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I know, I know. I am really a writer. Have been for many years. But a series of events have changed my life once more, and now I have become what I once was before - a fast-food restaurant manager.
As Jerry Seinfield once said (about another subject), "Not that there's anything wrong with that."
A lot of really good people work in fast food. My used-to-be sister in law has done nothing but restaurant work since before she left high school, and has been very successful at it. My son and daughter have both worked in fast food restaurants, and several people I have met here in Texas who work in fast food are great, hard-working people who do their thing and make their way in life.
I am apparently good at my job, because I still have it. These days, with ten percent unemployment, bosses really do not take a lot of time working through employee situations. The easy answer to everything has been, "See ya - I have 15 resumes here and I can get someone who can fit into your uniform by 5 p.m."
My restaurant used to be owned by the franchise, but was sold to a franchisee just after Christmas. That involves changes, and not all of them are warmly received. No one likes change until it becomes routine, after all, and I am a team player. So if you want me to write up the sales report at 9 a.m. instead of 10 a.m., I can roll with that.
Dad used to tell me that any job is a good job if it involves honest work and provides for your family. He was right, as he often was about a lot of things. But going a bit deeper, for a lot of guys, a job is what defines who you are. It is what you might have trained for, gone to school for, gotten extra practice at, or generally worked hard at in order to become the best you could be.
Another Dad-ism: "If you cannot dig a nice, round hole in the ground, do not take up a career in ditch-digging. But if you do, be the best digger in the ditch." I adopted that stance when I began working in the restaurant. Sure, a few sandwiches might have come out without a few little things - like meat. But I got the hang of it and got through training. I spent the next six weeks or so certifying as a manager that knows how to cook food and serve it to the public in accordance with health and safety laws.
I have come to the conclusion that, like the days of the military draft, many people ought to be forced to work in restaurants or some other (so-called) menial labor so they can get a feel for how the other half lives. Many people would not act like jackasses at restaurants if they had to endure the aftermath of a customer gone bad.
For example, a customer asked for a sandwich with lots and lots of extra pickles. He got it. He then dunked each pickle in ketchup and used his napkin to slingshot them onto the wall, the window and the ceiling. How pleasant it was to clean that up.
Would any of you out there do that at home? Of course not. My mother never tolerated such stupidity at the dinner table, with the exception of one food fight that stated over the serving of hominy. A story for another time, although you can be assured that John started it.
So why do people - especially young people - get with their friends and have "I can be stupider than you" contests at a fast food restaurant?
Here is a quick list of dumb things done at fast-food restaurants - at least, since I have been there:
- Ordering food that is served at other restaurants. Ten times a day, I get asked for a "Happy meal." That ain't us. People come in and order Whataburgers with cheese. Wrong-o. We don't have tater tots and we don't have ice cream. And if the food item you want starts with "Jack," go to a restaurant with "Jack" in the name.
- Cell phones. Most people have precious little manners when it comes to using them in public anyway, but something about coming in a fast food place magnifies their uncouth-ness by a factor of ten. They come to the register, usually with people behind them, and talk away while they point at the item they want as if the staff can decode these signals. They talk with their voices to the called party, but pantomime and lip-sync their directions to you. And in the drive thru, the latest craze is to drive in, get the order taker's "Can I help you?" and tell them to wait with they call their friends and ask them what they want.
All of which, by the way, is RUDE AS HELL.
- Families. Fast-food places are family-friendly places, and they want parents to bring in the little ones. But for God's sakes, most families turn it into a baby-sitting service. One kid was playing in the playground as his father was out in the parking lot, in his truck, Yes, cell phones were involved. Kids, delightful as they are, change when they come inside. They scream, yell, cry, run through the restaurant, knock people down, throw stuff on the floor, smear condiments onto everything they touch and go into the bathroom to destroy anything they see.
All this goes on while Mom an Dad are munching away on their own bags 'o goodies with hardly a care as to what their kids are doing. After all, they don't have to clean it up - and believe me, they don't.
Not getting all racial on you, but some people of a certain culture that is widely populated here in Texas (guess for yourselves which one) comes into the restaurant with their kids. The parents cannot speak English past "Hi." So the kids, at age seven or so, come to the register to give the order, all the while yelling back at the parents (who have found a booth) in native tongue to get the order right. It's SO much fun! The kids might speak English, but they have not the math skills to get the correct change from the $20 they are going to give me no matter what the order totals.
- "Value" menus. Some sadistic bastard in the corporate office got a raise for inventing the "Value" menu. The problem is, no one knows what "value" means. At my store, the smallest fries or drink you can get is called a "Value" because it is the cheapest. So when a customer orders a small drink, you have to find out if he wants a small or a "Value" drink. This wastes more time at the ordering stage and ticks off the customer, who just wants a little damn drink.
Of course, at other restaurants, a value might be the largest drink of all at the price of a medium drink. Value is such a generic word and can mean so many different things that no one is really sure what they get when they get a value meal.
Anyway, I started out by saying I am a restaurant manager is if that was a bad thing. And I came to the job in the process of restarting my professional life, something I have done many times in my life. It is not a bad place, or an embarrassing place, or a degrading place to be. It is merely a place to begin again, to get up after the fall and start the climb back up the ladder.
I had to learn the hard way that Dad was right - about the ditch, the honest living, the effort that has to be put into everything you do. Honest, hard work is rewarded. Maybe not with a lot, but it is rewarded.
So if you want fries with that order, come on up to the second window and let me know. At this stage in my life, I will be glad to help you.
