- 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."
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