The Fast Food Experience

Smooth Sailing

2005-09-10T19:52:00.000-04:00

I've made the conversion over to my new blog, fulmine and it's going pretty well. I don't have as many readers as I'd like, but that's okay. I figure I'd post this update here to get all the people who come to this website to go directly to the new one.

My Last Day

2005-08-24T21:36:00.000-04:00

They all threw me a party! They got cake and party hats and sparklers!

Actually, they made me sweep, mop, get burnt, and generally have a normal day.

Let's go through this bit by bit, which will lead up to why I am furious at my mother.

It doesn't take long to start it going, as at 20 minutes before my shift, I called her (because she drives me there) at her office and she was still there.

"What are you doing?!?"
"I was leaving now, it only takes 10 minutes to get there."
"From the house! Please hurry."

13 minutes later, she gingerly parks in the driveway singing to some shitty 70s song they haven't scraped from the radio yet. I swear that if I ever meet the guys in CCR or Blood Sweat and Tears...

I just asked her to hurry again, but in a more incredulous way. She keeps a contented unremorseful look throughout the ride.

As I pull in five minutes late (which she didn't think would be a big deal) I get a call from them asking where I was.

Then I work my ass off for four hours. I beg to go home early because of my 6am flight tomorrow, and the nice manager says if I sweep and mop and get the meats caught up, I can go at 9.

I eventually escaped at 9 and called my mother. She gets there 15 minutes later.

"I did something stupid," she says.
Imagine that, I think.
"I left my cash card in the machine this morning, and the bank won't be open tomorrow morning. We're going to use your father's card, though."
"Okay, so what's the problem?"
"Well, if you had picked up the phone today, we wouldn't be in this situation."

Here are two things about me: 1. I only answer my cell phone. 2. I never swear or get angry at my mother because she will go apeshit, and I mean that in the most sincere way. She goes postal when you get in a fight with her. She's called the cops on my dad for asking her to calm down.

"Damnit! I work all day, first at home, then at this shitty place, you lose the damn card, and try to blame it on me!?"
"I'm not blaming it on you..."

So she didn't go insane, as I expected, because she knew she was completely and unequivically wrong. That only works about half the time, though, as you'll see next.

We both calmed down and we were just driving home. I occasionally try to have a conversation with her, but it invariably ends up like it did tonight.

"They made me kill myself to get out early."
"You asked to go early?"
"Yeah, I haven't packed yet."
She sits there in silence for a minute.
"You should have worked there for the extra hour when you had the chance," she says in her dissapointed voice.

I just let it go. When we pull in the garage, I leave the car angrily and go upstairs to change.

She comes in a few minutes later, probably after checking the mail, and she walks up to her room and slams the door so loud that I, always the peacemaker, felt obligated to go up and work things out.

"You slammed the door when I was just trying to give you some criticism. You can never admit you're wrong!"
"Uhh, you slammed the door. I didn't slam any doors."
"You slammed the car door when you got out!"
"I didn't mean to."
"Don't lie to me!"

For the record, as it doesn't matter to me if I tell you the truth, I didn't slam the door.

"Mom, you slammed your door when you came up here and I didn't do anything."
"I didn't slam the door. I shut it!"
"Are you serious? Where's the camera? Where's Ashton Kutcher? Am I on candid camera?"

"You can never admit when you're wrong," she said again.
"I'd really like to not have a fight with you."
"I'm not going to have this argument with you."
"Then why are you still angry?"
"You know you're wrong but you won't admit it."
"Okay, well, I hope you start acting better by the morning. Your blood suger is probably low right now."

So I start walking away with that, but then the memories of all the things she did today came back at once, and I yelled, "Oh, and thanks for dinner tonight!" and I punched the fridge so hard it made a really strange sound. Maybe that was my fist.

Then I walk down and slam my door so loud the Russians at the Internation Space Station would spill their Sprite (as I've seen that's what astronauts drink like in that commercial).

Now that's a slam. That's the sort of slam all other slams should be measured by.

Okay, so I figure this is the last post in this blog, and I spent the entire thing talking about my mother. It's hard to focus on anything else when you're so angry. I've threatened her before that when I go to Scotland, I'm never going to call her or accept her calls. I've secretly decided to go through with that for a while now.

Okay, so everybody, if you've gotten this far, please switch over to fulmine, my new blog that has nothing to do with this horrible job that I wish to never remember. Update your favorites or news readers or whatever.

For those scimmers amongst us:

fulmine

That's about it. Thanks for stopping by.

My Seventeenth Day

2005-08-24T00:23:00.000-04:00

Things went all right, today. I had a long chat with the 17 year old kid and we exchanged anecdotes about our high school exploits.

I was really hoping to be let off early today to come home to play with my new iBook (!).

At about 11pm, an hour before my shift ended, the supervisor lady came up to me and asked me if I was ready to go. An opportunity to escape early!

"Actually, my shift is until midnight, but I could leave now if you want."
What, am I insane?!?
"Oh, good. Yeah, we could use you. I know you didn't get a break today, so grab some food."

That's right, I didn't have a break! 6 hours and no break! Grab some food? I don't eat this food, lady!

So I grabbed some fries, which I figure are pretty safe.

I noticed that there are a few homeless people who live at the restaurant. Everybody turns a blind eye.

At one point, the supervisor lady tells us that some manager is coming back.

Everybody started scurrying around to make everything perfect for this guy. I figured out which guy it was. He's a supervisor who usually works in the morning. I wrote about him as the hard-ass who liked me. The other folks at the grill where I was working were frantically pressing buttons on the tray holder to get the times on the timers to look like we had been using them correctly.

"Guys," I said, "If anything is wrong, just blame me. I'm leaving here tomorrow."

Then I thought, I'm leaving here tomorrow!

I changed my schedule so it's 5pm to 10pm. That will leave me with ample time to write a final post.

Expect my final post to be an iflavored one, as I'll be writing it from my iBook! I would have written this one on it, but I'm currently installing XP on it. It's a topsy-turvy world we live in. Especially me. Be sure to check out my new blog, which I have been posting on. fulmine

About Timing

2005-08-20T18:37:00.000-04:00

I know most of my readers have barely caught up with my fifteenth day, but this is important.

As I've said, this blog will end when my job ends, which is officially on Wednesday. From there, I'll convert to my new blog.

My problem is that my Wednesday shift ends at 1 am, and my flight to Peru (don't ask) takes off in the morning. That means the post about my last day might come much later after Wednesday.

I've already started my new blog, but I'm afraid that if I sheerd all of you over to it, I won't be able to post for the first week or so, and you'll all lose interest. I'm not basing that off of your integrity, but rather my own knowledge of my habits.

From here on out, there is no status quo. Everything is going to be changing. I'll only be in my hometown for a week or so after I return from my vacation in Peru and Florida. (Two wildly exotic places, from what I've heard.) That will hopefully give me time to set everything up for the transition. After that, I promise, there will be no status quo. I'll have to think of a new one.

EDIT: Okay, the link is out of the bag, so to speak.

Fulmine

The URL is still long and all, but I hope to get a domain name if I can get about $9 in my PayPal account. I'm finding that it's really hard without a credit card.

Leave me a comment in the new blog to let me know you're still with me. Once I see enough people, I'll make more posts.

Oh, and if any of you want me to host your blog for free (no catches, I just have a lot of extra space and bandwidth), just e-mail me.

I'm also thinking about getting a volunteer to help me with the technical aspects of the site, so if you are into that sort of thing, just contact me.

My Sixteenth Day

2005-08-20T16:54:00.000-04:00

I just got back from golf practice and my 4 hours of work, so I'm exhausted.

Work started off quite funny. I told the nice supervisor lady that I was leaving after Wednesday, so that rekindled shouted conversation that I was going to the Scotland.

The old manager who got in a fight with Curly in one of my previous posts came up to me.

"Could you do me a favor?"
"Sure."
"When you come back for the holidays or summer, could you bring me back a shot glass from Scotland. I collect them from all over."
"Yeah, okay."
"I'll pay you for it."
"You don't have to do that."
"See, I have them from all over the world. I have wooden ones-"
"Wooden?"
"Yeah, and pewter ones, and crystal ones. It's amazing at how many different types there are!"

It was as if I were in a Kids in the Hall sketch. He was going nuts about how cool shot glasses were, and I was trying to pretend that I was interested because I'm a subordinate.

After that, I was running meats all by myself. This isn't so bad, because I'm really quite good at it. I'm probably better than most people there. Eventually, though, the traffic caught up with me, and I was insanely busy. I've been here for 15 days, and they have 2 people on meats/fryer at any given time, even when it's really slow. Not today. It was all me, and I was facing a deluge. I was running from grill to fryer to walk-in freezer because I didn't even have someone to stock up for me. Eventually, a nice girl who was working at the table/wall gave me a hand.

I was really pissed off that they would just leave me there, though.

So when 3:45 rolled around, I promptly left. They needed quite a few things done, but I was tired of it all. As I was washing my hands, the Russian girl walked up to me and asked me to drop some crispy chicken.

"Sorry, I already clocked out."

It was a poor excuse, and I would have normally done it as a favor, but I had already taken my apron off and had finished washing my hands. Oh, that, and I don't care.

Two more days. I'm free on Sunday and Saturday, so expect posts about my upcoming switch to a new blog during that time. I'm still working out the kinks, but I do have hosting.

My Fifteenth Day

2005-08-19T19:33:00.000-04:00

Today was another 7 hour shift. Noon to, well, 7.

Every time I get in there, I always ask if they want me on meat, because that's the only thing I'm good at. Today, I asked a manager who told me yes, but then retracted and told me to ask Curly. That was quite possibly the last thing I wanted to hear, and I was validated.

Curly told me to be at the table/wall (which is where you prepare the burgers, even though it's neither a table nor a wall) during the busiest time of the day.

After a couple minutes he comes over and says:

"What are you doing?"
"I'm sorry, I'm going as fast as I can."
"What are you doing? I think the real question is what are you doing?"
"Yeah, you kind of already asked that."

He didn't hear that last part because I mumbled it.

At one point, somebody ordered about 5 of one type of sandwich which isn't very common, so we obviously ran out and had to wait until more were cooked. Curly quickly smelled error and appeared.

