Doin' the Right Thing

Today you're at work.
It's near the end of the day, the time of day when you start taking bathroom breaks to hide, and you have found, in your travels, the upstairs bathroom to be the cleanest and least occupied of your options.

You know, since the employee prison toilet has been out of order since November.

So, as is your adapted habit, you walk upstairs, hide in a bathroom stall to plot your way out of another hour and a half of customer contact,
and then "she" comes in.

"She" is, judging by the backpack that is unceremoniously dumped on the tile floor, a student, and has received some devastating news. You can hear the gasping sobs that she keeps trying (very unsuccessfully) to muffle, and now you fear that you are trapped.
Leaving the stall (you do not yet realized she is now in her own stall) means interaction.
Maybe accidental eye contact. Maybe she will be one of those people who needs to confide in a stranger in a public bathroom. You really hope she is not.

Eventually, you realize after several people have come and gone that this is getting weird.
You have to leave the stall, and since the sobs have subsided into sniffles and tiny strangled sounding hiccups, you decide you can probably exit without getting drawn in.

And you feel guilty about this.

Wait. What? How did you get the notion that this was your responsibility?
You have heard one too many scripted speeches. You've read too many Facebook posts and Guidepost articles and inspirational memes. You expect a lot of you. You are there "for a reason" and you are going to have the words that this person needs to hear right now.
No pressure.

Except it isn't like that.

You start to think of your most recent nervous breakdown and realize that not only were you not in the mood to be bothered, but that that would have been awkward as hell.

When you're truly upset
-sobbing in a public bathroom kind of upset-
you don't want to hear another human voice.
You don't want to have to explain what is going on with your emotions while your head is still processing them.
You want to be left alone.

So you screw up the courage and open that stall door, grateful to find that the feet attached to this devastated shell of a human are behind another stall door.
You think about it again, asking "What's wrong?" and then catching yourself when you realize
you have nothing to give.
You don't know what the situation is.
You don't have a script writer.
You have the potential to make things
EXPONENTIALLY WORSE.

So you wash your hands, wave your hand in front of the towel dispenser like you're Obi Wan Kenobi using the Jedi mind trick (you WILL dispense a towel) because sometimes you do that, and then you dry your hands and walk out the door,

because sometimes the best thing you can do for someone is
nothing at all.

Dear Former Co-Workers. Yeah, You.

I work in fast food in a college town. 
Most of the employees are students.
If you were one of my co-workers, this is for you:

I hate my job.
I hate the hours.
I hate the pay.
I hate the product and the customers.
Most of them anyway. Let's be kind and go nineteen out of every twenty.
They are young, fresh out of high school, and stupid, and rude.
I can't call them naive. I'm pretty sure that word isn't even in their vocabulary.

I, on the other hand...
A few years ago, I was newly divorced, working in a job related to my degree,
the country was promising to come out of a recession and there were high hopes of a raise.

Then life happened,
and I took
this job
thinking that, okay, this blip, it was only temporary, and that if I worked hard enough
(a fallacy that has bitten me before) I would find my way into another position a little more suited to someone with my experience.
I was 36 and convinced that by the time I was forty I would be settled.

I don't belong...
here...
and I know it.
But I put on the ball cap and do the job, waiting on people barely out of the womb, or, worse yet, the faculty and administration.

And I work with...
college students.
*sigh*

But they're young, and hopeful, and nice to me, and sooner rather than later a few of them win me over (grumble, rumble, roar) and I hope they don't notice.
I mean, sure, there are a handful of them I would like to dunk in the fry vat, but I find those are the ones that are gone soon enough, anyway.

There's the child-psychologist in training who loves cats and is fiercely supportive of her friends and a major proponent of basic human rights. There's the ginger who can only be described as "vivacious" (in spite of the fact that you hate that word) who is stubbornly kind to your slightly autistic co-worker, in spite of a lot of things. She really should file a restraining order. 

There's the... "outspoken" theater/costume major who is not at all like you and yet so much like you and you can't quite figure that one out, but he loves art and quotes the Golden Girls and he will say ALL of the things that you are thinking out loud. Really loud. You love him. There's the adorable one with piercings in slightly disturbing places who you wouldn't leave alone with your niece but who is funny and has some very... interesting stories. There's "The Face" (it's his moneymaker) who's sweet and gives the best hugs. You're not certain you would leave him alone with your niece, either. There's the hard-core cyclist who would make an excellent addition to your supervillain team, but who, ironically, you WOULD leave alone with your niece. He's the kind that makes sure the drunk girl at the party doesn't drown in a pool of her own vomit and wakes up in all of her clothes. Go figure. There's the hyper-intelligent cynic who has superb taste in music and who hates things with you, and boy is there a lot to hate in a college town. There's the relentlessly cheery foreign student who cooks a mean dinner and makes Spanish sound beautiful and who attempts to hide his immense intelligence by making proportionately stupid relationship decisions.

