Job Information
West Virginia Employer Cook in Chester, West Virginia
REQUIREMENTS: -- COMPUTER SKILLS: None required. CERTIFICATES, LICENSES, REGISTRATIONS: None required. OTHER SKILLS and ABILITIES: Skills specific to preparing meals for geriatric residents are required. MEDICAL SCREENINGS: Tuberculosis screening is required annually. PHYSICAL DEMANDS: * Regularly required to stand while preparing food, plating food, and conversing with various individuals; * Walk to and from the main kitchen and throughout the campus when going to the various unit kitchens; * Use hands to finger, handle, or feel when using the telephone, manipulating keys, kitchen equipment, and utensils, transferring food to serving containers, preparing recipes, and cleaning kitchen surfaces and equipment; * Reach with hands and arms when transferring food to serving containers, obtaining and manipulating ingredients or food items, cleaning kitchen surfaces and equipment, and reaching for supplies; * Talk or hear when interacting with various individuals or groups. * Frequently required to taste and smell food when it is being prepared and prior to it being served to ensure that it is pleasing, and to determine the freshness of ingredients and produce being used. * Occasionally required to sit at a counter; balance when carrying trays of food and dishware; and stoop, kneel, or crouch to turn on steam tables and plate warmers, to get items that have fallen on the floor, or to place items in or get items from low drawers or shelves in the refrigerators, ovens, warmers, serving carts, pantries, or kitchens. * Frequently lift and/or move between 10 and 50 pounds of recipe ingredients, frozen meats and foods, canned items, produce, trays, dishware, utensils, and food bins (full and empty). SPECIFIC VISION ABILITIES: Close vision, distance vision, and peripheral vision in order to monitor dishes being prepared at close range and at a distance; color vision to identify recipe ingredients, to assess a meal's visual appeal, and to review color-coded diet cards, spreadsheets or documents; close vision to read dials and temperature gauges on kitchen equipment and numbers on keypads in secure areas; peripheral vision and depth perception when maneuvering in the kitchen, pantries, and dining rooms and when walking throughout the facility with carts of food or supplies; depth perception for cooking on stovetops and in ovens and when plating food in the unit kitchens; and ability to adjust focus when obtaining food from the main kitchen, preparing food, and using kitchen equipment. WORK ENVIRONMENT - The employee is: * Regularly exposed to moving mechanical parts on kitchen equipment, such as the slicer, blender, can opener, garbage disposal, and mixer; and to fumes from products used to sanitize the kitchen and equipment. * Frequently exposed to wet and/or humid conditions from the dish sprayer, dishwasher, and equipment using/generating steam; extreme cold when obtaining supplies from the freezer; and extreme heat generated from fryers, ovens, and steam trays in the unit or main kitchens. * Occasionally exposed to outside weather conditions when preparing or serving food for an outdoor resident meal; risk of cuts from broken glass or using kitchen knives; risk of burns from hot kitchen equipment and boiling liquids or oils; and risk of electrical shock from kitchen appliances. * The noise level in the work environment is usually loud because there are dishwashers and other kitchen machines operating, people entering and leaving the kitchen area, other employees talking, food being prepared, exhaust fans running, and dishes, glasses, or utensils clattering.