"How could we run out of everything? Are you calling the trays?"
"Yes."

I honestly thought whether I should have added, "just not the way you want me to."

After an hour and a half of this, Curly gave me a clipboard. Thoughts of doing something clerical instead of manual started bounding through my eager mind.

"See these small trashcans? Are you listening?"
"Yes"
"I don't like repeating myself."
"Okay."
"I need you to count each thing that's in here and write it on this paper. Write it with the little ones and the one across when it gets to five, You know what I'm talking about?"
"Tallies?"

To be more specific, I had to take each disgusting thing thrown into the trashcan out with my hands and mark its corresponding section on the sheet of paper. This must be their idea of clerical.

As if my day weren't bright enough already, I had to close (clean) both of the grills.

That's not so bad now, because after Curly leaves, the managers are much nicer. Unfortunately, there's this big oafish kid who thinks he's hilarious. He also thinks he's an expert at working there. I'll let him have that glory; heaven knows I don't want it, but he tries to explain how to do every little thing to me. Many times, he's just plain wrong.

After I finished closing the second grill, I started to turn it back on.

"We leave one off for the night. We only use this one. In the morning, they put eggs on that one, but it isn't used all tonight. You probably haven't worked this shift before, so you're used to running both of them."

Actually, I've been on that shift quite a few times, and they always run both grills during dinnertime. I've been on that shift the majority of my days here. I didn't say any of this because it's easier to just let these things pass. I won't have to deal with any of it for long.

Speaking of that, I tendered my resignation today. I gave my 5 day notice. I don't know their policy on quitting, but neither do they. I told the one nice manager.

"Where are you going?"
"Peru."
"Brazil?"
"No, Peru."
"When are you going to be back?"
"Never."
"Are you moving there?"
"No, I'm visiting there, and then I'm moving to the UK."
"Do you have family there?"
"No, I'm going to school there."
"Oh that's going to be fun. Well, I'll, uh, write a note that you're leaving."
"Thanks."

Just 3 more days of working there. If you're wondering what's going to happen to this blog after I quit (thus destroying the theme), I'm going to make a new blog about my life in the UK. It won't be as niche, but if you've found my writing to be interesting, just think about how much more it could be if I were allowed a bit more freedom to write whatever I wanted to. I hope that many of you stick with me.

Fast Food Fallout (and my cat)

2005-08-17T13:37:00.000-04:00

As I wrote in a comment, I am sick, and so is my cat. Whenever she's sick, she always closes one eye.

Since I'm on the subject, here's a couple more of her. The bottom one is of her knawing at my hand.

Now that my elbow burn has healed, I am left with what my scar is going to look like. It's not really as cute as my cat.

My Fourteenth Day

2005-08-15T21:26:00.000-04:00

Although I have big news, I'm going to go through the day first.

I started at 5 pm and went until 9 pm.

It's a very good thing that my cold took it's second day recession. It often does this to get my hopes up, but comes back en fuerzo the third or fourth day after the first signs. I'll let you know if it was only allergies from yesterday. I am allergic to cats and I have 3.

I've found out they really treat me poorly compared to the others because I'm young and male. The other kid who has been working here for a long time gets treated the same. Here's a little diagram of who gets treated the worst to best, excluding managers:

Young black male
Young white male
Old foreign male
Old black male
Old white male
Young foreign female
Old black female
Old white female
Young black female
Young white female

There are no young foreign males, so I excluded that group. Heaven knows how that list is going to affect the search engines. I just hope it helps people like my friend from Australia who wanted to know how fast food is changing women's "rolls." See comments from yesterday.

So that girl from a while ago was back, tonight. When she was leaving, I saw her in her civilian clothing, and I have to say: yikes. She really isn't my type. I was completely wrong. Anyway, and I feel like that guy in Starved, she's fatter than me. I know I shouldn't use that as a qualifier, as that would exclude most girls my age, but it just seemed apparent. Oh, and her shirt said "Single and loving it." I thought, good for her.

I've noticed that the sound of grills warning that they're about to open is very similar to the opening of "Nothing To Show" by Supertramp, thus making that song just repeat over and over in my head. The ice cream machine reminded me of another song, but I forgot what it was.

Okay, you probably want to hear the big news: I got my first paycheck!!!

Normally, I wouldn't be excited about such a thing, and this is no different. In fact, I'm even less excited since they only paid me $75.

I saw that, and I sort of laughed on the inside. I actually laughed on the outside, too. I've worked here 14 days, and they give me $75. They're damn lucky that I don't work there for the money. (I just love my job) So I asked the manager how many days it was for.

"28th to the 30th; 2 days. Wait, no, 3 days."
"Yeah... I've worked here for 14 days."
"The rest will be on the next paycheck, which will be on Monday."
"Okay, thanks."

When I had time to think about it, I realized that I started on the 15th. I got 2 hours for the orientation on Sunday, 3 hours for Wednesday (the 18th, which I know because I wrote my first entry about it the next day), and all the days after that. The hours say 24.67

It's impossible that I worked that much in 3 days. Maybe that is my first couple weeks and they just wrote it incorrectly.

Either way, I have no idea what I'm going to do with this huge increase in my income. Maybe I could buy that boat I've always dreamed about, or maybe start a grant.

I think I'm going to cry.

My Thirteenth Day

2005-08-14T18:24:00.000-04:00

Today was slow. Excruciatingly slow.

I got there right as lunch was half-over, and I just milled around for the next 5 hours. They did let me go an hour early, though.

Here are the updates:

That young Russian girl likes me. I don't know if it's mutual. I'm thinking not, but she's one of the few people there I enjoy being around.

That burger pirate guy makes me furious. He is such an idiot. He just stands there as people call out orders to him and he expects me to handle everything as he just looks at a nearby wall.

When I was moved to the preparation side, I had to call out those orders to him. Usually there is a lapse of about 45 seconds between the time I ask for something and when he starts walking to do it.

I called something out to him at one point. He didn't move, even though he was only a yard away. The lady working with me said that he didn't hear because he didn't say anything. I was tempted to say, "he heard me..." but that wouldn't help me out too much.

About the whole "response when someone asks for something" thing, I understand it's very important. I always say okay or repeat their order, but each time a manager comes over and tries to train me for the 40th time, they always mention that I need to say thank you. I'll try to go along with their stupid rules, but for some reason, whenever it comes down to it, I never say thank you. It's just not in me to thank someone for asking me something. You thank someone when they do something for you. That's like shaking someone's hand and saying excuse me, or sneezing and saying gesundheit. People just don't say those sorts of things. It's only polite if it makes sense.

At one point, I looked over at the burger pirate. On his collar he was sporting a big Franchise button. There are 3 things wrong with this:

1. Who wears big round buttons on their collar?
2. Burger pirate guy is supposed to be a tough guy, which is something a button just doesn't emit.
3. Nobody is told, asked, or encouraged to wear Franchise buttons. I don't even know where he got it.

If any of you still eat at the Franchise, I have a little trick for you so that you get a burger that hasn't been sitting around for the past hour. This only really works if you go inside to order. All you have to do is ask for your burger without salt and pepper. What that does is make them come up with a new batch of burgers because the first thing they do when the grill opens is put salt and pepper on them. You won't notice the difference in taste, but your immune system will thank you.

And guess what? I officially have a cold, and I officially blame it on the Franchise. I tend to get really bad colds, so expect stuffy posts over the next 2 weeks. (Yes, that's how long the brunt of my colds last.)

My Twelfth Day

2005-08-12T15:39:00.000-04:00

7 hours. Starting at 8 am. I feel like death.

It's been about 2 months since I read A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, but from what I recall, gulags aren't as bad as the Franchise.

It's bad enough making little mistakes here and there, getting yelled at for them, and getting yelled at for things you didn't do, but then there are the awkward moments like when your manager gets in a huge fight with a supervisor with you standing between them.

It was the old guy and Curly. Curly accused him of not stocking up for lunch, and the old guy yells back that he didn't have anybody working with him, and that the idiot guy working with me and I were not trained for breakfast. Curly told him to train us. That got him really mad. He started yelling about a whole bunch of stuff.

"You need to calm down right now," said Curly. "I need to turn a profit. If you don't like the way I do things, the door is right over there. We're going to be sweating tears. We're gonna be sweating tears."

As stupid as that sounds, it turns out he was right. I worked straight through at the grill for 5 hours before they gave me a break. You have no idea how hot it gets back there without anything to drink. I began to get very dizzy and I started to hallucinate a little. At one point, I thought I heard someone ask someone else whether they were going to the Celebrity Ball. Then I started whistling that song.

They definitely turned a profit with me.

While I was on my break, I was listening to the drive-through people. They're trained to say every phrase, which is sort of funny in that someone thought that "large size" was a verb.

"Do you want to large size that?"

I mean, I can sort of see how they could claim their old word could be used as a verb, considering they made it up, but since they changed to "large", it just doesn't work. How much harder would it be to ask, "do you want the large size?"?

Since I've gotten a few hapless Googlers visit this site in need of information about the stress of fast food managers, I'll tell you this, it probably sucks for them, too, especially if you have some asshole like Curly as a supervisor.

Oh, and since Iris hasn't enabled comments still, have you ever thought of talking to a lawyer about sexual harassment? It's a really good market for employees these days. I don't know if you have to ask him to stop first. Things you might want to consider is if it goes on your employment record. If you get enough money, it might not matter to you.

Best Day Of Work So Far

2005-08-10T22:05:00.000-04:00

I didn't go.

They called me up and told me not to come because I wasn't needed. They said it a bit nicer, but that's about it. I was so relieved, but I'm afraid I'll be let down as I pray and hope for similar liberation come Friday for my 7 hour shift.

My Eleventh Day

2005-08-08T22:28:00.000-04:00

11 days down, only 16ish more to go, of which I'll only be working about 4 or 5 days a week (hopefully).

On Friday, I have a 7 hour shift. That will be my longest shift so far, plus it starts at 8.

Today was pretty average. That hard-ass manager who likes me got angry at me because the retarded burger pirate guy wasn't listening to me at the grill.