There's the nerd-girl who has a penchant for reading and is the only one at your job who loves The Doctor as much as you and who wants a family more than anything. You try and try to caution her against it, but it looks like she's doing it all right just to spite you. You wish her the best because she's your friend and you adore her.

There are others.

And then there's your favorite. (It's true, everyone knows it.) Damn it all.
The last of the lot.
He can see into your brain and gives good advice. He has terrible taste in music and girls and used to have some Very Bad Habits (you've met a couple of them) and whom you probably would have despised a mere few years ago. He's listened to your woes and helped you move your furniture and bought you a rum and coke on one of your really bad days and arranged a surprise cupcake on one of your birthdays. You've cautioned him about returning certain texts and he's cautioned you about saying any of the things you are thinking to the customers.
You've encouraged each other to get out of this hellhole,
and he's finally made it.
He's gone.
 
All of them are gone.
They have, one by one, succeeded in their own way and
you realize, when you are alone, they have broken your heart.
The little bastards.

And you're happy for them, but you are still here,
now suffering some perversion of the "empty nest" syndrome.
You wrote this down because  you needed a good cry that wasn't in a grocery store parking lot.
This new rotation?
Is of an age that they could be your children.
Even if you had the energy for new friendships (you don't) you can't relate. You've got nothing.
You are nearly forty. The age by which you promised yourself you wouldn't be here.
And so you sit here, polishing your notice, the date still blank,
and wondering
what now?

The Most Stupid Question I've Ever Heard

Preface:
I work in a fast food restaurant located in a student union.
We do a lot of things that are non-standard or that just don't make sense.
This story is not about those things.


So the other day, I finish my morning bacon-related food prep in the kitchen downstairs.
Like I always do.
I've made something of a mess, so I clean it up.
Like I always do.
I drag the cart of now-cooked bacon upstairs, to the outer of two doors of the type you find in public buildings. Ugly, heavy metal things with layers upon layers of paint, kick plates, and panic bars, and I stand there for a minute.
Like I always do.
The same thing, barring incident, five mornings a week.
The same thing I've done for more than three years.

And the same as I have done for the last four or five months of those three years, I approach that outer door with dread. I know when I push that door I will see the grimy gray concrete floor, I will play chicken with another employee with another huge cart who is trying to exit through the same tiny space where I am trying to get in, and I will see, within arms length, the inner metal door, the one that leads directly to the store where I work.
It's possible I will see someone changing their clothes in the hall.
I know that once I've gone in, there are no more thoughts that will be completed and no more places to hide. It will be sight and sound and chaos until I walk out again.

So I stand there for a minute and talk myself into opening it again,
like I always do,
but this time, while my hand is resting on that outer door, another employee bursts through it-an administrator type-a sheet of paper in hand, and as she passes me she pauses. She looks at me. She looks at me standing there, less than two feet away, in my polyester uniform shirt and hat emblazoned with the logo of my employer, for a restaurant that is the only one of its kind in the building. She looks at me, this woman who has seen me a thousand times, who has talked to me. This woman who is nearing retirement age. I know this because I have worked with her and her son-in-law. I have seen her granddaughter. I have spoken to her, and she to me. Granted, she said something that sounded slightly alcoholic and crazy, but still...

This woman,
who should KNOW,
looks me right in the eye and asks,

"____ (Insert name of store here), right?"
Not my name. There is not even any recognition in her face. She looks genuinely conFUSED.
No, she asks my employers "name" which is on no less than two of the articles of clothing I am wearing,
whose door I am standing outside of,
in a building where I practically live.
Then she rushes off. Not another word. No explanation or apology. She doesn't look back.

And I am too stunned for words.
That might be THE single most stupid question I have ever heard.

You will say maybe this isn't the first insult to my dignity.
You will say maybe she was preoccupied.
You will say maybe I'm overreacting,
and maybe you will be right but...
even so, she should have known my face. She sees it almost five days a week. She has stood inches from me on occasion after occasion.
She sees the uniform everywhere.
She was OUTSIDE THE STORE, where I stood with the bacon cart that she sees...
She looked right AT me.

GODS,
How can she not know?

