but they are all fitted out with cooking facilities. Even though there is no charge to use the Mess a few prefer to cook their own food, which is usually purchased in the commissary (bigger than most tescos). From personal experience our traditional Mess food knocks the spots off the USAF Mess, sadly it looks like we have lost another tradition. Its all about saving money nothing else.

 

[Vagabond]

What a thoroughly depressing thread. Surely one og the great things about being in the mob is three square a day without ever having to be elbow deep in washing up liquid and spending valuable drinking/training/shagging time being taken up by cooking dinner. Coupled with the fact that the evening meal in the mess should be a time to have a bit of laugh, take the p1ss and see who could get stuck into the new tasty-ish waaf from SHQ. It's imperative to morale really.

If the mess is not performing surely 'mass lobbying' is worth a try? What do your own seniors think of the whole situation? How are the regiment lads fairing after running around doing section attacks all day only to return to chips and beans. Don't some of you blue jobs work long night shifts fixing them flyee thingys? I bet that's great to do a 12 hr shift then go to a crap mess.

 

[Kryten]

I'm probably oversimplifying things here, but what would happen if everyone stopped eating in their respective Messes?

As I understand it you are no longer forking out for 3 meals a day out of your monthly pay packet - so in theory you have freedom to eat elsewhere.

If the food is now that bad then, as a "customer" of the service ISS provides, you are entitled to take your custom elsewhere - as a business ISS would then have to recognise that it's losing its customer base and seek improvements or risk going down the tubes that bit quicker...

 

[XVR RA RA RA]

I was chatting with some SAC USAF equivalent ranks about the USAF Mess (all ranks chow hall) system on base. If you live on base there is no charge to use the Mess (no charge for accommodation either) and they have facilities in their dorms to cook. The dorms are very much like the our SLAM buildings but they are all fitted out with cooking facilities. Even though there is no charge to use the Mess a few prefer to cook their own food, which is usually purchased in the commissary (bigger than most tescos).

Why can't we have that? Sounds brilliant.

I went to a Canadian AFB on det that had the Canadian version of PAYD. The day after our big det arrived the Canadian mess "conveniently" put their prices up temporary.
I learned that the whole place rubs its greedy hands together thinking of the annual Maple Flag NATO exercise "kerching! $$$". When it was cancelled that year, every restaurant, bar, shop and hotel were practically in tears. Its more of a NATO business then an exercise.
We were even billed every time we put a jet in a hangarDT_Xtremez_17:

Don't some of you blue jobs work long night shifts fixing them flyee thingys? I bet that's great to do a 12 hr shift then go to a crap mess.

Yes. On a bad night shift going to duty supper would have been the highlight of some guys nights. It's always a total disappointment when you worked your balls off for hours, looked forward to getting away to duty supper only to find out the cook put on reheated the sausages from breakfast, chips and beans. Or reheated a premade pie. Or deep fried fish fingers.

 

[Tyson]

I'm probably oversimplifying things here, but what would happen if everyone stopped eating in their respective Messes?

As I understand it you are no longer forking out for 3 meals a day out of your monthly pay packet - so in theory you have freedom to eat elsewhere.

If the food is now that bad then, as a "customer" of the service ISS provides, you are entitled to take your custom elsewhere - as a business ISS would then have to recognise that it's losing its customer base and seek improvements or risk going down the tubes that bit quicker...

The problem with that is they have been given all outlets on camp pretty much, so if you use a butty wagon or elsewere you're still paying them, probably better profit in it for them anyway, maybe they're deliberately (not vindictively, but not trying that hard to make it highest quality) running the messes ****e to encourage us into more profitable areas?