Oh man, that's such good advice! I had a similar thing happen with a writing project where my editor told me to stop explaining everything and trust the reader to keep up. I cut like a third of my descriptions and the whole thing just breathed better, you know? It's wild how often we think more is better but really it's about making every single panel or line count. That "let empty space work" thing is gold, I'm totally stealing that for my own stuff lol.

Wait did you actually count every ticket yourself or is that what the system showed? My buddy works at this place in Seattle and he told me about a shift during Seafair where they did like 900 covers and the whole kitchen was just in survival mode. The servers were running around like crazy and he said the expo line looked like a war zone with tickets everywhere. He said the dishwasher quit halfway through and they had to hand wash everything in the back sink till like 2am. Ended up buying beers for the whole crew after close just to decompress.

So the hooch layer was from chlorine, not from overfeeding it?

Oh man, I learned that one the hard way myself. My first year in the trade I cracked a brand new plate on a customer's beige wall and had to drive 20 minutes back to the shop for another one. Now I just use a regular screwdriver or my drill set to the lowest clutch setting. That senior installer knows what he's talking about, plastic gets brittle in cold weather too. Watch out for those cheap contractor-grade plates, they seem to crack if you look at them wrong. Your mileage may vary but I'd rather take an extra two seconds than make another trip for a six cent piece of plastic.

Actually I used to be one of those defenders too @fiona_nelson51, but you and susanm22 are making me rethink this whole thing. I work from coffee shops sometimes and honestly I've caught myself staring at my phone more than I'd like to admit (the guilt is real). It's kind of eye-opening to realize how many of us are just pretending to be productive with our little laptop setups.