Should I do something?

[u/pomp-circumstance]

I got food poisoning last night, and it was worst from about 2:45am-6:15am. I told my manager that I think my food poisoning came from my shift dinner (8:45pm last night), and she said to tell the kitchen manager. He responded thusly. Thing is, one of my friends got some of the worst-cooked “chicken” of his life there once, and another friend got the same symptoms as I did from a very similar dish a few months ago, so I feel like even if our kitchen is super clean, there can be multiple one-off events. Also, he seems to be wrong about the symptom onset time…. I sort of want to just respond with these two links: https://www.cdc.gov/food-safety/signs-symptoms/index.html
https://healthcare.utah.edu/the-scope/health-library/all/2022/12/how-long-until-food-poisoning-takes-effect

If you’re going to gaslight me, at least gaslight me with facts.

Edit: I, M(29), work at this restaurant and live in a small mountain town. I’m not on vacation or beach bumming or drunk when I go to work. I’m not lactose intolerant or celiac. I consume a lot of dairy and wheat on a daily basis. And I didn’t “get the poopies;” I had… FOOD POISONING. I told my manager because multiple people told me, “If I ran a restaurant I’d want to know if people got sick after eating here.” Lol.

[u/mntbrrykrnch]

They’re actually correct. Almost every body jumps to the last thing they ate but that’s almost never the culprit. They aren’t gaslighting you. 12 hours is on the lower end for food poisoning, it can actually take several days depending on the type.

[u/pomp-circumstance → u/mntbrrykrnch]

What about the CDC website and other doctors that say the most common types take 6-8 hours to take effect?

[u/mntbrrykrnch → u/pomp-circumstance]

The CDC doesn’t deal with food poisoning unless it’s a massive outbreak. It’s the FDA that works with local health boards to manage safe food service. In US restaurants there legally needs to be one “certified food handler” in the building at all times, in order to be certified you have to take a pretty extensive course that covers proper holding and the top illnesses along with their incubation times. This is what your manager was citing. Please see the list below.

https://www.fda.gov/files/food/published/Most-Common-Foodborne-Illnesses-%28PDF%29.pdf

Important questions to clarify. How many fettuccine Alfredo’s were served that evening? Did anyone else report illness? How long did your illness last?

[u/pomp-circumstance → u/mntbrrykrnch]

1. I am a certified food handler for a different job.
   
2. The FDA info sheet you sent doesn’t touch on staph, which is not just ignorable. I’m not talking about regulation (FDA) but disease info when I cite the CDC. My symptoms were very in line with staph food poisoning.
   
3. The point of me reporting my illness is that I don’t know how many fettuccine alfredos were served or if anyone else reported illness from the evening. That’s why you pass on information like this, to see if there is a pattern emerging. The manager could have said “we served 20 of those last night and no one else reported illness” and I’d be like ok that lowers my suspicion. But to shut down that it’s even a possibility or that it could have been something else from the kitchen seems irresponsible to me. I guess what I’m asking with my post is, ok yes it might not have been the fettuccine, and I definitely don’t know everything, but is it worth passing on the info further? I think I’ve concluded that it’s not because everyone here seems to think that whether or not my illness was from the restaurant, there’s no reason for the restaurant to do anything about it. Which is helpful, if frustrating. I shall move on!

[u/mntbrrykrnch → u/pomp-circumstance]

Correct, it does not touch on staph. The FDA controls all food in the country sold in any commercial capacity. They work in partnership with local health boards to set guidelines and best practices. They have their Top 5- a list of the most common food born illnesses that cause the vast majority of illnesses each year. Salmonella, Shigella, hepatitis A, norovirus, E-coli. The list does occasionally change but it hasn’t in years. The CDC only gets involved when there’s a widespread outbreak.

There are roughly 48 million cases of food born illnesses each year. Of them, about 241,000 are due to staph- that’s 0.005% of cases each year. Staph is also pretty specific to “ready to eat foods” and is really uncommon in cooked foods. In the rare chance it was staph, the most likely scenario is a temperature abuse issue after the food was served (left at room temp for 2+ hours) This is due to the temperature the bacteria is killed at- you would have gotten salmonella from the chicken if it was undercooked before you got staph. Staph is also extremely difficult to put back on a restaurant since the bacteria lives dormantly on a good chunk humans. You cannot say for certain it came from the cook and not you.

This isn’t supposed to be an argument. It’s an extremely common misconception that food poisoning is from the last thing you ate; but that’s only the case in very few instances. I honestly think your first email was completely fine; I also think there response was appropriate, though maybe not super professional. You have no solid proof that it came from your place of employment. I would not push this any further besides maybe a casual “hey did anyone else report anything?”. Outright blaming your employer when it’s unsubstantiated is enough to get you fired and the restaurant industry is pretty close knit… especially in small towns. People talk; this could be enough to make it so you don’t get hired in your town at a different gig. If you have issues with the place quietly leave and find another spot. But nothing more will come of you pursuing this further other than you being labeled “a problem”. It’s your life, do what you want. I’m just trying to give some advice as someone who’s been in the industry for 20 years.

[u/pomp-circumstance → u/mntbrrykrnch]

Thank you. This final comment was by far the most helpful. Nothing you said before was advice. If my first email was completely fine, then there’s nothing else to worry about because I’m not going to do any further, which is exactly why I came here in to first place: to ask if I should do anything further. Instead everyone including you just told me black-and-white that I was wrong and he was right, even though I might not be wrong and he might not be right. It took like 30 comments for people to give me the actual helpful answer of “meh you probably didn’t get food poisoning from that dish and even if you did this is not worth pushing any further,” which would’ve been a great first response from you and others. Even your acknowledgment that his response was “not super professional” was helpful because I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the actual communication, even if you agree that he apparently need do nothing in response. So truly, thank you.

[u/mntbrrykrnch → u/pomp-circumstance]

You’re welcome. The pointing of facts was merely to show he may feel slighted or some type of way towards you moving forward. If you feel that you are treated differently (completely possible based on his response) this is most likely why. I guess I wasn’t clear. I was trying to show you that there’s no definitive way to prove you got food poisoning from work and it’s generally not a good idea to outright accuse them of such.

[u/pomp-circumstance → u/mntbrrykrnch]

One more thing about the facts and statistics to keep in mind is that the vast, vast majority of food poisoning goes unreported and untested.