My Pleasure
By Tim Hoskins
For a month one summer while she was in high school, my mother worked at Wendy's in Mc-Donough, Georgia. Sometimes, she describes to us what it was like, the stress, the rude customers, the constant feeling that you have just been dipped in grease. Often, she will use this story as an explanation for why fast food does not appeal to her. Usually, she will theorize that everyone should be made to work in a fast food restaurant at least one in their lives. Invariably, she will point to this experience as her greatest motivation for finishing college.
In the January of my senior year in high school, I began my own experience with conventional entry-level employment. A man in my church was opening a Chick-fil-A only a few blocks from my house in Val-rico, Florida. He came to our Wednesday night youth group to solicit employees. I liked money and had little else to do before college so I applied.
For our first training session, four of us were carted off to an already established franchise to observe its functional splendor. Biann, the only girl in our group, was selected to learn the register at the front counter (which in restaurant slang is militaristically called "the front line") and we three remaining males were sent to the back to learn about the deep fryer, explained to us by a smiling Columbian man named Rodrigo.
Our second training session brought the whole "team" together for the first time. This classroom-oriented afternoon taught us about days off, overtime, sexual harassment, robberies, labor laws, and government mandated sanitary standards.
Out final training took place at the store on the night before its grand opening. Our families had been invited as a forgiving crowd of customers for our dress rehearsal. Despite the segregation of our previous training, it seemed that I was also destined for the front line. I was only little handicapped by having spent my hands-on training learning about breaded chicken and boiling peanut oil. The registers were brand new consisting of a touch screen with little pictures of each food item. It took a few weeks to learn to more arcane functions such as how to sell someone one solitary chicken nugget or
a grilled chicken sandwich with only half a bun, but it was not hard.
It was also that night I was acquainted with the bane of my existence. I had just sold someone's little sister a Chick-fil-A sandwich (a CFA to those on the inside) when my boss Jeff walked up. In the friendly and enthusiastic tone he always used with "team members," he informed me that if any customer told me "thank you," I was to respond with "my pleasure." This policy did not please me for a couple of reasons: first, I am not the kind of person who says "my pleasure," and second, my dealings with customers were rarely pleasurable for me. The average American assumes that since one is working an entry level job one must be either: lazy, a drug addict, mentally retarded, a criminal, or an illegal immigrant. As a high school senior killing time before college, this assumption did not sit well and to be required to inform then that I had enjoyed their abuse was intolerable and highlighted the powerlessness of my position.
This struck me most starkly one night just before closing. A man in scrubs with a hospital ID clipped on came in and ordered a CFA. He became indignant when I did not offer him barbeque, honey-mustard, or sweet and sour sauce to go with it. Now, while we will gladly provide these to anyone who asks, they are meant for chicken nuggets and so we do not automatically offer them with chicken sandwich orders. Rather than allow me to explain this, he drew himself up like a Baptist preacher and told me how I was worthless, had no pride, and would never amount to anything. I held my tongue and silently moved Dr. Jerk to the top of Pulitzer List, those whom I plan to strike with the first Pulitzer Prize I win. He grabbed the paper Chick-fil-A sack and stormed out as I called after him "my pleasure!" although the phrase "burning coals" was the predominant thought in my head.
My mother is right; it is worth it to finish college.
For a month one summer while she was in high school, my mother worked at Wendy's in Mc-Donough, Georgia. Sometimes, she describes to us what it was like, the stress, the rude customers, the constant feeling that you have just been dipped in grease. Often, she will use this story as an explanation for why fast food does not appeal to her. Usually, she will theorize that everyone should be made to work in a fast food restaurant at least one in their lives. Invariably, she will point to this experience as her greatest motivation for finishing college.
In the January of my senior year in high school, I began my own experience with conventional entry-level employment. A man in my church was opening a Chick-fil-A only a few blocks from my house in Val-rico, Florida. He came to our Wednesday night youth group to solicit employees. I liked money and had little else to do before college so I applied.
For our first training session, four of us were carted off to an already established franchise to observe its functional splendor. Biann, the only girl in our group, was selected to learn the register at the front counter (which in restaurant slang is militaristically called "the front line") and we three remaining males were sent to the back to learn about the deep fryer, explained to us by a smiling Columbian man named Rodrigo.
Our second training session brought the whole "team" together for the first time. This classroom-oriented afternoon taught us about days off, overtime, sexual harassment, robberies, labor laws, and government mandated sanitary standards.
Out final training took place at the store on the night before its grand opening. Our families had been invited as a forgiving crowd of customers for our dress rehearsal. Despite the segregation of our previous training, it seemed that I was also destined for the front line. I was only little handicapped by having spent my hands-on training learning about breaded chicken and boiling peanut oil. The registers were brand new consisting of a touch screen with little pictures of each food item. It took a few weeks to learn to more arcane functions such as how to sell someone one solitary chicken nugget or
a grilled chicken sandwich with only half a bun, but it was not hard.
It was also that night I was acquainted with the bane of my existence. I had just sold someone's little sister a Chick-fil-A sandwich (a CFA to those on the inside) when my boss Jeff walked up. In the friendly and enthusiastic tone he always used with "team members," he informed me that if any customer told me "thank you," I was to respond with "my pleasure." This policy did not please me for a couple of reasons: first, I am not the kind of person who says "my pleasure," and second, my dealings with customers were rarely pleasurable for me. The average American assumes that since one is working an entry level job one must be either: lazy, a drug addict, mentally retarded, a criminal, or an illegal immigrant. As a high school senior killing time before college, this assumption did not sit well and to be required to inform then that I had enjoyed their abuse was intolerable and highlighted the powerlessness of my position.
This struck me most starkly one night just before closing. A man in scrubs with a hospital ID clipped on came in and ordered a CFA. He became indignant when I did not offer him barbeque, honey-mustard, or sweet and sour sauce to go with it. Now, while we will gladly provide these to anyone who asks, they are meant for chicken nuggets and so we do not automatically offer them with chicken sandwich orders. Rather than allow me to explain this, he drew himself up like a Baptist preacher and told me how I was worthless, had no pride, and would never amount to anything. I held my tongue and silently moved Dr. Jerk to the top of Pulitzer List, those whom I plan to strike with the first Pulitzer Prize I win. He grabbed the paper Chick-fil-A sack and stormed out as I called after him "my pleasure!" although the phrase "burning coals" was the predominant thought in my head.
My mother is right; it is worth it to finish college.
posted by Tim Hoskins at 1:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home