The Fast Food Saga: Part Two- More Fryers.

Hi again. 

Today I worked another shift at The Franchise. It was a good one, as it was a pretty slow day. The weather was pretty snowy and it's New Year's Eve, so I guess a lot of people decided not to eat out tonight. 

I did get my new pants. Hooray. Now I can work in at 28 inch waist without constantly reaching down to adjust my rapidly slipping uniform pants.

I did actually learn a few things again:

Cleaning the fryers is terrifying.

In order to clean our five fabulous food fryers, one must don a heat glove, turn the fryer off, remove the grate from the bottom of the unreasonably hot oil, send it back to be washed, remove the backplate, send that back to be washed, pull a valve to empty the fryer, and scrub the walls of the fryer out with a piece of steel wool. This is pretty simple as long as you avoid getting small patches of your skin cooked by the oil. Then comes the terrifying part: You've got to connect a hose to the pipes under the fryer, run it up to the fryer you're cleaning, and pull a valve to spray ridiculously hot oil all over the inner walls of the fryer. This isn't like a normal hose. This is like a high pressure fire hose spewing out fiery hot doom all over the place. I'm told this makes the fryer clean somehow. One wrong move, though, and you'll spray searing hot oil all over the kitchen and your three fellow kitchen workers. Easy right? Yep. Piece of cake.

People need to stop ordering onion rings.

I can bag fries now. It's pretty easy to me since I've learned the touch of the fry bagging masters, and I long ago abandoned all the pain sensing nerves in the ends of my fingers. But onion rings are a different matter altogether. With fries, they usually sit for a few seconds before being bagged. But onion rings have to go straight from the fryer to the bag, with no time to cool off. Also, they are bigger than fries and harder to insert into the bags. These factors combine to make it really hard to bag onion rings. I guess I'll get better with practice, but for now I still fumble around awkwardly every time. So do me a favor and don't order any onion rings while I'm working. Ok? Thanks.

Well, that's what I've got for now. If you were expecting a profound thoughtful New Years message in the post, you're not going to get it here. Click this link for the 2012 post, and replace stuff with things pertinent to 2013. I'm lazy.

Quote of the Day:

"Hey, can you clean the fryers for me?"

-My Manager



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The Fast Food Saga: Part One

Great news: I recently (and by recently I mean yesterday) got a job at a fast food restaurant. I've needed a job for a very long time, so having one unexpectedly is a huge thrill. You'll notice by now that I haven't mentioned the name of the restaurant, and I just want to get a few things related to that out of the way before I start:

• I'm not going to mention the name of this restaurant. Ever. Those of you who know me in real life will probably know which one it is, but I will not be using the name of the restaurant online, since the company frowns upon that sort of thing. I will refer to it as The Franchise.
• The views, opinions, and narratives I'm expressing in my posts do not reflect those of the company for which I work (which will of course remain nameless.)
• Any comments mentioning the name of the company for which I work will be deleted immediately.
• All names of coworkers and guests have been changed for reasons which should be obvious to you by now.

With that over with, let's begin the Fast Food Saga.

Day One:

I showed up for my first shift dressed in uniform pants several sizes too big for me. To put my dilemma in perspective, I'm a very tall, skinny guy who usually wears a 29 inch waist with a 34 or higher inseam. These were way bigger than that.  But this was the smallest they had, so it would have to do.

After a brief tour of the place, I was plunged into my first task: Making fries. It's a simple job in theory. There are several fryers, and frozen potato sticks are poured into baskets which are then plunged into the extremely hot oil. And when I say extremely hot, I'm talking heat levels that make me seriously confused as to why the oil isn't actually on fire.

When working fries, you must stand in front of these fryers, put batches of frozen potato sticks into the baskets, drop the baskets in the oil, set the timer, and wait for them to cook. After the timers go off, you pull out the baskets, shake them, and dump the fries onto the fry table. Once there's a pile of fries, they are salted and scooped into bags, then placed on the chutes for distribution into guest's orders.

Like I said, a simple job.

But, this being my first shift, it was not simple. I learned one thing very quickly: 

Everything is hot.

The kitchen is hot to begin with, considering most of the real estate is taken up by a giant, extremely hot grill and giant, extremely hot fryers. Most of the things in the kitchen are made of metal. And that metal gets very hot. 

