It was March of 2004. That was the beginning of what should have been a short lived career in fast food. It instead turned into a 6-year ordeal that brought me closer to "customer service" and "management" than I ever wanted to be.
When I stepped into the great beyond, past the counter and onto the grease filled floors of my fast food restaurant there were a few things that immediately became clear:
1. All of these guys working there were not idiots. No, they were just young and immature. Very immature. The idiots I would meet later.
2. My manager was a goober. He seemed excited about his job, genuinely. Or maybe it was the fact he was getting to perform a managerial duty that made him look more important and thus more excited.
3. I got looks. Not good looks either. Looks that said, "Who the hell is this guy?", "He looks like a dork", or "He'll only last a week." All of which I was fine with. I was hoping I only lasted a week and if these people thought I was a dork then I probably was.
At that point I was a 17 year-old caucasian,(still caucasian just not 17) in a fast food joint populated by fellow students and mid-twenties to early 40-year olds that still had no idea where there life was going. I did though, it was going nowhere. They were stuck in this routine and it was too safe to leave, but too awful to love. The story was pretty well divided when it came to race. There was the power trio in the mornings of Conny, Brenda, and Kim who had each been there longer than half of my life. Brenda and Conny were white, in their 40's and Kim was black in her early 30's.
I didn't meet them the first day though, they were openers and I was hired on the condition I close on the weekends. We didn't close until 1 am. This was going to suck, at least I thought it would. I wanted a car though and so my friday nights officially went from football to french fries. The night crew, as it will always exist in my mind is Larry (black, thin, hilarious) Eric (black, thin, hilarious-probably because he was always smoking a joint when he took the trash out, that dude loved volunteering for trash runs). Then there was Brandi (white, pudgy and Eric's girlfriend...) Phillip R. (white, thin, a year ahead of me in school and a guy I could never read) Carol (white with a little hint of something else, attractive and Phillip R's girlfriend). The rest of the manager roster was filled out by Mark (40's, white, with glasses and gay as hell though he would deny it) and Angie (tiny, white, with a braid that almost swept the grease off the floor).
People would come and go so quickly, some worth noting, others I can't remember. This is an attempt to collect all of the crazy ass stories that happened in my fast food experience. Anyone who has ever worked even a day at a place with a drive thru knows what I'm going for and if you don't...well, shut the hell up you lucky bastard.