I heard one of the funniest things today, too. That same manager was showing this other new kid how to sweep correctly.

"Knowing how to sweep is going to help you out the rest of your life, unless you're a... multimillionaire and you can hire someone to sweep for you."

Hmm, I hire someone to sweep for me... Last time I checked, I'm not a multimillionaire. It's called a cleaning service, and they come by once a week and we pay them $55. I never mop, sweep, vacuum, or dust any of my house for that reason. When I go off to uni, guess what? There's a cleaning service that comes by my dorm once a week. At this rate, I'll never have to sweep.

Maybe I can't remember anything, but that's about it for today.

My Tenth Day

2005-08-06T13:33:00.000-04:00

Since I've been working more, these posts just keep on coming. Don't worry, you'll get a reprieve tomorrow.

I learned something new today. Breakfast is hot. Having all grills open and 2 open ovens makes the kitchen one big slow cooker.

The second thing I learned, which is more something I was reminded of, was just how awful I feel in the morning. I wake up from a nightmare to a bunch of idiots havering on the radio alarm. You would think they'd play music in the morning. My biggest complaint of mornings during the school year is how cold I am. Today was the first day in months that it's been about 70. 70 isn't bad, but in comparison to the 85 that we've been holding at, it feels pretty cold.

As much as I gripe about how terrible I feel when I work there, it makes all the difference when people are nice. The first person I see there was Curly, who usually isn't nice to me. Today was no exception. Luckily, he was overshadowed by two other managers who are nice. One is the woman who orientated me. She's rather nice. The other is this hard-ass guy who, for some reason, is very nice to me. Maybe it's because he thinks I'm of the intelligentsia after hearing where I'm going to uni. Unfortunately, everyone heard when he asked me. The female manager asked me if I was excited and whatnot, but I can bet Curly is just going to resent me for it. It's nothing too major, in case anyone reading this is wondering. It's just sort of strange in comparison, and it's pretty far away.

Not a whole lot happened, but there are some things to write about.

On the schedule, they have a disclaimer at the bottom that says something like: "All material on this page is copyright of the Franchise corporation. Any reproduction of this, without prior permission from the company is strictly prohibited and will be subject of legal action."

Not only am I writing that down now, but just a few days ago, I wrote my week's schedule down, thus violating that disclaimer. You know, at one point, they paid a lawyer, who probably charged over $200 an hour, to write that, and he forgot a comma after "company".

I noticed all that as I was sitting in the crew closet for my break. I also noticed this: (click to read)

At the end of the day, that hard-ass manager, who I haven't come up with a nickname for, said that he was looking forward to working with me more.

My Ninth Day

2005-08-05T20:38:00.000-04:00

I'm freaking out. The prospect of waking up at 7 am tomorrow, after waking up at around 10 am for the entire summer, and working for 5 hours through the breakfast and lunch rushes, does not sound appealing to me.

For those of you who only check this at night, you probably haven't read my eighth day.

First thing when I get in, I see Curly. Just great. After he clocks me in and tells me to mop the back room, I walk past the nice manager from my seventh day. I'll call him Joe. That's his real name, so it shouldn't be too hard to remember. This guy is really nice. He always says hello and is cordial. He asks me if I've been taught how to do something before assigning it to me.

After I mopped up, I went to him to tell me what to do next.

"You know how to close the grill?"
"Well, yeah, a bit."
"Okay."
"So, do you want me to close the grill?"
"Yeah."

This was horrible. Earlier today, when I was doing my normal pre-work freak-out, I tried to tell myself that there wasn't anything really bad about closing the grill. I've never been burnt doing it, I don't have to deal with other people, I have an excuse for not doing anything else, and so on. I don't think I can tell myself that anymore.

The only other people in the grill area were the foreigners. There was the girl I mentioned in my last post who doesn't speak English, and the woman who I mentioned in my third day, who I thought was Russian but whose accent sounded almost Italian. I heard her talking today about Italy, so it seems like I was right to doubt myself. Perhaps, I subconsciously thought that Russians were more likely to be working at a place like this than Italians. Don't get the wrong idea about that; I have more Russian in me than Italian (1/16th vs. ?/?), but that's just the stereotypes that are so hard to escape from. Anyway, she is obnoxious. She stood over me and tried to direct everything I did. I just smiled. From now on, whenever she calls for anything, I just happen not to hear.

So I'm cleaning the grill while those two just sort of lounge around. When it became a little busier, they expected me to drop everything I was doing and help them out. All in all, it took me about an hour and a half to clean the grill.

Right as I'm finishing, I walked back to the grill where Curly is looking over the divider asking who closed the grill.

"I just closed it."

Any reply was lost in the shuffle. I'm sort of glad I didn't have to hear him point out what I screwed up. Maybe he was going to say I did a great job until he found out I had done it.

Right about then, the older guy with no bottom teeth starts his shift. Everybody likes this guy. He knows the ins and outs and he's got a sense of humor. He's been nice to me since I started.

"Did you close this grill?"
"Yeah."
"It looks great. Good job."
"Thanks."
"Did it take you about an hour?"
"Maybe a little bit more, but I had to do other stuff in between."
"Well why don't you close the other grill now."
"Okay."

2 grills... 1 day. I'm ecstatic. You should see my uniform. It's a casualty of war. By the time I closed the second grill, I only had 15 minutes left.

"Okay, I'm going to test your memory," said the older guy. "Go get 1 box of 10 to 1s, 1 box of 4 to 1s, 2 bags of small chicken, 2 bags of fish, 1 bag of the crispy chicken, and 3 bags of grilled chicken."

Those are the actual numbers. Normally, my memory is terrible, but I could visualize each of those things, so it made it easier. If you can visualize things, it makes it much easier to remember. After some people were impressed that I had quickly memorized the 5 pillars of Islam for an International Relations quiz, they all started using the house technique, which I had just read about earlier that day. You make a visual representation of each thing in a list, and mentally place each thing in a room of your house. Charity, undivided faith, fasting, prayer, and pilgrimage. Oh, at times like these, I look down at my grease covered shoes that I used to wear to the symphony and wonder what I'm doing working at a fast food place.

I don’t know much about posttraumatic stress disorder (or hypochondria, for that matter), but no matter how many times I wash my hands, I can’t seem to get the smell of the place off them.

Since I've stopped using traffic sites, I'd like to thank everyone who has linked here. I'm getting all my traffic from you guys. You're all on my links, and if you're not, e-mail me. By the way, someone from Australia must love this place, because they've clicked every single entry twice. I'm also the most popular in Virginia. I have dramatically more visitors from VA than any other place.

My Eighth Day

2005-08-05T11:21:00.000-04:00

I walked in, yesterday, and took a quick glance around to find the closest manager. The only one in sight was this heavy-set young guy with a small head. I'd never really talked to him.

"Hey [my name], how are you?"
"I'm good, and you?"
"I'm good. What's your number?"
"71."
"Okay, all set. You're going to be helping out Doug back there."
"Okay, thanks."

Wow. A manager... Was nice to me. Right after that, I was smiling for real, for the first time since I started working there.

Doug is the friendly 17 year old I wrote about, earlier. We did some grilling for a while, and then Doug called me to the back of the building for a "trash run." This involved taking this disgusting cart out to the dumpster pavilion.

"Oh crap, there's a swarm, today. Watch out for the bees."

I don't know what it was, but I was still in a good mood. As I hurled dripping bags of trash past a myriad of hornets into the dumpsters, I was smiling all the while.

An hour or so later, things had calmed down and there were almost no customers coming in. Right about then, this new manager guy shows up. He's the sort of guy that exudes bitchiness. I'm not sure if you know the type of person, but in a place like the Franchise, you get a lot of caricatures. He starts bustling around while talking on a cell phone. I got the impression that he was relaying the number of boxes of supplies. He comes over to the grill where I was standing. He looks at the bacon.

"They only have 6 strips. Wait, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Yeah, 6."

He proceeded to look through the fridge where bacon was kept.

"3 packs of bacon."

The Eastern European girl who I've mentioned before was working the grill with me. She walked up to me.

"Should we make more bacon?"
"I guess. Sure."

This is where I did something stupid. I pulled out the bacon and started making it. Before I actually got any of the strips out, that manager rushes back and yells at me not to make bacon. Okay, fine.

A couple minutes later, he walks back--still on the phone--talking about the bacon.

"We're missing a sheet of bacon. I looked all through this thing. Doug, did you make any bacon, tonight?"

"Nope."

"Alyona, did you make bacon, tonight?"

"What?"

"Bacon- this. Did you cook any of this, tonight?"

"Yes?"

I guess they couldn't yell at the girl who doesn't speak English. I would like to give some advice to any Franchise managers who stumble onto this: The people at the grill only make what other people tell them to make. It's almost always someone else's fault. Like later that night, there were two nugget bags out. I asked the guy if I should make them. He said yes. I started making them. The asshole manager comes over and yells at me for about 2 minutes.

Anyway, back to the bacon. 20 minutes after they find out that Alyona was the bacon theif, they come back still talking about the bacon. I have 2 problems with this whole situation.

1. If she cooked the bacon and it wasn't needed, wouldn't it all be on the cart? It's almost as if they needed it.

2. A bag of bacon must cost them about 45c. I'll pay for it if you shut the hell up about it. I'm not too proud.

After that, I was doing odd jobs, like mopping and getting stuff out of the walk-in freezer. I was walking back to the grill when I heard some old fat woman talking to anyone who was listening. This is the same woman who had tried to tell 2 people that, if she didn't get out, she would kill someone.

"Behind you. You know, more people should do that... Say 'behind you.'"

Doug was working on my side of the divider, a distance from the speaker.

"Shut up, Nancy," he said in a low voice. I smiled.

"It's a safety thing. There would be less accidents if people would just say 'behind you' when someone is mopping or something."

Doug looked up at me from across the grill, and I smiled again.

At one point, I told Alyona to cover me as I went to the bathroom.

This is where it gets awkward. I step into the men's bathroom, and there's someone with their back to me. This person is in a Franchise uniform and has a long ponytail. I instantly thought back to my first day, when a woman was waiting to clean out the men's bathroom.

