As I have said in a previous article I am extremely safety conscious, and serious when I come to work, for good reasons. I do not allow horseplay around me. If people want to wrestle they take it out doors or wait until they go home, not in the kitchen. I've got a good reason for this.
One Thanksgiving they had a huge party where I was working. I was busy opening turkey boxes and taking the turkeys out of the plastic wrap. I was using a butcher knife to start the wrap so I could rip it off. A bus boy and a waitress were in the kitchen horsing around. Suddenly they came driving into me, knocking me over. I stood up swearing at them.
The cook came running over screaming "Gerald, your hand! Your hand!" I looked down to see that the whole top of my left hand was slashed open. The cook grabbed a towel and tried to stop the bleeding, but when I'm cut I bleed profusely. The manager rushed out, got a fresh towel, wrapped my hand, put a plastic bag around it, and rushed me to the doctor. I required several stitches, and the doctor said the hand was not to be used for ANYTHING for some time.
We went back to work. The manager called the bus boy and waitress into the kitchen and fired them. "But we were only horsing around!" the bus boy complained. "It was just an accident!"
"An accident that never should have happened!" the manager answered. "Get out!"
Only after everything was taken care of did the manager excuse himself, go to the restroom, and get sick.
I had light duty for some time, but I assure you, the pain I went through was not worth getting it. So when I'm working with somebody and bite their heads off for roughhousing in my vicinity, there's a damned good reason for it, a DAMNED painful one!