• There's a scoop used to insert the fries into the bags. That scoop is hot. 
• There are metal baskets used to submerge various foods into the absurdly hot oil. Those baskets are hot.
• There are fries coming out of the absurdly hot oil. Those fries are hot.
• There's also a saltshaker. A big, metal, demonic saltshaker sent from one of the outer circles of Hell, specifically designed to blister, burn, sear, and otherwise cook your fingers every time you touch it.
• I do not like this saltshaker.

Another thing I learned:

Scooping fries takes more skill than is initially expected.

All I have to do is take things and put them in bags. How in the world can that be difficult? I've put lots of things in lots of bags before, but somehow, bagging fries is different. There's a certain touch you have to develop to join the ranks of the expert fry baggers. I do not have this touch. 

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the only thing shielding my delicate Caucasian basement-dweller hands from a raging inferno of deep-fried death is a thin paper bag. Once I hold a medium bag of french fries for about three seconds, the scalding begins. 

In addition, after every batch of fries is dumped onto the table, one must engage in the delightful activity of grabbing Lucifer (that's the saltshaker, I've named it Lucifer) and shaking it upside down to dispense salt on the pile of fries. This involves grasping Lucifer for more than about thirteen milliseconds, at which point one's fingers start to cook.

All these factors combine into a nice little medley of circumstance that makes it very difficult to accurately ensure that the correct number of fries, or any at all for that matter, end up in the bags.

Despite all of the above, I'm beginning to like my job. After a while, most of the nerve endings on my fingers were sautéed to the point where they ceased to register pain. Once I reached this point, I was able to bag fries quite quickly.

The moral to this whole thing, if there really can be a moral, is that you should think of the guys in the back next time you order your burger and fries. It's more work than you might think, and I've found that out on my first day. 

That's all for now, folks. Be sure to tune in next time for more tales of the fast food kitchen.

Quote of the Day: 

"We'll put you on fries to start out with. That's the easiest job."

-My Manager


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A Festive Poem.

Twas the day before Christmas. Seth had a sore throat.

Would he be able to carol? The chance was remote.

Cough drops and medicine and water he tried,

But his singing voice still just seemed to have died.

He decided to be stoic, to sing anyway.

He wanted just to be festive, on this special day.

But when the first verse escaped from his lips,

It sounded like a fleet of rusty steamships.

The tree and the boxes and presents within,

all shook from the force of the Apocalyptic din.

He tried 'Silent Night', he tried 'Jingle Bells'.

But he still only sounded like Sinatra from hell.

During his songs there arose such a clatter,

It brought the dog running, to see what was the matter.

The neighbors walked outside to join in the fun,

And Dad descended the stairs, holding his gun.

"Stop!" Seth hollered. "I beg you, don't shoot!

This Christmas, I think I'll be forced to be mute."

"We'll call you a doctor!" they said with a smile.

"He'll get you fixed up, in just a short while."

So the doctor arrived, with his stethoscope and tools

He tried to look confident, he tried to play it cool.

He told Seth, "Try to sing! It can't be that bad."

So he did. And the doctor fled to Trinidad.

"Bah humbug!" Seth croaked. "He's clearly just weak."

And he wondered out loud, "Who else should I seek?"

Suddenly in his mind there arose a new thought.

"If the talent's not there, it can surely be bought."

He called up his friend, a music producer.

"Help me! Come quick! I sound like a rooster."

His friend let Seth know he'd be there in a jiffy

With equipment to make his singing quite spiffy.

"Autotune!" Seth shouted. "Why that's it of course!"

"It'll make me sound great, even though I'm still hoarse."

The producer arrived, with his mixer and cables

And set up a studio on the dining room table.

"Sing into this mic," he said with a smile.

I'll turn a few knobs, you'll sound great in a while.

Seth picked it up, his family covered their ears.

But when he started to sing, it was worse than they'd feared.

It was louder, more deafening, not mellow and sweet.

Birds fell from the sky, cars crashed in the street.

"Stop! Turn it off!" his family protested.

"At this rate you'll just get us all arrested!"

Disturbing the peace was a terrible offense

So Seth stopped his singing, fearing legal expense.

He finally gave up on his festive endeavor,

He thought he'd be forced to be silent forever.

So he took to his blog, and composed this short post.

It wasn't perfection, but more festive than most.

And so here it is, this carol I've typed

I won't try to sing it (I respect human life.)

Merry Christmas.

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