Take this job and...well, you know.
This is per Jane's request.
My first job was a part time gig at a local fast food establishment. It was within two blocks of my home and was the first place I applied. To protect the guilty, we'll call it Burger Royal Dude or BRD. I was only allowed to work on weekends because my mother didn't want it to interfere with my high speed public education. At any rate, I was a hard worker and learned the burger trade rather quickly. I started out working the meat conveyor. Slapping in frozen patties and buns on one end and taking cooked versions out the other. I worked this position for exactly two weeks before I was promoted to fries. Not bad for a weekend warrior. I guess they saw my potential as a burger prodigy or just needed someone to salt the fries when the normal fry guy quit. From fries, I quickly moved up to "the other than burger table" where I learned to prepare chicken and fish sandwiches. Before I knew it, I was at the burger table where I mastered the art of assembling burgers made to order. I was fast, I was accurate, I could sling beef like nobodies business. It got to the point where, during a moderate rush, I could man the entire kitchen almost single handedly. They gave me a .15 cent raise and recommended me for employee of the month. I was now a burger demigod. Were it not for my part time status, I surely would have been on the management fast track.
They gave me yet more responsibility. The store employed a night time cleaning dude. This guy came in after hours and cleaned certain equipment that was difficult or impossible to clean during business hours. Stuff like the meat conveyor and filter the grease in the fryers. His only night off was Saturday. I was given the privilege of taking up his slack on Saturday nights. I was taught how to clean and service this equipment. I did not enjoy this aspect of my work as a burger demigod but did it to the best of my ability. We were able to get much of this work done while still open. Management liked it this way because they didn't want us to be there past 12:00 AM. Mostly because those of us in school weren't, legally, allowed to be there any later.
Time went forward, as it always does. We had some management turnover. A couple new people came in and decided to shake things up. They added a suggestion box and started to make changes in an effort to prove how big their appendages were and show the upper management that they were effective. The new team leaders came down un us hard. The start of my downfall came one night when a particular manager (we'll call her I'm the Fucking Boss And I'm Going to Make Sure You Know It or FBAIGMSYKI) told me to add cleaning the base boards to my Saturday night regime. Now, being the demigod burger flipper/teenager I was, I didn't appreciate being given this task. I thought it was more of a meat conveyor type job. But I accepted this new duty. FBAIGMSYKI also cut staff after nine on Saturdays. This didn't make things any easier on me with my additional duties and all.
One night, about a week later, I stood with scrubby mop in hand cleaning the base boards in the kitchen. FBAIGMSYKI comes up to me and says "What are you doing?"
"Cleaning the base boards like you asked me to last week." I reply.
She comes back with, "No no no! You need to use your hands and a brillo pad."
Cooly I say, "Why? This is a scrubby mop and works just fine. You didn't say anything about this last week."
Clearly perturbed she hisses, "You will get down on your grubby little hands and knees and clean those base boards properly."
I about exploded at that point but remained calm and said, "I am not your slave and this is working just fine. I have a ton of other work to do while making food the whole time. You've been getting on us about getting out of here late on Saturdays yet you still give me more work to do."
She looks at me like I just slapped her. Despite being a woman of color, I can see her face turn red and the veins start popping out of her head. She says nothing, turns around, and stomps back to her office. At the end of the night, as we are shutting off the interior lights at 12:45 AM she hands me a paper to sign. She wrote me up. I looked at it and signed on the line.
The next day I came in early and wrote an angry letter about the staffing shortage on Saturday nights. I included examples of how we things had changed and it had directly affected worker morale of the Saturday night crew. The letter was long and strongly worded. It also asked for a reason I had to get down on my "grubby little hands and knees" to clean the base boards. I included a Saturday schedule that would allow me to effectively get the work done and still be out of the store at midnight. I put the letter in the suggestion box.
Three months past with no changes. I came in for my normal Saturday rotation. I walk to the back to clock in. My time card is not there. I check the schedule and see that I'm not on the on it tonight. But I am for Sunday for a whopping two hours. This weekend gig is my only source of income and now instead of sixteen hours, I'm down to two. I turn around an there is FBAIGMSYKI. I ask why my hours have been cut and why nobody bothered to tell me that I wasn't on the schedule tonight. She tells me to follow her to the office. When we get there she pulls out the letter I wrote three months ago with a smirk on her face and says, "This is why."
I lost it.
I unleashed every obscenity I had at the woman. I was a raving lunatic. I yelled so loud that work in the restaurant stopped and customers could hear in the dining room. I told her where she could shove her two hour schedule. I told her that, just because her ancestors were slaves, didn't mean it was OK for her to treat me like one. I asked her if it took her three months to read the three page letter I wrote or if she had to find someone to read it to her. With tears welling up in her eyes I finally took of my BRD shirt and threw it at the bitch. I stormed out bear chested screaming "I Fucking quit!" over and over again. Several of my coworkers applauded me as I left.
I called before I went to get my last check. Luckily it wasn't FBAIGMSYKI who answered the phone. I was told by the other manager, who was surprisingly sympathetic as to the nature in which I quit, that they would mail my last check and I was no longer welcome in the restaurant as an employee or a customer.
It wasn't the last job I quit due to a huge confrontation.