"Excuse me," I said frantically. Then I noticed that this person was not surprised to see me, so that raised the likelihood that it was a man. Still, I wasn't going to take any chances, so I made the split-second decision to walk into the one stall and close the door.

This is how I found out it was a man:

I was working the grill. 11 rolls around, and everyone leaves. I mean everyone. Doug, Alyona, everyone... except me, and the asshole manager. I'm the only person at the grill. I looked up at the monitor that tells people what to make, and there was something up there. Shit! I don't know how to make anything. I stumble about and pull out the little burger box. Buns! I look through the bun racks, pick out the wrong type, put it back, find the right one, put it in the burger warmer, pull it out, and try to think of how to put the stuff on it. I'm really lost at this point. I see that ponytail guy walking past.

"Hey, I've never done this, could you give me a hand?"
"Okay. You're doing it right, so far..."

This guy is very interesting. He's short and fat. I'm not very tall, but I'm taller than this guy. He has a skull tattoo on his lower-right arm. He has a skull and crossbones earring in his left ear.

I couldn't get enough of that. This guy is so unscary. He's also bordering on the retarded. That earring is just too funny. Beware the burger pirate!

There isn't much else to say about yesterday. I did pick up a Groucho Marx gate to counter my aching feet and slippery floor. If I ever want the grease mustache and eyebrows, I know where there's some grease. I came out of that place feeling all right, for the first time. Don't expect me to start liking the place, but yesterday was unique.

I'll probably post again, tonight, after my 5pm to 8pm shift.

Oh, and get this: I just called Office Market and asked for the woman I had interviewed with and talked to on the phone. Guess what? She doesn't work there, anymore. That's it. Man's second greatest asset is his ability to hope. Now, I am without that.

As Promised

2005-08-04T18:35:00.000-04:00

My shift starts in an hour and a half, and surprisingly, I'm not looking forward to it. There are 5 sound reasons for this:

1. I just got a retainer, and it's chosen today as the day to start giving me a terrible headache. As soon as I take it off, the headache goes away. Even though I'm supposed to wear it full-time, I'm not going to wear it tonight.

2. I'm going to have to close the grills tonight.

3. I'm going to have to stock up for breakfast, which I've never done before.

4. They're going to have me at the "table" making the burgers, which I'm horrible at.

5. I've got to work until 1 am. I'm fine staying up until 1 or 2 when I'm watching TV or hanging out, but working into all hours of the night will probably take its toll on me, which means that there's a huge probability I won't post about it until around 11 am tomorrow.

I don't know how many of my readers are still patrons of the Franchise, but I just want to let you all know that I used to eat there a couple times each week, and since I've started working there, I have completely stopped eating everything but the icecream, which I've only had twice. I would highly recommend that everyone else does the same.

You know that story of that French guy who drove a tractor or bulldozer or something through that fast food restaurant? Here it is. Well, I used to just think he was some anti-globalization idiot, but I can sort of sympathize now. Maybe he does birthdays...

UPDATE: So, it's 7:17 now, and I had a terrible thought, did my mother finish cleaning my uniform? The answer: No. If I hadn't just thought of it, I would have not had a uniform to wear. It's still going to be wet, though. Doubleplusgood.

Highlights From My Ex-Job

2005-08-03T17:36:00.000-04:00

I just got back after spending two hours with my ex-employer. I'm helping him sell his car which he has told me he isn't actually going to sell. He just wants to waste my time. He wants to sell it on this elusive device people keep talking about, the Internet. I asked him why he didn't just put a For Sale sign on the car. This a picture of it (yes, that's MS Paint's airbrush I used to black out the background):

"I did that, but I got a lot of people calling me up. One guy said he'd take it for $500, so I took the sign down. What did that guy think he was doing?"
"I don't know."

So, he's watching his son's dog. He wanted to go up to the library, but his son told him he couldn't leave the dog in the car when it's 95 degrees out.

"Can you believe that? He said the damn dog would die."
"Well, actually, if you... nevermind. Yeah, that's crazy."

At the end of the day, I really had to go to the bathroom, but I figured we'd be leaving in a second. Wait, the dog needs to go. Nope. But look at him run after squirrels!

"Damn, those books I told you I'd give you aren't here. Let me go upstairs and get them."
"No! That's all right. Forget about them."
"Well, I guess you're not going to read them today, anyway."
"Yeah."

We get in the car, and some horrible noises start coming out of the car's speakers.

"My wife likes to listen to this stuff. Do you know what this is?"
"Is it... learn Hebrew songs?"
"Yeah."

--Shalom means hi, how do you do! It's fun to sing about the words we know!--

"Shit! My wife drove all the way to the city and didn't get gas! I'm going to be running on air. I've got to get this to a gas station fast!"

His gas was 25% full, of course.

The worst thing of all is that I have to work tomorrow, anyway. 8pm to 1am, and Office Market still hasn't called me back.

I'm stuck between a lunatic and an insane asylum.

Getting Through Some Things

2005-08-01T10:47:00.000-04:00

Have you ever took the time to look at your nuggets? As I was trying to dig them out from their tray the other day, I had quite a bit of time to look at them. They're obviously molded into their shape. They're all pretty much the same. My question is why that shape? They're like little North Americas. They certainly don't look like a part of a chicken. I don't think they should, for that matter. Wouldn't they be better-off just making them ovals like in their old add campaign (pictured left)? Here's what most of them look like:

Yesterday I found one that looked a bit like this:

I think back to that woman who found a chicken head in hers. That thing was huge. Most people wouldn't notice this one. Now, I'm not 100% sure that this is anything but an odd shape, but I wouldn't eat it.

Now that I've gotten through that, I figure I can get a little off topic. I'm scheduled to work on Thursday, so I'm left with quite a bit of time between now and then. They'll probably call asking me to come in at some horrible time in the morning. UPDATE: They just called me this morning. My phone wasn't with me, though. My mother asked me why they didn't leave a message.

"Mom, these people... they're Neanderthals... and Neanderthals... they don't leave messages."

So, you know that blog I wrote about a few days ago, well it still intrigues me. I guess I should put the disclaimer (or rather I should have) that it can get a little racy at times. It honestly isn't about that, though. The biggest draw, in my opinion, is how odd it is. It's almost like a book adapted to blog vernacular. It's like reading a professional author using lots of exclamation marks and missing a couple commas, here and there.

Iris, since you still haven't opened comments or provided an e-mail address, and I know you read this, I'd like to tell you that if you're not dead set on acting, you should consider writing.

Maybe I'm just havering.

My Seventh Day UPDATED

2005-07-31T17:47:00.000-04:00

Today was different than all the other days. Not interesting-different, but rather boring-different.

When I walked in, Curly, who is pictured here, told me to start cleaning up the surfaces with a rag. I did this for about 45 minutes. There was about 7 minutes worth of stuff to clean up, but I wasn't enthusiastic about going back up to Curly. He could get me when he was ready.

Eventually, some salt-and-pepper, wiry old manager asked me if I knew how to work the grill. Why yes, I just happen to know. He set me work at the fryer for a while, but then there was some sort of leak in the dishwashing area, so I mopped that up. Click to enlarge the picture.

Right as I was finishing the mopping, Curly comes in to tell me I'm on the table.

What?

He wanted me to go help prepare the sandwiches.

"You've done this before, right?"
"No, actually, I haven't."

So, I started at the end of the line. Someone would make the sandwich, and I would add the meat to it and wrap it up.

"What are you doing?" Curly asked me in his uniquely rhetorical tone.
"I've never done this before."
"Yeah, but show some enthusiasm."

What? That would make me the only person in the entire building, save for some kids hopping and screaming next to the toy display, who would be enthusiastic. So, do you know what I did to change? Absolutely nothing.

As I said, I only added the meat, so the two times I got yelled at for making the wrong thing, were pretty uncalled for. One of those times, the guy who actually screwed it up told the manager, "it's all right, he just messed it up a bit, we're making a new one." Thanks for having my back, you dick.

Eventually, I got the hang of it. After 2ish it got slow so they turned my side off and moved me to the other side. Her I worked with a girl who doesn't like to speak English. She understands most of it. She's obviously from some Eastern European country. My guess, based on her facial features: Romanian.

We became friendly, as much as two people not talking to each other can be. I've gotten good at the language barrier friendship thing after spending a few months abroad.

As I was working, I noticed that there was an attractive girl working at the drive-through. This is one of the two attractive girls I've seen. The other is quite a bit taller and has very public emotional problems. This girl seemed maybe a little younger than me. I probably wouldn't find her very attractive if it weren't in contrast to all the other people working there, but I can't help that. Anyway, I'm in such a subordinate social position that I shouldn't even think about such things. The picture doesn't really do her justice, but if you click it, it looks a little better. I couldn't emphasize how dark she makes her eyes. ***EDIT***: I forgot to draw her freckles. Those drive me crazy. The sad thing is that I spent a bit of time trying to memorize her face so I could sketch it better. Now that old wiry guy and the pretty girl both think I'm creepy, since I stared at both of them. I just wanted to draw their pictures and show them on the internet to complete strangers. If that's creepy, I don't know what isn't.

***Amendment***: Looking back on this post, those pictures look horrible. I can honestly say that I was better when I was in middle school. All these words have pushed out whatever part of my mind that could draw. I still like my picture of Curly, though, even if it doesn't look anything like him. In case Curly is reading this and doesn't understand the textual cue to click on a link to view the image, here it is in all it's sketchy glory:
Click to enlarge.

Ain't Nobody But Me

2005-07-30T18:28:00.000-04:00

I've got 11 to 17 tomorrow. I'm almost sure that's what I was listed for on my fifth day, but when I looked at the schedule when I was there, it said 11 to 18. If it wasn't just my imagination, and they try that again, I'll just leave at 5, anyway. I don't think they have any alerts or procedures if somebody doesn't show up or stays different hours than they should have.

Al was telling me that they'll always try to get you to stay longer. I'm not familiar with schedules of this sort, but what do they get out of holding us there 10 minutes after our shift? We're still paid for it. I hope. You never know with this place.

So, a couple times when I've looked at the schedule sheet hanging in the "crew room," I've noticed the number next to my name is circled in pen. It's more of a poorly-made square or polygon.

