A manager at the muffin place I started cooking at, when I customarily greeted him with "How ya doing?", he'd ALWAYS respond, "Excellent!!" As a teenager I just couldnt fathom why he always said that.
The owner's kid at the same place, showing me for the first time how to clean and cut a head of iceberg lettuce, peeled off the outer layers of brown and wilty leaves, referring to them as 'shit lettuce'. I always remembered that, and have used that one ever since, that is, when I get the opportunity to train a new guy who speaks english...
Joe Zazz, a manager at TGIF--his motto was "One Stop Shopping", meaning, make a list and go get everything you need in one trip. Never come back without both hands full.
Chef Bundy at NECI always wondered out loud about the trendy menu descriptions of vegetables being cooked "crisp tender". He really amused himself with that.
Chef Patrick at NECI could hear a stock at a rolling boil from across the kitchen and would come stomping over the wooden floor in his wooden clogs, 12" knife in hand, red-faced and screaming, "THAT STOCK IS BOILING!!!"
Chef Michel, drilled into us that, following our graduation from culinary school, we would NOT be chefs, but would likely have to work like dogs as sous-chefs for many years, before being able to refer to ourselves as chefs.
Steve H, a fellow sous at St Cloud, would always say, "Chicken is poison!", referring to the potential for sickness with mishandled poultry...he had many more sayings, which I can't remember, but upon his last day in the kitchen, chef Murcko unrolled about 12 feet of butcher paper and wrote, in black marker, every one of his quotes and hung it on the wall next to his station, just to remind him how sadly he'd be missed, I guess....
I guess this would be installment #1, as there are many more, but I'm fading.....
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