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| - by Tikka Masala |
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I've recently, after many years of saying I'd never get a crappy part time job, got
one at a local burger bar, and have had it for a month. My excuse, if in fact there was one, was that I needed the money for my impending university adventures. As a result of this, I have come up with some rules that people need to know, in order to survive at these places.
I applied for a job at a burger bar at a local service station. Service stations, for those who don't know, are big places with a burger bar/numerous cash machines/rest stops/etc. So, I tend to have to deal with people who have:
When working the tills, it all transpires to make you despair a little about human life. Before I worked this job, I thought that the average person was a reasonably forward-thinking individual. And certainly with enough intelligence to be able to order fast food and sympathise with those poor bastards (me) who have to serve the horribly overpriced food that they want to wolf down, having been on the motorway for such a long time. No longer. People are stupid. I mean, really, really stupid. Stupid enough to make you wonder whether a mass culling of 75% of the populace really would be a bad idea after all. To most people, a cheeseburger is a burger with a processed cheese slice, right? Obviously not to most of the people who order fast food. An old man wheezed at me: "Excuse me," he says, pausing to catch his breath, "I was wondering if I could order a hamburger with cheese." I look at him oddly, beginning to wonder what'll break first... the fragile cords of my sanity, or his pacemaker. "Ah. A cheeseburger, sir." "No, I said a hamburger with cheese." Repeat for the next three minutes. I could regale you with stories about how the next elderly troublemaker spent a good deal of time trying to convince the first one that I hadn't conned him out of his 30 pence, and that he had asked for it. So, rule 1: The customer has the memory of a goldfish, so you must make it clear what you are putting on their receipt and charging them for. This involves you repeating what they have just ordered slowly, and for those with a modicum of intelligence, them looking at you as if you are the stupidest person in the world. But of course, if you don't do this, they'll force you to write them a refund and/or complain constantly. I forgot to add a small fries (or chips, as we call them over here) to this lady's bill, and she spent the rest of the order complaining about how the rest of the food was so expensive. Despite the pigheaded customers and complete absence of tips (not that I expect them anyway, but to be thanked once every sixty customers you serve would be nice), I remain philosophical. I can put up with this shite, because every now and again, that metaphorical spring well washes away all the crap spewed by the other customers, for you get someone who is genuinely thankful for your services... such customers are stuff of lore, and are almost mythical creatures.1 Volume of customers isn't a problem either, provided I have enough people to back me up and help cook the food. Last Saturday, there were only two other people and myself. This made it very hard for us to get the food done on time, and elicited a number of complaints from the general public. If in doubt, hide in the relative safety of the freezer, before returning, claiming that you were re-stocking. No, the customers in general aren't that bad. The initial shock that the great unwashed really do smell that bad, and will complain given the slightest chance, was the worst thing. Really, if I have a bad day, it's because of my co-workers. Harking back to the Saturday before, I was told to work hours, and volunteered to work longer for a bit more cash, assuming there would be more people on. Wrong. Only "Kurt" and "Dwayne" [names changed to protect the innocent] were on, from 6pm to 11pm. It was surprisingly busy during this time. Now, wilst Kurt is a useful worker, Dwayne does not know how to open a chip bag... even asking me how to do it during the day. Whilst this may sound ridiculous, it's true. Whilst the expression that he "fell off the stupid tree" (and was subsequently hit with the stupid branches, and had the stupid brick permanently lodged in his head) wouldn't be inappropriate, it fails to sum up the day, such was the frustration Dwayne caused. I survived, with no physical scars, just a few mental ones. I can no longer turn on the radio, much less tune it to the particular brand of music Dwayne prefers. This irritating tuneless noise, with some random and pissed-out-his-face man shouting obscenities into a microphone, is passed off as music. I may sound cynical writing this, like an old man.2 But how anyone can listen to this is beyond me... it seemed to cause the fat in the fryer to crackle louder, as if the rest of the electrical appliances didn't much like the sound of it. The only plus side was that it had the effect of pissing off the customers to such a degree that many of them left the queue. Rule 2: Make a point of finding a neutral radio station, and putting the most clueless employee on something where he is least likely to destroy part of the service station. Covering him in batter and attempting to pass him off as vegetarian nuggets has already been tried, and failed when the customer complained it wasn't quite what they ordered... they wanted their fast food operator crunchy, not soggy. There really is only one more rule people have to know in order to make money in this environment and not endanger their health. Rule 3 concerns cleaning jobs: if you are good, you can avoid doing these. You can't avoid wearing the stupid hat they give you, nor can you avoid ill treatment from the public, but by grabbing a cloth and doing the least disgusting form of cleaning (using cleaning fluid on the front being my preferred method), then you can avoid:
Waving cleaning fluid and a cloth in your boss' face tends to work more often than not, grinning inanely whilst pretending to scrub hard at an imaginary piece of lint. It appears to fool even the most "astute" of customers. Mind you, they wouldn't care if their food was served to them by brain eating zombies, just so long as they didn't have to pay 30 bloody pence extra.
Random Zombie: "Braiiiiiiiiiiiins..." Remember these three tips, and you shall be fine in your fast food adventure. Try to imagine me as the fast food equivalent of Mr Miyagi in Karate Kid, only replace the chopsticks with a spatula, and the bonsai tree with a stupid green hat. I've got the mystic expression down, though: I use it when a customer asks for a refund. |
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1. Well, they don't climb beanstalks. But they say thanks, which is more remarkable than the cow jumping over the moon. 
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