I'm the only person on the sheet with that designation. I know I'm not the only new person. I might look too much into these things, but I have a feeling that some bastard manager or supervisor did that for some detrimental purpose regarding me. Since there aren't words written, it could fit Shaneequa's MO. Then again, to figure out it was my name, she'd have to read something. Maybe the notation was made after she asked someone which one I was and she marked it so she would remember. Don't worry folks, I'm going out for a smoke right now.

Speaking of smoking, Al asked me if I did.

"No, I don't."
"Good. You don't smoke the weed, do you?" he asked in a lowered voice.
"No, I don't."
"Good. If you're ever in a group, don't let them pressure you to do it."
"I graduated high school."
"Did you?"
Yeah, I already told you this a couple days ago. Anyway, that led into the conversation about the Discovery Channel that's in the previous post. At least he didn't ask which uni I am going to.

So his questions about what I smoked meant that he does both of those things. The least he could do is realize I know this and not try to give me a pathetic attempt at a lesson. If I wanted to deal with hypocrites, I could be at home.

Burn Update: I woke up in pain, today, to see it completely raw. Up until now, it hasn't been hurting. In my mind, that's a sort of insult to the injury. Maybe the insult is that I still have to work there, or when I get called a screw-up for my mopping skills by a cro-magnon man.

If you want to see an artist's rendition of what the manager who called me pale and a screw-up looks like, click here. He really does look somewhat like an angry Curly. (Curly DeRita more than Curly Howard.) The stark difference between his five-0clock shadow-like hair and dark eyebrows is more defined in real life.

If any of you want to know the only thing I've deemed safe to eat at the Franchise, it's the ice cream. No human hands touch it. They keep a cover over the "shake mix" that is made into the ice cream, so not many flies get mixed in, I imagine. Stay away from any chicken or fish products, especially. The quarter pound meat should be avoided, as well. To put cheese on your burgers, they need to pick off slices from a block of cheese that's been heavily compacted. That means they're using their fingernails to pry it apart. Fingernails + cheese - gloves = bad.

My Sixth Day

2005-07-29T20:30:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure today even warrants a mention. It was uneventful. I became friends with a young guy named Al. [Don't want to end up a cartoon, in a cartoon graveyard.]

Oh, I almost forgot. When I first got there, the other person at the grill was a fat kid. Guess what? He's a freshman at where I went to high school. I had never seen him before. It's too bad he's not in school now, because I want to know if they fixed the lockers my friends and I tried to tear down, or erased my name I wrote on a door with a hall pass. I told him to avoid taking journalism classes. I got in quite a bit of trouble while taking those. I'm not going to write about that, but if you want to read a slightly similar, but far more interesting account of how far writing can get you in trouble, check out this. It's not very well written, but it got my attention enough so that I read the whole thing.

So when I told this kid to stay away from journalism, I also grumbled that the school newspaper, and everyone involved with it, were terrible.

"Yeah, I never read the newspaper. I get it in homeroom and think, yay! More stuff to burn when I get home."

Right... It's so hard to laugh at the things the other employees say.

Later on, Al was asking me about uni. Al isn't the kid from my high school. I can't remember what he asked me if I was going to be studying, but it was something odd.

"No, I'm going to study history," I replied.
"American?"
"No, modern."
"Oh, so you could be the voice of that guy on the Discovery Channel?"
You mean like in American Hot Rod, I thought.
"Probably more the History Channel than the Discovery Channel."
"Hey, do you watch Animal Planet?"
"Not really, no."
"You gotta be 21 to watch some of that stuff. You know, when the animals get on each other?"
"Yeah, I know."

Another day, another dollar. Then again, they have shown no inclination to pay me.

Since I started working at the Franchise, I have made $55 from my ex-employer, and $0 from the Franchise.

Come on, Office Market, please pull through! I know what an Ethernet card is!

Casual Conversations

2005-07-29T10:48:00.000-04:00

I took part in a sort of "fast food conversation" on my fifth day, but it slipped my mind when I wrote the original post.

I was clocking back in after my break, and there was a girl waiting to do the same thing ahead of me. She told the manager her number was 73 and walked away.

(I'll indent my parts in this conversation)

"What's your number?"
"She left."
"Where'd she go? What's her number."
___"I think it's 73."
"Just hold on a second. Does anybody know her number?"
"It's 45 or something."
___"I'm almost sure it's 73."
"Wait a second. Is it 60 something? Someone call her back here."
___"She said it was 73."
"Hey, you left without telling me your number."
"It's 73."
"Okay."

That was the first time I smiled that entire day, although the threat of an eyeball punch was equally enjoyable.

Now that it's two days since my burn, I can clearly see what the scar is going to look like for the rest of my life. It's the biggest scar I've ever gotten.

I'm sort of torn between disregard and anger over that permanent reminder of what hell the Franchise is. It's like someone tattooing you without your permission. Then again, it's on my elbow. If it were on my face, I'd have gone postal.

Unease

2005-07-28T15:57:00.000-04:00

I'm really frantic about going to work tomorrow. It's 4 to 8, so I'll be closing the grill, again.

I called up Office Market. They said it was going to be a couple days before I'll know if I got the job. I don't know if I can wait that long. I went to an ice cream place this morning and talked to the owner, but he wasn't looking for seasonal work. I then went to a couple other places and got applications. I finished one and turned it in, but I still have the other to do.

I've started to go back to the traffic building things, so if you're coming from one of those, feel free to browse through my archives, as I've only been at this for about a week. I have the important posts listed in the right-hand column.

Off Topic

2005-07-27T23:51:00.000-04:00

I know this is completely off topic, but as someone new to this blogging thing (and probably only a temporary member), I've found that a lot of blogs have terrible writing or are just plain boring. I've tried to make this blog neither of those things. I've been too lazy to try to get more readers, but I have given a lot of patronage to others' blogs. I found one a while ago that I just checked on now, and it continues to be a very well-written, meaningful account of an interesting person's life. I think the downfall of most people's blogs is that nothing interesting is happening to them in the first place. I mean, I'm writing about working at a fast food restaurant! Anyway, please check out http://lostlush.blogspot.com/

This is the sort of person I'd like to collaborate a novel with. Maybe that's just the way I think.

I wish comments were activated, though.

My Fifth Day

2005-07-27T18:33:00.000-04:00

Usually, I can write these synopses with a bit of humor and joviality. Today is different. I'm furious and exhausted.

First, when I got there, they had me sweep and mop the floor in the kitchen. That's fine. Then the supervisor guy comes up to me (he's the one who remarked how pale I was) and says something like this:

"You're having all sorts of trouble. Give me the mop. You have to do it like this. You're a screw-up."

Sir, do you realize that my SAT score is higher than the collective SAT scores of every single manager and supervisor at this place? I've been through more honors and advanced placement courses than your entire family ever will? I'm not an arrogant person, but when you question my intelligence, I'm going to defend myself. Of course, I didn't defend myself and I did thank him for the tip.

After I finished the floor, I was told to stand right in front of the fryer and follow the directions of Shaneequa. The first thing I did was take out the batch of whatever that someone had put in there before.

"Never make anything unless I tell you to!" said Shaneequa.
"I didn't put this in."
"I know!"

Right... A little while later, I had to go to the bathroom, but there was a rush on, so I decided to hold it in until things got calmer. When they did get calmer, I walked up to Shaneequa.

"May I please go to the restroom?"
"Nope, you'll have to wait until 1:30."

I looked at the clock. 12:13

Around this time, I heard something quite funny. Somebody got on Shaneequa's nerves so she had this to say:

"Shut up! Don't take your frustration out on me, or I'll punch you in your eye ball!"
Keep in mind that this is my boss.

A while later, she began to sing. She wasn't singing a song, mind you, but rather her rendition of opera. It went something like this:

"Do la me you... Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah... Figaro figaro figaro..."

She was 100% serious. It was as if she were practicing. I was thinking of questioning her if she knew any other bits from the Barber of Seville... or even knew what that was. She kept this up for about 2 hours.

After that whole business, I got burnt... seriously burnt. That's my elbow, if you can't tell. I was pulling a frying cage out and it swung up against my elbow. I let out a little whimper and then smiled to show that everything was all right.

At the end of the 7 hours, I was ready to tell everybody off and tender my resignation. I decided to hold off until I had a while to think about it. I went to Shaneequa at 6:01 and asked her to clock me out.

"You need to clean up the grill. Dump all the trash cans and put new trash bags in them."

After I did that, I went back up to her.

"Did you sweep and mop both sides of the kitchen, yet?"
"What? Sweep and mop both sides?"
"Well, you just need to sweep, but do it well."

After I did that, I went up to her, again. She was talking to someone else about nothing important and ignored me. Fine, I'll just get my paycheck while on the clock.

I went into the first closet office and asked the supervisor guy who called me pale. He went through all the paychecks. He then went through them all again. Then he went to the computer.

"For some reason, you're on the next pay schedule. You'll get your paycheck next payday. That's the eigth."
"In two weeks?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, thanks."

Fine, that's it. I walked to the front and up to Shaneequa.

"I'm leaving. My number is 71."

Even if Office Market doesn't call me back, I'm finding a different job. I cannot take this place.

The Results

2005-07-26T10:48:00.000-04:00

I just got back from the interview. Let's go over how it went.

A woman led me into an office in the back of the store. Here are some excerpts of the interview:

"Are you working now?"
"Yes, at McDonald's."
"If you got this job, would you keep the one at McDonald's?"
"No." (I was thinking somewhere along the lines of "Hell no!")

"What's the earliest you could come to work in the morning?"
"I think 8."
"How about 7?"
Err... What's with everyone trying to haggle with me. If I meant 7, I would have said 7.
"Yeah, 7 is all right."
Damn my low self esteem

About this time, somebody thought it would be a good idea to call me. I have my phone set to vibrate, but it was audible. She ignored it, but then it was even louder every five minutes when it would buzz to tell me I missed a call.

"What strengths do you have would fit working here?"
"I'm friendly, personable, responsible, and I'm good with computers."
"When you say good with computers, would you know what someone was talking about if they asked for an Ethernet card, and would you know whether they needed it or not?"
"Yeah, absolutely."
This is partly true. I do know what an Ethernet card is, and I think I'd be able to know if they needed it.

