After my Sophmore year in high school I decided to seek employment. I didn't exactly need money, but I figured it was never too early to start saving up for college. Plus allowance only gets a person so far. I applied to four places. Two movie theatres (because they were the only places I actually thought it might be kind of cool to work at), a grocery store (because it was only about four blocks from my house), and Wendy's (because my best friend Eric worked there). I never wanted to work in fast food. From the moment I realized that I would one day get a job I swore to myself that I would never end up flipping burgers for a living. I also never expected to even be hired by Wendy's, but I figured I'd apply since Eric was there. I was only 16 at the time and had no previous work experience so getting hired proved to be difficult. Every other place didn't even bother to call me. Eric recommended me for a position at Wendy's, which is the only reason they even gave my application a second glance.
Needless to say I bombed my interview. I was nervous, tired, couldn't really focus, and mostly just didn't give a rat's ass about what the interviewer was asking me. I was dressed up in that way that says "I'm trying to look nice, but this is only a half-ass commitment". I wore a nice shirt (kind of) and shorts, which just looked more weird than anything. I spent most of the time trying to come up with a feasible answer to the questions I was being asked. I apologized several times for not being responsive saying I was just really tired. Any decent establishment would have turned me away immediately. Oddly enough they hired me.
I walked into the back for the first time a week later for orientation. I remember looking at the people who worked there. They all seemed so much older than me. In reality most of them were only two or three years above me. None of them looked older than 25 (save a handful) yet to me they were all 35 and up. I was the youngest person there when I was hired. All these people weren't new to the working world. I was the only rookie. It made me feel like I was a ten year old walking into a high school. There was another new hire there when I arrived. His name was Undre (Ahn-dray). He was a really nice guy. He only lasted a few months though. I guess he just decided not to show up anymore. As I was sitting around waiting for something to happen, two people came in, Kenny and Grace. Both of them were joking around. They seemed like nice people, but I was intimidated by them nonetheless. I remember Grace asking me how old I was and whether or not this was my first job. I told her 16 and yes. This prompted her to say "Awww...that's so cute." Now I felt like I was a six year old walking onto a college campus.
For orientation, Undre and I were supposed to watch a bunch of videos then fill out these question/pamphlet things they gave us. The movies were nothing short of painful. One of them was an instructional on how, when, and why to wash your hands. It was 15 minutes long! Eventually we realized that all the information we needed to actually answer the questions was contained inside the pamphlets themselves so we shut off the videos and filled them out. I was asked to come back in a few days and begin working.
My first day of work was excruciating to me. I spent the first month or so at Wendy's in constant fear of being fired (little did I know that it was almost impossible to get fired from that place). So I was always on edge and I spoke very little to anyone. I was put on grill the first day, and, after watching the training video, I was confident I could do it well. The first piece of meat I served didn't even reach the bun. This put me back on edge. Eric was sort of training me on grill. I got mad at him every time he told me something. I was determined to prove that I could do this on my own. At the time, I couldn't. I should have accepted his advice with arms wide open, but I just wanted to be able to do this. To make matters worse I was working beside Grace. This normally wouldn't have been a bad thing (in fact in the future it became a very good thing). After all, she was very friendly and was trying to help me. The bad part was that every time she saw me do something wrong she would yell "Noooooo!". I was already incredibly nervous, and I nearly had a heart attack each time she did that. Eventually I just kind of lost my temper and said "Are you going to scream at me every time I do something wrong?!" very abruptly. I apologized immediately, but I hurt her feelings anyway. She didn't yell ever again. Right before I went home she apologized to me, and I said I was sorry again.
My first day I was scheduled 2-8. that gave me three hours to practice before the dinner rush hit. As a new hire I was not prepared for just how many people came during the rush. At Wendy's, whenever we run out of a certaint product temporarily, we say we're burnt on that product. For instance if we sell a junior patty and all the junior meat isn't done cooking yet, then we are burnt on junior meat. No one told me this. I was working as fast as I could to try and keep up with the rush I was facing when all of a sudden a bunch of hot grease splashed on my hand. I dropped my spatula and proceeded to tend to my aching hand. Mike (the manager who interviewed me and my so called "Wendy's mentor" as I liked to think of him) came over and said "I better help Little Nicky out before he get's burnt". I began to mumble to myself "I'm already burnt you #%$^". I wasn't aware that he wasn't talking about my hand.
Eventually I was moved to drive-thru. I soon found out I had a natural talent for the position. It was easier than grill. And I felt comfortable doing it. Little by little I began to pick up the job. I was trained on all the positions and became very good at them. Once I was comfortable with doing the tasks needed for my job I was able to realize just what a hell-hole this place was.
But before I go off on the bad aspects of my job, I'd like to take a moment to share with you some of the more interesting people I worked with.
Mike- as I said earlier, he was my Wendy's mentor. He taught me most of the things I learned at Wendy's. He was a fun guy to work with, but he eventually quit.
Julie- the first of two general managers who worked at the store. I always thought she was cool, but I never realized just how badly she ran the store until she quit.
Kayce- The second GM. When she started the store was at F level (don't get no worse). I didn't like her at first because I didn't feel like she knew what she was doing. I should have been a little more open minded as she was just getting used to running a new store. She actually brought us up to A level. Eventually I realized that she was actually a very cool person.
Kenny- To this day I still believe Kenny was trying to solicite sex from me. He was constantly flirting with me and calling me "sweet cheeks". He supposedly had a fiance, but conveniently I never saw her. He was a good guy to work with whenever he wasn't trying to get inside my pants.
Grace- By far the best person I've ever worked with. She always managed to brighten my day whenever I worked there. I flirted with her every chance I got (or rather I should say I tried to flirt with her. I'm not very good with women). When she eventually quit--over a year after I started--Wendy's never again felt like a welcomming place.