Later I will be angry, and later I will renew my resolve to find another job,
but for now I am crushed. Not because of the woman. Personally she's not the kind of person I...
like.
But I realized where I stood. Full-time, three-quarter-time, part-time, student, it doesn't matter, because I'm just another uniform to her. I am one white shirt away from being recognizable, but until then I don't matter.
If I don't matter to her,
I sure as Hell don't matter to anyone else.

There will never be a step up.

This job.
This.
Job.
Is not a foot in the door, it's your leg in a trap.
The only way to get out is to chew your way out, or wait for shock to set in while you pray for a mercifully quick death.
And I'm not ready to die.

People are Stupid and I Hate my Job (Can I Just Title Every Post That?)

You'd think working in fast-food would have one advantage over a real job, and that is that when you leave a fast-food job for the day, you leave a fast-food job for the day. Fast-food is not the kind of job that keeps you awake at night, unless you count the nights you spend up wondering how you are going to pay the bills on your fast-food paycheck, which for me is almost every night, so there's that...

Okay, yeah, it does keep you up at night, but...

I think what I hate most about my job is the uniform, the ill-fitting polyester that says, "Hey world, I work in food service!"

The uniform that says to random people on the street, "Talk to ME about all things fast-food, your loves, your hates, the prices and hiring practices, because
I CARE. "

Nothing makes a person feel like a part of the community like being approached on the sidewalk or at the grocery store or at their kids' school by a member of the general public who feels compelled to remind them they work in fast-food (just in case their self-preservatory sense of denial is working and they've forgotten) to then ask in true stalker fashion, "Which one?" As a matter of fact, it's the next best thing to when a total stranger uses your first name in public!

No no, I DID have time to go home, shower, change my clothes and chill out for a minute before I came here, I just REALLY love being a part of a fast-food family. Wearing the colors with pride. The fact that there are only a certain number of hours in the day has absolutely NOTHing to do with the fact that I'm out running errands in a shirt that's hermetically sealed in grease.

So next time you see your friendly neighborhood food-slinger out in public, feel free to give 'em a shout. They might even respond with the special fast-food one-finger salute.

Assholes.

Dear Customer, It's Not Me, It's You

I work in fast food in a college town.
Most of our customers are students.
If you are one of them, this is for you:


I hate you for standing in line for 10 minutes without thinking about what you want.

I can see the inside of your nostrils while you stand in front of the counter. If you must still crane your neck to look at the menu when you finally make it to the front of the line (see #1) stand back a little, or at least have the decency to trim your nose hairs.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhh... is NOT A WORD in the English language, and there is no key for it on my screen. Leave it out.

If you order "a burger, fries, and a drink," it becomes "Cashier's Choice" and you do not have the right to get angry when I decide for you what you want. In other words, be specific. We offer ridiculous names and numbers for our food. Choose one. The correct one. Which leads us to this...

If you order by number, you are ordering a meal. If you want "just the sandwich," then just order the damned sandwich. Conversely, if you want the entire meal, order that. And that meal is probably a sandwich that comes with fries and a drink. Like at nearly every other fast food restaurant, ever.
If there are options, they're on the damned menu. The one you probably didn't bother to look at while you were standing, for ten minutes, in line.

I take approximately 3 orders a minute when I'm at the cash register during the rush "period", which typically lasts all freaking day. So, if you make me ask you what size, flavor, or topping you prefer (when there is a painfully obvious choice), don't mind that I am staring though you as though I am trying to kill you with my laser-vision. I AM trying to kill you with my laser-vision, but it hasn't worked on anyone, yet.

When you try to pay me, have some idea what kind of payment you want to use, because I don't. I don't know if you have the meal plan, or what kind of meal plan you have, or whether you want to pay with cash or if you accidentally handed me your student ID when you meant to hand me your MasterCard.

The hours regarding meal plan are given to you online, at orientation, on paper somewhere, I'm sure. Even if they weren't, it is your responsibility to know what you have and how you are permitted to use it. I might overlook your incompetence if you didn't eat here EVERY SINGLE DAY.

I don't care what kind of conversation you are having on your cell phone. If what is happening on the other end of the connection truly is of life-or-death importance, then you should probably wait before you order your food. If you cannot wait, I will help you out by waiting on the person directly behind you who is NOT on their cell phone.
Also, if I am not looking you in the eye, I am not yet ready to take your order. This means the machine may still be printing out a receipt from the order I took just fifteen seconds before you stepped up to the counter, or the register is thinking about crashing again, or it has crashed again. If I'm not looking at you, I'm not hearing you.

