We are living in an era where labour saving devices pervade our homes, clutter our cupboards and allow us to have more time to do all the other chores. It has occurred to me that the idea of labour saving devices is a slight anomaly. Whilst their function is to speed up the daily chores, and make them less chore like, so we can sit down, have a cuppa and chill out for a bit; what they actually do is create more time for us to carry out more chores in a quicker and easier manner with yet another labour saving device.



The invention of the vacuum cleaner saves time on sweeping, so we can load the dishwasher which saves time scrubbing away in marigolds, so we can put on the washing machine, which in turn saves us from using a washboard and mangle. Still no sign of a cuppa anywhere in there and that's after working a nine to five. I have to admit that I don't relish the idea of spending all day wrestling with a washboard, and am rather grateful of all the household appliances that have come our way and in all reality, these appliances are a bonus.

It is not just in the home that electrical goods serve an almost godly goodness; in the catering industry the time saved translates directly into profits. I will provide a simple example. My very first job was as a dishwasher for a tea room in a small riverside town. I would work from 10am till 6pm washing pots, pans, cups, teapots, plates and cutlery. I was paid a measly 3 GPB per hour, but that was a fairly good wage back in the 1980s if I remember rightly! To pay me for my labour cost my employers 24 GBP per day and potentially 168 GBP if the business was successful seven days a week. If my employers had invested in a dishwasher, the machine would have paid for itself within a few weeks, and consequently allowing greater profits for the business thereafter.

The use of glasswashers in bars and restaurants is a good example of the way technology can aid staff and employees alike. Before their introduction, hand washing glasses was laborious and time consuming; the glasses would need to be washed, rinsed and polished. There were more breakages, and the initial investment in glassware, especially for drinking establishments would be huge, as the turnaround with hand washing is much slower than with a glasswasher. How did we get to have this brilliantly engineered device that spews up sparkling clean and dry glasses every five minutes?

The origins of the glasswasher are obviously tied in with the invention of the dishwasher. The dishwasher was dreamed up in the late 1800s by a lady who was thoroughly fed up of her servants chipping her best china cups whilst washing up. She endeavoured to create a machine that reduced the risk of breakages and came up with the first hand powered dishwasher. Since then, dishwashers have evolved beyond her wildest dreams. Some have waste disposal units inside, some fit neatly into a kitchen drawer, and others are the size of a small car and capable of doing the dishes for a whole hospital.

Glasswashers are another step in the evolution of catering equipment. With a complex mix of detergents and rise aid, we have a hard working little robot that cleans glasses to the same standard as a proud landlord behind the bar. As technology comes on in leaps and bounds, it remains to be seen what the next phase of glasswashers might bring; with any luck, the ability to serve up a G and T as the cycle finishes and the machine switches itself off.