[Vocabulary] 'slammed kitchen staff'

[Olympian]

Hello,

while reading the Yahoo news story on Why Rick Santorum dined alone at Iowa City’s Hamburg Inn, I came across the following:

Well after Santorum departed, the reporters continued their search for non-reporters to interview. Robert "Ajax" Ehl, a young dishwasher at Hamburg, emerged to say that Santorum's visit was "annoying" for the slammed kitchen staff, "but not as annoying as his politics."
​

What is the meaning of 'slammed kitchen staff'? One of the meanings I came across for 'slammed' is '

To criticize harshly; censure forcefully.' ​

So does it mean 'criticized kitchen staff'? It gives the impression that the kitchen staff at that place is always/frequently criticized. I can understand 'overworked kitchen staff', but 'slammed' ?

Thank you

 

[SoothingDave]

They mean that the were "slammed" with customers, i.e. really busy at the time.

 

[TheParser]

NOT A TEACHER


(1) Thanks to your question and thanks to the key member's excellent answer, I learned something today that I had never known.

(2) I also did some googling and discovered that the phrase is often "slammed busy."

 

[Olympian]

@SoothingDave, @TheParser, thank you. :up:

With so many questions being posted to this forum, the teachers are slammed busy. ;-)