The Fast Food Saga: Part Five- Back on Track

Last week was a bad week at work. I wasn't doing well for a number of reasons, and then a guy got fired. With this in mind, I didn't feel like posting last week, because there was nothing funny or entertaining to say.

This week has been much, much better.

My boss was much happier today, which made work much easier. Somehow I also had much more energy to power through the day, so that was nice.

The Mascot

The fast food restaurant where I work has a mascot. This mascot roams around the dining room on select days, entertaining the kids. If I told you exactly what kind of mascot it was, I'd pretty much divulge what company I work for, which is something I can't do. Suffice to say that the mascot is a giant walking food item. I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

I want to be the lucky guy in the suit. I love working with kids, and being the mascot looks like a lot of fun. So I've set that as my goal. My life ambition right now is to get inside that suit and walk around the dining room scaring entertaining kids.

Other co-workers who have done it before tell me that it isn't fun. "It's really hot in there," they say. "You'll start hating it after a while," they tell me.

Perhaps, deep inside, they've lost their childlike spirit, growing cynical and jaded as time robs them of life's simple pleasures.

Or maybe they're right and it is no fun.

Either way, I'm not going to let them crush my dreams. I will be the mascot one day. Just you wait...

Cooked Hand

My hand was cooked today. I was reaching into a fryer and grabbing some onion rings and a glob of oil splashed onto the inside of my hand. Ouch.

I probably shouldn't tell you what deep fried hand smells like.

I'm telling you anyway.

It smells like chicken. Fried chicken.

The only thing missing was batter and a bit of salt and pepper. It would have been enough to make any common cannibal's mouth water as they fondly remembered cannibal picnics on warm summer evenings with their cannibal friends, sitting on cannibal blankets and feasting on chocolate covered aunts, while the cannibal children laugh and frolic on the playground in their game of swallow the leader...

Wow. That got a bit out of hand.

Anyway.


Quote of the Day:

"Seth, you're getting pretty good at fryers. I guess that makes you Lord of the Fries."

-Person for whom I am too lazy to think of a fake name

disclaimer

Read More

The Fast Food Saga: Part Four- Epic Pep Talk

I just finished another shift at The Franchise. It's the second one since my last post, and I apologize for not getting a post up after that shift. But between school (gotta graduate somehow, right?) and work and school and more school.... OK, actually I don't apologize because I had a perfectly reasonable excuse for not posting. So there.

Best Pep Talk EVER

I arrived, clocked in, washed up, donned my fashionable kitchen attire, and walked into the kitchen ready to rock and roll. My manager (it was Marvin this time) said, "OK, so today, we're gonna have you doing fryers by yourself. That means you'll be responsible for all of the fryers and this guy over here is going to help you only when you're falling way behind."

Fantastic.

It was a Thursday night and Thursdays are usually pretty slow. This was not a slow Thursday. This was a mind-blisteringly busy Thursday. I guess everyone in town decided they needed food that had been immersed in oil. Immediately.

I launched into the endless stream of orders and was making food when Marvin said, "Listen up!"

I listened up, but I was not prepared for what he was about to do. He was about to deliver the greatest pep talk in the history of them all. Here it is:

"OK, so, uhhh... Drive thru orders were a little slow, so... speed those up a little. And... we need to, umm... make some good quality food. Tonight. So... let's do that now."

Dead silence filled the room and drowned out the chaotic din of the fryers, the grill, the vents, and everything else.

Somewhere, in the distance, I could hear a fly walking up the wall. It stopped and rubbed its hands together in that fly-esque way.

Outside, an errant tumbleweed drifted and rolled across the parking lot.

Then, one person clapped. Very slowly, we all joined in. It was exactly like this video:

And then we continued our work, comforted by the knowledge that we had such a fearless and inspiring leader to guide us through the narrow paths and hazards of the fast food industry.

Fun Facts:

• Onion rings are absurdly difficult to put into bags. They are shaped weirdly and they are unreasonably hot, so the process of putting a serving of onion rings into a bag is not an entertaining one, to say the least.
• Seriously guys, stop ordering onion rings. Or I'll make you come back here and bag them yourself.
• I'm not quite ready for the big leagues when it comes to running fryers. We've got five of them, and the multitasking required for the job is intense. 
• Note to self: Play more Cake Mania before next shift.
• Lucifer is still as lucifer-y as ever. I had to refill him. This involves holding him, tight, pulling his lid off, and pouring in new salt. This causes fourth-degree tissue burns at minimum. 

Until next time, THAT'S ALL, FOLKS!

Quote of the Day:

"...we need to, umm... make some good quality food. Tonight. So... let's do that now."

-My Manager

disclaimer

Read More

The Fast Food Saga: Part Three- Pressure's On!

Tonight my manager told me we'd focus more on Time of Service (The Franchise's code for "Your job is not hard enough, let's make you work FASTER!!")

I did not do well in this area tonight. I guess the added pressure made me nervous enough to mess up more. So my night was filled with fry fumbling, cheese curd craziness, chicken tender turmoil, and onion ring... Something. I've lost interest in the alliteration now, you can figure something out for yourself.

Nicest Guy in the Fast Food Industry

The aforementioned individual is not me. I'm a pretty nice guy at work, but there is one whom I have met, who outshines the nicest of the nice. It's almost scary.

Aaron (I'm going to call him Aaron) was assigned to train me tonight, and he was really good at it. He even made the really scary task of cleaning the fryers seem like a barefoot midnight stroll through a mossy woodland trail. Yep. That's totally what it felt like.

This guy deserves a raise.

Fryers Actually Work by Magic

I asked "Caleb", another of my co-workers, exactly how the fry oil filter system worked. He started to go into a long, technical explanation, but then stopped himself and told me it's essentially magic. He doesn't know how it really works. Our managers don't know how it really works. No one knows how it works.

Hence, it's clearly magical.

That's all for now. See you next week, and remember, anyone who says "nothing is impossible" has obviously never tried to staple jello to a tree. I'm not sure what bearing this fact has on this blog post, but there you go. It's true.

Quote of the Day:

"There's just a bunch of wizards in there, contemplating magical algorithms and stuff. That's how it works."
-Caleb


disclaimer

Read More