"What's a time when you performed exemplary at work?"
"At McDonald's, I can make more burgers than company policy says, which is more productive."
"Okay, if a co-worker was breaking company policy, what would you do?"
Shit!
"If it were hurting the company, I would either talk to the co-worker or go to a supervisor."
That's probably not the right answer.

After screwing up every single question, she told me that she would check my references and give me a call this evening. If everything worked out, she would give me a schedule in the next couple days. What? That sounded like I pretty much got the job. But then again, she'll have to talk to me ex-employer, who is 100% insane. I don't know if I've mentioned that before, but he is. There's no telling what he'll say. Here's what I imagine:

"Hi, I'm calling on behalf of Office Market. We're looking at ....'s application, and he has you listed as a previous employer. What can you tell me about him?"
"Well, he's a communist. Don't get me wrong, he's a good guy, but I wouldn't trust him with me Jello pudding snacks."
"What do you mean?"
"When, the sun goes down and the tide goes out, they all get together and they all start to shout, hey, hey, Uncle Dud, it's a treat to beat your feet in the Mississippi mud!"

If you knew him, this wouldn't sound so absurd. Anyway, I've got to call him and let him know he'll be getting a call from these guys, or else he'll say something like, "I thought he was working for McDonald's now, who are you working for! You're imposters!"

Mind the Thermal Tiles

2005-07-26T09:04:00.000-04:00

I'm just about to leave for Office Market. I'm really hoping I get the job. Chances are that I won't, but they've had a couple positions open for a while and they're calling me.

I'm the one with no job experience on his resume.

If I do get the job, I hope there's an employee discount, as I desperately need a new office chair. Well, one thing at a time.

Thanks to the 14 regulars and all the other folk who stumble upon this blog. I've decided to not use Blog Explosion for a while. I figure that enough people are watching my blog for updates. I'm getting a whole lot of visitors from Call Center Purgatory, so, if you haven't already, please check it out.

Short Term Memory, Again

2005-07-25T17:35:00.000-04:00

I forgot to mention that I had also gotten a call a couple days ago from Boston Mart (I know I have no creativity in changing names) asking me to do an interview. I turned them down. There are four reasons for this:

1. If it is an upgrade, it will only be marginally better.
2. It was going to be a hassle to quit and join somewhere else.
3. There would be no hope of a reference from the Franchise.
4. They were pissy when I applied. I went in, and asked for an application. Some manager guy handed me one and gave me a pen.

"Actually, could I fill this out at home and bring it back to you?"
"No, you have to fill it out here. That's our policy."

Right... because so many people are going to go home and cheat. I like lists, so here's one of the things that they didn't get from me by making me fill out the application on the spot:

1. My Social Security number.
2. One of the two references requested.
3. The address of the one reference I did have.
4. My previous employer's correct address.
5. My school's address.
6. My school's phone number.
4. Me working there.

After I finished the application, I handed it to the manager guy. He stood there and started browsing through it. I was tempted to walk away, but it seemed like he hadn't dismissed me. I stood there looking around. There was an old couple looking at me. Eventually, he looked down at me.

"Are you looking for something just for this summer?"
"Well, I'm going to school after the summer."
"We're not looking for seasonal work, but I'll file your application... Under banana peal... In the trash."

Okay, he didn't say the last two sentences, but he conveyed the same message. For all his stony demeaner, it turned out they did need me. I have a little bit of pride, and that's where I draw the line.

Curiouser and Curiouser

2005-07-25T15:01:00.000-04:00

I just got another phone call. It was a number I didn't recognize.

"Hello?"
"Hi, this is Christine, is .... there?"
"Yeah this is ...."

Damn. It must be the Franchise, again. Don't they get it? I'm not going over there today.

"You applied to Office Market [name has been changed]. We were wondering if you were still interested and if you wanted to go for an interview."

Hmm... Here's the situation: I'd love to work at an office store than the Franchise. I'm also only going to be around for the end of the summer. I'm actually going to be leaving much sooner, but that will come up unexpectedly. Chances are they aren't looking for seasonal work. It can't hurt to try.

"I'd love to."
"Great, how does tomorrow sound?"
"Sound great, what time?"
"What about 10 am?"
"Sure."

Just then, I realized I had actually forgotten the exact name of the store she said she was from. Damn my short term memory! Damage control:

"Oh, what's the address?"

Good, now all I need to do is find it. I'm pretty sure I know which one it is.

Honestly, I don't mind switching the entire format of this blog if I could work for an office supplies store. Think about what they do there. The employees have the most basic understanding of technical jargon. I could help those customers in my sleep. I already stock heavy boxes at the Franchise, who cares if they have frozen strawberries in them or reams of paper.

I'm so excited! Ha!

Still Groggy

2005-07-25T11:44:00.000-04:00

Right before I went to sleep last night at 2:30 am (insomnia), I noticed I had a burn on my thumb, too. I'm surprised I missed it, as it is much worse than the other ones and it still hurt. It would hurt whenever I moved my thumb, thus proving that working at a fast food restaurant will make you devolve.

Now that that's settled, let's talk about this morning. I was rudely awakened at about 11:20 by my cell phone ringing. It is plugged into the recharger on the floor by the foot of my bed, so I trudged across my bed, leaned over, and answered it as lively as I could.

"Hi, is .... there?"
"Yeah, this is ...."
"Hi, this is .... (I actually forgot her name) from the Franchise. I was just wondering if you could come in tonight."

As I've said, I don't need to work again until Wednesday. That means I have my own little weekend for the next one and a half days. I'm also compulsively agreeable while talking on the phone.

"I don't know, what time will you need me?"
"What time can you come?"

I'm not haggling with you, lady. If you said something like 7 to 9, I'd do it, but instead, you put the ball in my court.

"Yeah, actually, I don't think I can come in tonight. Sorry."
"That's okay. Bye."
--click--
"Bye."

So, what would you have done? Come on, I mean, let my burns heal before I'm sent back out there.

A. I don't need the money
B. I don't want to go.
C. I hate it there.
D. They should have had a better scheduling system.
E. I don't want to go.

Seriously, what would you have done? Post a comment.

My Fourth Day

2005-07-24T22:31:00.000-04:00

I just got home, making this the first time I'm posting about my day at work, the day I was there.

Let me split this up into good news, bad news:

Good news:
I didn't see Shaneequa at all.

Bad news:
I had to close (clean) the grill by myself.

Good news:
When I went on my first bathroom break (ever!), Van Morrison's "Jackie Wilson Said" was playing over the speaker. It made me wonder why they didn't play music in the kitchen. I would love to listen to my ipod there.

Bad news:
As someone I knew from Berkeley would say, "I got hella' burned."

Good news:
I came up with reason #3 not to eat at the Franchise: Flies. Everywhere. On your food, in your food, defecating on you food. I'm not sure if this is good news.

Bad news:
I'm eating Wendy's as I'm writing this. I couldn't bring myself to eat from the Franchise, but I don't imagine this is much better.

Good news:
I don't have to work again until Wednesday!

Bad news:
I think some grease splashed into my eye when I was at work. I wonder what the long-term repercussions of this will be.

Okay, enough of that. At one point, somebody ordered 4 double cheese burgers... well-done. The 17 year old who introduced himself to me in the first post made an astute observation:

"He must think this is a restaurant or something."

We could have just given him the normal stuff, but I put his burgers in for twice as long as they usually go for. Then he asked for some sort of fried chicken... well-done. Those things are fried! Waiters in the fanciest of the fanciest restaurants in old Parîs don't ask you how you'd like your chicken done. There are only two options for chicken: Dark meat, or light meat. Anyway, we refried it. What he doesn't understand is that rawness is only one of the many factors leading your meal to be an unsafe/unhealthy/disgusting one.

So after he was gone, I heard the Franchise form of a conversation. It was different people coming up with the craziest stuff people have ordered.

"Double cheeseburger without cheese!"

That's the only one I remember that doesn't give the name of a unique choice that will give away the carefully guarded secret of what the Franchise really is... For those surfing here via Blog Explosion, you won't know what I mean.

So, I was thinking of putting together a list of all the choices in order of what's kept the most and least disgusting. The problems with that are:

A. It would give away the name of the fast food place
B. Everything is so disgusting I would just be kidding myself and all of you.

Thanks to everyone who has been reading this blog and posted comments, they are appreciated, so keep them up!

Pre-Launch

2005-07-24T16:22:00.000-04:00

My uniform is clean and I'm just about ready to go. I'll be back in five and a half hours. If I'm not too exhausted, I'll make another post, otherwise I'll write one in the morning.

No Worries

2005-07-24T12:39:00.000-04:00

My ex-employer called me this morning.

"I got your message a little late. When do you think you can come over? Are you busy today?"
"I'm just about to leave for tennis, right now, and then I have work all afternoon."
"Oh, okay. What's your schedule look like for Monday and Tuesday?"
"I don't know yet."
"Okay, I'll give you a call on Monday."
"Okay, see you later."
"Bye."
"Bye."
"Goodbye."
"Bye."
--click--

That means:
A. I have to go to work today, anyway.
B. I'll eventually have to do the de-weeding.
C. I can't keep putting things off, but I can try.

Real Luck

2005-07-23T20:58:00.000-04:00

It's just about 9pm here, and I didn't get a call from my ex-employer. I had left him a message as we had agreed, but he didn't return it, so I'm not working there tonight. That means I won't be working there for quite a while. He said that we would either do it today or tomorrow, but I'm working tomorrow! Ha!

I'm just afraid that I'm here rejoicing while something bad has happened to him. He lives on the phone. For him not to return a call means something is up. Hopefully, it's nothing.

I've been thinking back to how I was feeling earlier today. Things aren't so bad. It helps a whole lot that I don't have to take this job seriously. If there were people depending on me (or me depending on it) it would be a lot worse. As it stands, I should be able to step back and laugh at how bad it can get. Although, I do admit that it's tough to laugh at the burns while they still hurt. I've grown to accept that the burn I posted here is going to stick with me forever.