Don't toss your change on the counter, or hand me the "wad" of crumpled ones. It makes me wish horrible rashes upon your most personal and delicate parts. The food may do that anyway, but I still wish it for extra measure.

Sometimes, we screw up. We will fix it, and we will be polite about the whole thing if you will. We do genuinely feel bad about wasting your time until you act like a raging asshole. Then we fix your order, but we mock you without mercy when you leave. Okay, we usually wait for you to leave.

Don't leave your garbage on the counter, it's just rude. Were you raised, or spawned?

Remember, at all times, that you are not nearly as cute and charming as you think you are. It might work on 19 year old girls, or your high-school science teacher, or your new college professor (although I doubt it, as they look pretty jaded, too), but it doesn't work on me. I can't stand you.
 
I hate that all of you,
term after term after painful FUCKING term,
are exactly the same.

Back to the Burger Mines

Today was a long day.

We weren't busy.
It was the first day of work after a long holiday, and so I should appreciate being able to ease back into the routine, but sometimes being slow is worse than being busy
because I have so much time to contemplate the time I am wasting.

I can only make so many phone calls (to the pediatrician, to the bank, to the power company...) during lunch, I can only have so many ideas when I'm explaining to the 50+ year old admin how choosing "small, medium or large" will affect the size and price of her fries and drink but not the size of the sandwich
(I wish I was making that up)
or how, believe it or not, I am not responsible for our advertising
(again, admin, and again, I did not make that up)
or the fact that we do not have any of the new fries with the stupid name right now.


I can only make so many grease pencil-on-register tape lists.

The holidays were never enough.
The promise of a second free summer is no longer enough.
Being financially and emotionally poor all the time...
is too much.

So pray for me. Send me some good waves or positive energy or whatever it is you've got.
I need it.

A word, though.
I appreciate the power of a positive attitude.
I appreciate that putting on a happy face can sometimes lift your spirits, and that a happy spirit attracts good things, and so forth and so on,
but unless you know me,
unless you know the score,
unless you've watched my kids while I go for a last-minute 7:30 pm job interview,
hearing this from you does not help.
I feel about that the way a lot of my religiously unaffiliated friends feel about people who tell them that God has all the answers.

I do not subscribe to the theory that it's all in how you look at it.
I always get this advice from someone in a very comfortable place.
Someone with money, someone with not so many firm tethers, with a sugar daddy, with a sugar mama, some adorable nineteen-year-old hippie chick with a job at the co-op,
someone who's secure in their real, grown-up job...
So forth, and so on...

I do not live by the arbitrarily applied social law that because someone has it worse
(and someone always, inevitably, has it worse)
you have no right to complain,
because that's
A cop out. 
It's a ride on your high horse with the comfortable broken-in saddle.
It's the polite way to excuse yourself from an emotional investment. From an action.
It shows a lack of understanding. It tells me you don't hear how I feel, or that my feelings are irrelevant.

If you are planning to say that? Don't say anything at all.
I know the hard truth better than you think.
I wear polyester and a baseball cap to work.

So.
Help, listen, or stfu and leave me alone.
It's better that way.

Age Ain't Nothin' But a Number

So today, I talk myself out of bed again. Late, again. And I talk myself into the uniform, and the kids out the door. Late, again. I talk myself into the car (late again) only today my autopilot fails. This the same autopilot who takes me to the parking garage even when I don't intend to go there,
because today I'm thinking about that promise I made to myself to not still be doing this when I am forty.
I don't care about turning forty.
Not exactly.
It's just another age.
No, it is.

It's just another age, except that by now, I should be on a comfortably high-up perch. I should have an office, and free parking, and some perks.
I should be wearing my own clothes, and waiting to see if people will compliment my new weird asymmetrical haircut instead of breathing in cancer-in-a-can because my employer has "in-sourced" it's pest control service.

(For sake of clarity, I do not want that haircut.)

I should be planning awesome week-long vacations. Buying a truckload of Pampered Chef bamboo cutting boards and taking Tai-chi or something.
I should be two-thirds of the way to retirement.



But instead,
pretty soon I'll be forty.
And I'm still here.
And that is making me think some pretty scary thoughts.
(No, not THOSE kinds of scary thoughts.)
But what do you do when the same thing isn't working?
You do something different.
Right?

Is there anyone else here who's taken that leap of faith?
Given your notice? Said. "Fuck it, this isn't working," when it's the only guarantee you've got?

Who are you?
Did it work?

Would you do it again.