My first job was a part time gig at a local fast food establishment. It was within two blocks of my home and was the first place I applied. To protect the guilty, we'll call it Burger Royal Dude or BRD. I was only allowed to work on weekends because my mother didn't want it to interfere with my high speed public education. At any rate, I was a hard worker and learned the burger trade rather quickly. I started out working the meat conveyor. Slapping in frozen patties and buns on one end and taking cooked versions out the other. I worked this position for exactly two weeks before I was promoted to fries. Not bad for a weekend warrior. I guess they saw my potential as a burger prodigy or just needed someone to salt the fries when the normal fry guy quit. From fries, I quickly moved up to "the other than burger table" where I learned to prepare chicken and fish sandwiches. Before I knew it, I was at the burger table where I mastered the art of assembling burgers made to order. I was fast, I was accurate, I could sling beef like nobodies business. It got to the point where, during a moderate rush, I could man the entire kitchen almost single handedly. They gave me a .15 cent raise and recommended me for employee of the month. I was now a burger demigod. Were it not for my part time status, I surely would have been on the management fast track.
They gave me yet more responsibility. The store employed a night time cleaning dude. This guy came in after hours and cleaned certain equipment that was difficult or impossible to clean during business hours. Stuff like the meat conveyor and filter the grease in the fryers. His only night off was Saturday. I was given the privilege of taking up his slack on Saturday nights. I was taught how to clean and service this equipment. I did not enjoy this aspect of my work as a burger demigod but did it to the best of my ability. We were able to get much of this work done while still open. Management liked it this way because they didn't want us to be there past 12:00 AM. Mostly because those of us in school weren't, legally, allowed to be there any later.
Time went forward, as it always does. We had some management turnover. A couple new people came in and decided to shake things up. They added a suggestion box and started to make changes in an effort to prove how big their appendages were and show the upper management that they were effective. The new team leaders came down un us hard. The start of my downfall came one night when a particular manager (we'll call her I'm the Fucking Boss And I'm Going to Make Sure You Know It or FBAIGMSYKI) told me to add cleaning the base boards to my Saturday night regime. Now, being the demigod burger flipper/teenager I was, I didn't appreciate being given this task. I thought it was more of a meat conveyor type job. But I accepted this new duty. FBAIGMSYKI also cut staff after nine on Saturdays. This didn't make things any easier on me with my additional duties and all.
One night, about a week later, I stood with scrubby mop in hand cleaning the base boards in the kitchen. FBAIGMSYKI comes up to me and says "What are you doing?"
"Cleaning the base boards like you asked me to last week." I reply.
She comes back with, "No no no! You need to use your hands and a brillo pad."
Cooly I say, "Why? This is a scrubby mop and works just fine. You didn't say anything about this last week."
Clearly perturbed she hisses, "You will get down on your grubby little hands and knees and clean those base boards properly."
I about exploded at that point but remained calm and said, "I am not your slave and this is working just fine. I have a ton of other work to do while making food the whole time. You've been getting on us about getting out of here late on Saturdays yet you still give me more work to do."
She looks at me like I just slapped her. Despite being a woman of color, I can see her face turn red and the veins start popping out of her head. She says nothing, turns around, and stomps back to her office. At the end of the night, as we are shutting off the interior lights at 12:45 AM she hands me a paper to sign. She wrote me up. I looked at it and signed on the line.
The next day I came in early and wrote an angry letter about the staffing shortage on Saturday nights. I included examples of how we things had changed and it had directly affected worker morale of the Saturday night crew. The letter was long and strongly worded. It also asked for a reason I had to get down on my "grubby little hands and knees" to clean the base boards. I included a Saturday schedule that would allow me to effectively get the work done and still be out of the store at midnight. I put the letter in the suggestion box.
Three months past with no changes. I came in for my normal Saturday rotation. I walk to the back to clock in. My time card is not there. I check the schedule and see that I'm not on the on it tonight. But I am for Sunday for a whopping two hours. This weekend gig is my only source of income and now instead of sixteen hours, I'm down to two. I turn around an there is FBAIGMSYKI. I ask why my hours have been cut and why nobody bothered to tell me that I wasn't on the schedule tonight. She tells me to follow her to the office. When we get there she pulls out the letter I wrote three months ago with a smirk on her face and says, "This is why."
I lost it.
I unleashed every obscenity I had at the woman. I was a raving lunatic. I yelled so loud that work in the restaurant stopped and customers could hear in the dining room. I told her where she could shove her two hour schedule. I told her that, just because her ancestors were slaves, didn't mean it was OK for her to treat me like one. I asked her if it took her three months to read the three page letter I wrote or if she had to find someone to read it to her. With tears welling up in her eyes I finally took of my BRD shirt and threw it at the bitch. I stormed out bear chested screaming "I Fucking quit!" over and over again. Several of my coworkers applauded me as I left.
I called before I went to get my last check. Luckily it wasn't FBAIGMSYKI who answered the phone. I was told by the other manager, who was surprisingly sympathetic as to the nature in which I quit, that they would mail my last check and I was no longer welcome in the restaurant as an employee or a customer.
It wasn't the last job I quit due to a huge confrontation.
posted by Glenn at 7:37 AM
2 Comments:
yay! i love the way you told this story! it cracked me up! thank you for writing about it.
did you regret for even a minute the way it ended?
Not for one second. I did regret the racial stuff I said when I yelled at her.
On a side note...The quotes are the way I remember it. This occurred in the late eighties after all. So they're probably not true quotes. The only exception is the "grubby little hands and knees" I remember that vividly. And I didn't have a bear chest (I'm not that big of a guy). It was supposed to be bare.
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