1700 - 2200

2005-07-23T14:13:00.000-04:00

I decided to drive out to the Franchise today to look at my schedule, since they don't let you know in advance. What luck! I'm going in tomorrow at 5pm until 10pm. That will be my longest shift yet.

I've realized that getting material to write about isn't as important as my hatred of going there.

Tonight, I have to go de-weed a jungle for my ex-employer who thinks he's still my current employer. It's 79 degrees out, and he said I'll need to wear pants and a long sleeve shirt... and gloves.

His backyard is normal, until it drops off in a small cliff-like forest. That's where I've got to de-weed. I've put off doing this for weeks now, but there's no turning back at this point.

Okay, so let me go back to the fast food. That's why you're all here, anyway. So, I walk in there today without my uniform, because I was just stopping by. Some old guy in a tan shirt (the shirt colors somehow designate rank, but I'm not sure how; I could probably make some joke about brown shirts, but I feel too defeated to do so.) turned around when I walked past him.

"Hey buddy,"
"Hi,"
"What's up? How are you doing?"
"Not much, I mean fine, good, thanks."

Just great. I think I'm going to cry.

I walked into the back closet office. Some lady was working away at the computer. I felt bad excusing myself to get a look at the schedule right next to her, until I saw she was working hard away at solitaire.

sun -- 1700 - 2200

Damnit! If they expect me to work on Sunday, what's stopping them from wanting me there on Saturday? I frantically looked at the board to see where Saturday was listed. It wasn't on there.

Suddenly, my panic faded and I realized that if they wanted me in today, they should have told me. I don't care. It's their stupid system and they'll have to deal with the consequences. If they don't have enough employees tonight, maybe they should get a better scheduling system.

Glasses

2005-07-22T23:51:00.000-04:00

I know I've posted a lot over the past two days, but I figure that now is a crucial time to get an audience. If people return here without there being any new posts, they'll likely give up on it. I might run out of material for the weekend, but I'll try to keep posting. If I do run out of material and I'm just stalling, I'll be sure to admit it.

Mowing lawns with a mower that spit up 50% of the grass into my face made me realize how lucky I was to wear glasses. I am again presented with this feeling as I have to deal with grease, water, and acid spitting up at me from the grill.

Yes, I said acid. We use acid packets to clean the grill. No, there's no real cleaning after the acid use (except for some water spritzing), so you're eating acidic burgers.

Reason #2, #3 for not eating at the Franchise?

When I said spitting at me from the grill, I forgot to mention that that is only one of the places it can come from. There is a liposuction vacuum thing that sucks out the grease from the grease troughs. A co-worker told me that, one time, because he didn't turn the machine on before plugging in the hose, it exploded in his face. You can bet I'm looking forward to that one.

Since the Dawn of Time

2005-07-22T21:52:00.000-04:00

Blogger has archived my ancient posts... from yesterday, so I thought that posting a little table of contents was in order for setting everyone straight. I've only worked at the Franchise for three days, so it's really easy to catch up.

My First Day

My Second Day

My Third Day

Feel free to post comments on any of them, as I'll still try to check if there are any new ones. I'm not sure about how well-written the third and end of the second day are, as I was slightly indisposed at the time of writing.

Other Crappy Jobs

2005-07-22T20:30:00.000-04:00

I found someone who used to work at a fast food place and is now writing about their work in a call center. Stop by it here.

If you have a blog about your work, I'll be happy to post it.

In that same breath, have any of the 5 or so return readers I have (and of course all of the Blog Explosion hoppers) ever worked at a fast food place? Comment about it.

Anonymity

2005-07-22T12:33:00.000-04:00

The biggest issue with working at a fast food restaurant is reputation. I'm fresh out of high school, so this is still important to me. I honestly can't see how it would get better over time, as people have even higher appearances to keep up.

Anyway, I haven't told too many people that I'm working at a fast food restaurant. My mother has not followed suit.

The place I work is about 15 minutes from where I live, but not many people from my "old money" neighborhood (as I like to call it) stop by. I'm usually too busy to look out at the counter to see who is ordering what, but they can see me.

I figure, I'm not going to have to see any of those people ever again, so it doesn't matter.

Still, the idea that working at a place like this is so undesirable creates a void between the type of people who work there. There are the young people whose reputations are not as important, and the older and much poorer people.

One of these older people once pulled me close and said, "When you don't have anything to do, pick up a broom and start sweeping. The bosses will like you better, and come raise time, you'll get twenty cents instead of a nickel."

I think I heard somewhere that they evaluate you for a raise every six months or so, so that's not going to be an issue for me. I'm out of this place in four weeks.

MCDEES

2005-07-22T11:02:00.000-04:00

For my two returning visitors and the hundreds of others who pop by and get turned off by the shear amount of stuff to read to catch up on, I decided to keep posting during my off time, so people will keep showing up. I'm guessing people like these short, pointless posts instead of the long ones detailing my work (even though I hear they're very interesting), so I'll try to post more random information in between the work-related narration. Anyway, I needed to get this out of the way:

Some of you might be wondering what the acronym MCDEES (from the URL) stands for.

My
Career
Doing
Endless
Ego
Sacrificing

...in case anyone was confused...

(Yes, I didn't put too much thought into that.)

I Completely Forgot

2005-07-21T17:10:00.000-04:00

If any of you have any questions or curiosities about anything at my place of work, please feel free to post a comment or send me an e-mail.

COWARDLY@GMAIL.COM

I'll either just reply back with an answer or, if you say it's all right, I'll post the question and answer here.

Burnt

2005-07-21T15:51:00.000-04:00

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but working on the grill gets you a myriad of minor and severe burns. Every time you put your hand in to get the burgers, you feel your arm hair and skin being singed. You've got to be on your guard from grease popping up. If you touch the grill for more than a millisecond, you're burnt with 450 degrees of pain.

Some other things hurt, too. I found this out when innocently opening the frying cage of some fish filets.

Here's a picture of my fingers, two days after it occurred:

It's nothing serious, and you might not think you're looking at it, but that diagonal line across those two fingers hurt for quite a while.

Thursday Lull

2005-07-21T13:00:00.000-04:00

I'm not working again for at least 3 more days. In that time, I would recommend that you read about my first day at the Franchise, and then read on from there.

My Third Day

2005-07-20T22:10:00.000-04:00

I really wasn't looking forward to working, today. It was actually yesterday, but who cares?

Anyway, I got there and met Shaneequa. I'm still not sure what her real name is. She asked me when I started. I said 5.

"You're early. Go wait until it's 5."
I looked at my watch. 4:57
"Where should I wait?"
"The crew room."

It was just by happenstance that I had heard someone call the closet I had gone into to go through the "e-learning" training program the crew room.

I walked in there and stood. I heard Shaneequa from the other room tell someone else to wait until it was 5. A guy about my age comes in. I decide to be friendly.

"Are you new here?"
"Sorta, I've been here like three days before."
"Oh, this is my third day."
"Where are you working?"
"The grill."

He just looked at the schedule and sat down. I just stood there, feeling awkward.

At 4:59, he got up and walked to the other closet office. I went with him. We stood waiting for the supervisors to look at us for a bit, but then he decided to go back to Shaneequa. She clocked us in and mumbled something to me about burgers and helping someone I didn't know.

I just went back to the grill.

There are a lot of times when you have nothing to do. At times like these, I like to get a rag out of the "clean towel bucket," and wipe down my area. Today, though, there was no such bucket. How fantastic.

At one point, I got some really disgusting grease on my hand. I went to the sink to wash my hands. I'm probably the only person in there who goes near the sink. I know I mentioned that we're supposed to wear gloves, and wash our hands, but now I see they don't expect us to do either. The soap dispenser has been broken since I started, and just thinking about it is making me ill.

Eventually, things picked up. I had to race between the fryer and the grills. I was getting people asking for stuff all the time. After I had taken care of most of it, that kid who introduced himself on my first day came in and asked me if I was running the grill by myself. He offered to help me out.

After things calmed down, he showed me how to close the grill, even though someone had showed me yesterday. It was either that, or do it myself. It's really not something I'm looking forward to doing on my own.

He asked me how old I was. I told him I was 18.

"Good, because I'm actually too young to be allowed to close the grill. I'm only 17."

At times like this, I wonder whether it's just this franchise that is too cool for the rules, or all Franchise restaurants have abandoned the proper procedures.

I asked him how I would figure out my schedule for the rest of the week and the next. He told me to ask a manager at the end of my shift.

At about 7:30, things get rather quiet. I asked the Russianish woman how they assembled the burgers. She showed me for a while. Her accent sounds almost Italian, but I'm so sure she's from around Russia.

I didn't work past my shift, this time. I was anxiously waiting for it to end. At 8, I went to a manager (not Shaneequa) and she told me she didn't need me for the rest of the week and that I should come in on Saturday or Sunday to see what my schedule is.

I rushed out of there.

Later that day, when I was in a Chinese restaurant eating sushi (only in America), I remembered that I hadn't clocked out. I don't really care, though. What are they going to do?

My Second Day

2005-07-20T12:04:00.000-04:00

I'm a day behind on everything, but I have had some other stuff to deal with. I took a sleeping pill tonight, so I might not be very coherent by the end of this.

My second day started slightly better. I got there on time with my uniform on. I walked past the counter to the closet-office, again. I was just lucky enough to catch the uniform supervisor guy. He stared blankly at me, but I was getting used to it here.

"I just started yesterday."
"Oh, right. Now you look like you're ready to work."
"Yeah, sorry about yesterday. It's no excuse that I didn't have the uniform and you had told me to come in to get it, you dickhead."

I didn't say that. I just smiled and tried to cough out a little chuckle.

"Man, you need to get a tan! You're as white as a [something that's generally white but I forgot what he said]."
"Yeah, that's because I spent an hour scrubbing my hands and arms yesterday after being infected with this vile place. My upper dermal layer is far gone with all the crap I look forward to renewing today."

I didn't say that bit either. I actually did say "Thanks," though. It was an accident, but it was fitting.

"So where should I go?"
"Go see Shaneequa."

I don't remember exactly what her name was, but it was something of the sort.

"Who is that?"
"Shaneequa."
"Err, I don't know anybody's name."

The woman supervisor came up.

"She's the one in the pink, maybe you could call it peach shirt."
"Thanks."

I spotted her down at the second drive-through window. She looked busy.

"Hi, I just started. I was told to come down here to know where to start."
"Told by who?"

Panic time. There was no time to tell her she should have used "whom." I tried to think of some way to describe the supervisors.

"The people in the office."
--blank stare--
"Over there."
"Are you working at the grill?"
"I don't know, that's why I came over here."
"Did you work at the grill yesterday?"
"Yes."
"Then you're working there today."
"Okay, thank you."

Remind me not to run into her, again.

This time there was nobody at the grill. I went to the back room to get an apron. There was a 20ish year old guy with a large gap between his two front teeth.

"Hi," I said, "Where are the aprons?"
"Well, they should be on that hook there."
"Is there any other place they could be?"
"I don't know."
"Oh wait, here's one up here."

He helped me out for a bit. At one point he asked to see my braces. It seemed even stranger to me when he asked which college I was going to. I told him.

"Is that around here?"
"No, it's in..."

Most people get amazed when they find out where I'm going, but it honestly isn't such a big deal. This guy didn't think so, either, and I liked him all the better for it.

"That's really out of state!"

A while later, a friendly middle-aged man came by to show me how to close the grill. I learned something new. Closing a grill is what they call cleaning the grill. They never actually close the grill in the sense I was familiar with.

The people who come in after 7 are always the nicest. There's the Russianish woman who tought me how to assemble the burgers, the normal-voiced woman who tells me what to make before it runs out, and that awful Shaneequa girl leaves.

So while I was toiling away, I hear the women across the assembly divider discussing which soup kitchens are the best. It turns out that Fridays are at the Salvation Army, Wednesdays once a month are for some Church, and the rest I didn't catch. I'm rather surprised that the employees have to resort to this.

Overall, it was not a busy day, but I accidentally worked 10 minutes too long. I decided to order a #1 from them. Now, I always have a problem when I order the #1s, because I order them without cheese. They always screw it up. One time, I got it with cheese, took it back, got another one, and it had cheese on it, too. Well, now that I work there, they aren't going to screw up my order, right? Wrong, but now, I can't go up to them and say, "What the hell is wrong with you? You have a damn button for no cheese, yet you always give it to me with cheese. I'm never coming here again!" I ended up just scraping it off with some napkins when I got home. I also vowed never to eat there again.

Interlude Number Two

2005-07-20T11:49:00.000-04:00

Before I go on to explain how my second day went, I'd like to fill everyone in on why, exactly, I am working at the Franchise. Do I need the money?

No. I'm working there because I was forced to. I applied to several places. I interviewed with some firm in the city. It didn't work out. I interviewed with Starbucks. They weren't looking for seasonal work. I interviewed with the Franchise.

It was a joke. I sat down with the interviewer.

"This isn't a difficult job. It takes some common sense. A lot of people don't have that, though."
"Okay..."
"What would you do if you saw someone doing something they shouldn't be doing?"
"Tell a manager?"
"What size pants do you wear?"
"What?"
"For the uniform."

That was it. I got the job right about there.

"So are you going to school after the summer?"
"Yes. I'll be here until mid-September."

Maybe this is where they say, oh we weren't looking for someone to work here for two months.

"That's great. A lot of people go to school and come back for the holidays. Just give us a call when you're around. Are you going to school nearby?"
"No... It's pretty far away."

What they didn't, and still don't know is that I'm off to Peru a month before I go to school. That's the thing that's keeping me going. I was up at 2:45 this morning tossing around because my legs hurt so much from standing for so long in dress shoes, but that thought eventually let me fall asleep.

Why was I wearing my dress shoes to the Franchise? They said I needed black shoes. I could order them from their catalogue or get my own. I hate buying shoes. I figured, I have some black shoes that fit me. What could possibly go wrong?

First, the floors at this place are like a lake... that's frozen over with a couple wet spots, here and there. I have pretty good balance, so I've adapted to skating from place to place on the inch-high layer of grease and foulness between me and the real floor.

Slogans

2005-07-19T23:58:00.000-04:00

I was just reminded of Franchise slogan. You probably already know it. "I'm ....n' it." Who okayed this? Did the Franchise hire my high school logbook staff for their marketing team? It's like a timewarp to the mid-90s. No, that wouldn't be respectable in any time period.

But that's just the start! They go on to say "...what I eat and what I do." It's trademarked, so hopefully removing the first word (or conjunction) will do the trick. So who came up with this one? Even the logbook staff would draw the line before this one even came onto the table. Let's go through it, bit by bit:

"...what I eat"

Sure, okay, that makes sense. You do eat here. There are two problems, though. Who is the "I"? Are they to assume we'd like to follow suit with the voice-over on their commercial? The second issue is the redundancy of the statement. I would have thought that it was rather obvious with what you're supposed to do when confronted with food, but then again, they went on to say:

"and what I do."

Wha? Wait, wha? No. There is nothing okay about this.

They're not getting any love from me.

Doing heavy research for this post, I stumbled upon a very helpful Wikipedia article on the subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franchise_TV_campaigns_and_slogans
You know what to change to make that link work ^

You'll probably be interested in Backstreet Boys connection. I know I am.

My First Day

2005-07-19T20:59:00.000-04:00

I started working at a fast food restaurant yesterday. I’ll refer to it as the Franchise. After my second day there, today, I decided that people might be interested in a different perspective on what it is like working at a well-known fast food restaurant.

A Bit About Myself:
I'm probably not the average Franchise employee. I am an 18 year old male, I'm going to be attending one of the world's top 100ish universities in September, I got above a 1300 on my SATs (out of 1600, not the new ones), I listen to Rachmaninov and Supertramp, and I like the Marx Brothers but detest the Three Stooges. This is my first official job that I've ever had.

That was just to put everything into perspective.

My first day began with me remembering that I still didn't have my uniform. I phoned them up, and a man told me to come in 15 minutes early to get one. At 4:48 (my first shift was 5 to 8), my ride came and drove the 10 minutes to the Franchise. It was about 3 minutes until I started, so I sheepishly walked past the counter and to the back where a tiny little closet-office was. There was a big man with a shaved head in there. He just stared at me.

"I'm starting here today..."
"You don't look like you are."
"Well, I need to get my uniform. I was told to get it today."
"Oh, I talked to you on the phone."
I thought of putting out my hand, but he didn't seem inclined to be too friendly, so I smiled and agreed. He led me to another closet (which was actually used as a closet) and asked me my sizes. This was the third person I had told my sizes to since I applied, and it didn't get more entertaining as it repeated.

He said the shirts and pants ran low, so he gave me them both in sizes too big for me.

"Is there some specific place I should change into these?"
"Just the bathroom. I'm sorry we don't have fitting rooms for you."

I wasn't too upset about his opposition, but then I saw the bathroom. First, it had just been mopped, so I slipped as I walked past the woman who had just mopped it. I got into disabled stall and tried to set my stuff down on the top edge of the baby changing station.

To make a 10 minute story short, the shirt was all right, but the pants were about 2 feet too long. I put my shorts back on, and walked out of the bathroom with the big shirt on over my shorts. The mop woman was waiting right outside the bathroom door.

"Are you new here?"
"Yeah... It's nice to meet you."
--blank stare--
I walked back to the closet-office.

"The pants were too big."
"In what way?"
"They were too long."
"Oh, well, I don't think any sizes are different lengths. I could get you a women's pair."
"I'll take my chances with the next lower men's size."

He rummaged around for a bit, and it was looking worse for my situation, but then, out of the back corner of the closet, he produced my size. I went back to the disabled stall and put them on. He was right, they were still pretty long, but I could cuff them.

This time when I went to the closet office, I met the woman who had walked me through the registration process a few days earlier. She brought me to another closet-office.

"Okay, we have this thing called 'e-learning' that will teach you the basic stuff for working here. I've just got to find it. I had it up a minute ago."

She started going through all the files on the computer.

"Is it the one right there that says 'Franchise'?"

"Yeah that's it. It's somewhere in here."

"Is it the one that says 'launch'?"

"Yeah, okay, I'll start you off on this one. Just tell me when you're done."

You expect something pretty bad, but then it starts, and you're left with a new appreciation for exactly how bad it can be. To appeal to the average employee, you're represented by the cartoon, Javier, the quick-thinking new guy, and you're taught by the lightly African American instructor.

After about 10 minutes of her telling me exactly how to put gloves on, I finished the section and went out to find the woman, again. She started me up on the next section. The characters began talking, and the supervisor woman laughed.

"This is so gay!"
"Yeah."
That is coming from the person who has made it to the top of the ladder. I'm not one to judge; at least she's better than the uniform supervisor guy.

After about an hour of watching the cartoons telling me about platens and 10 to 1 burgers, I was utterly happy I was pretending to make the burgers instead of actually doing it.

Eventually, it ended, and I was sent to the kitchen. There was a girl who wasn't much older than me told to introduce me to the grills.

"I really hate teaching new people. I don't know why they have me do it. I'm no good at it."
"Okay..."

I watched her do the stuff for 10 minutes, and then she was finished and began to wipe down the machines with a cloth. I stood there for a second.

"Is there anything I can help with?"
"Yeah, just get a rag and clean down everything I sprayed."

I would wipe down a surface, and she would go do it as if I did it so poorly that it needed to be completely redone. It's still not so bad.

This one guy about my age came up to me and introduced himself. He was the first person to shake my hand. I don't remember his name, though.

"I'm going to teach you how to turn off the grills tonight. When does your shift end?"
"Eight."
"Oh, then maybe I'll show you tomorrow."

The hapless grill teacher came back and had me grill some burgers on my own. I asked her how I knew when to make more.

"You can ask your manager, but I like to have three trays of 10 to 1...mumble mumble mumble..."
"Okay, thanks."
Who the hell is my manager?

Anyway, my shift ended, and I was picked up by my dad in his BMW. I hoped nobody saw.

When I got home, I washed my hands 14 times. In the Franchise, you're not expected to wash your hands. Protocol is that you wash your hands after every time you make anything, and then put on new gloves. Nobody wears gloves, and even fewer wash their hands. That's today's reason for you never to eat at Franchise.