Derrick- He was always great fun to work with. He's the one who started the trend of messing with customers in the drive-thru. He coined such phrases as, "Would you like to Jiggy size that?" and "Do you want fries with your jewish bacon cheeseburger. I really missed him when he left.
Conner- The second strangest person I ever worked with. The first thing he ever said to me was "Well...it's almost German porn." This was in response to Kenny chasing after me with a stick. Don't ask. He was one of those guys you would expect to go insane one day, yet you would probably never notice a difference in personality. He had a love for stupid movies that I shared, and, as weird as he was, I enjoyed working with him.
Bill- The strangest person I ever worked with. He was always on grill and was actually an okay guy until we started getting busy. Then he became a ticking time bomb. I mumble a lot, and he couldn't hear very well, so naturally we were always paired up on grill/sandwhiches. If he heard me say one thing and then I corrected him he would slam down his spatulas and give me this murderous look. When he was pissed off you could hear him mutter about wishing he had a gun so he could blow his head off under his breath. He was the kind of guy who would bring a gun to work and start shooting everyone if it weren't for the fact that he needed the money.
Bryan- the third weirdest guy I ever worked with. He would always talk nonstop about things no one cared about. What was funny was he kept on talking no matter what you did. I viewed this as a game. If someone else walked up to us while he was talking to me, I would walk away and he would shift the conversation to the other person as if I had never been there. Hell if I just walked away he'd just talk to air. He was fired for sexually harassing a customer.
Chuck- First one to point out just how many times customers say "uh". After he pointed this out, every time a customer said "uh" in a moment of indecision you could hear the entire night crew shout "uh!" as well. This got old quick.
Nick- When I first started there was another Nick working there, which lead to people calling me Little Nicky. I heard more swear words come out of his mouth than I did clean ones.
Stacy- Nick's wife. One of my favorites at Wendy's. She was nice and had musical tastes similar to my own.
Wes- Wes was a real character. He's one of those guys who likes his job too much. There used to be the sign out in the lobby that said a bunch of crap about how we pride ourself in excellent, blah, blah. We managed to recite the whole thing by memory to me. He is, so to say, full of shit. But I still loved working with him anyway.
Peggy- A redneck like you wouldn't believe. She's kind of an airhead, but still a likeable person.
Jen- A cool person to work with until she gets pissed off. Then you just want to stay away from her.
Kim- Grace's Mom. She had a thick Korean accent and was incredibly small. Yet she was incredibly intimidating. She threatened to kick my ass on more than one occasion.
Mitch- a neat guy to work with. He had multiple personalities. One of them was a British guy named Nigel who came out whenever he was feeling particularly happy or sad. He also had another one named Seck who came out whenever he got pissed off. I saw Seck only once. Mitch's pupils were so dialated that it looked like his eyes were completely black. I'm glad I never saw Seck more than once.
Charlie- Another coworker inflicted with multiple personalities. His were a bit weirder though. One was a cowboy, one was the angel of death, one was a dragon, and so on. I'm not sure if he made some of them up or not. I never saw any of his other personalities.
Pamela- She was about a foot and a half shorter than me and looked like a Who from How the Grinch Stole Christmas. According to Kayce's sister, she's working in a strip club now.
There was only one thing that made Wendy's a bad place to work. Customers. Customers are among the dumbest people on the face of this earth. The weird thing is that most people view those who work in fast food joints to be low on intelligence. Actually most of us were people working our was through school, or just temporarily in between jobs. A great deal of us are well educated. No, the real stupidity comes from the other end. Not only are customers stupid, but they actually percieve us as the dumb ones. They're stupid people who look down on us. Here are just a few of the things I've heard customers say:
(In the drive thru) "I'd like this order to be to go please"
"Can I get a junior bacon cheeseburger without cheese or bacon?"
"Can I get an order of McNuggets?" (we're not McDonald's damnit!)
"Can I Sonic size that?" (Nor are we Sonic)
"Do you guys have Arby's sauce?" (now this is just plain rediculous)
"How much is your 99 cent cheeseburger?"
(After an employee says "Hi, may I take your order?") "Yeah are you guys still open?"
Customers also have annoying habits. Most of them will put us on hold to talk on their cell phone istead of the person on the other line. The joke's on them though as we can then listen in on their private conversation. A lot of people go through the drive thru and take insane amounts of time thinking of what they want. Listen, if you don't know what you want, go inside and don't waste our time. The same goes for if you have a big order. People these days are just so out of it that they don't want to move from their car even if it means making things a hell of a lot easier for us. Some people will come through the drive thru and just order "a drink". As if we can read minds and figure out what drink they want. The one thing I've always hated most about Wendy's is having to thank the customer. I don't want to thank them. They make my job harder. They prevent me from doing my other tasks. But what is even worse is when a customer says "You're welcome". Listen, we're not really thanking you. It's just something we say without really meaning it. It's hard to truley explain the stupidity of cusotmers without writing a freaking book so I'll let this information stand. You'll know what I'm talking about if you ever work in fast food, dear reader. Actuall yyou should. I firmly believe that everyone should have to work in fast food at least once in their life. It gives you a new respect for those who do work there, and it show you that, as a customer, you are not always right.
Working at Wendy's was probably the most stressful and annoying thing I ever did. I worked there for over two years. Why? Well let's just say it was mostly because of a girl, and I'm not saying anymore than that. Though if I had to do it all over again I wouldn't work anywhere else. Working at Wendy's changed me in a lot of ways. In the two short years I worked there I went from feeling like a little kid to feeling like a responsible man. By the time I quit to go to Boston I felt just as old as anybody else working there. I had senority over most everyone who worked there. In a sense Wendy's is where I finally grew up. It's where I went from carefree youth to working class adult. I could actually go on for ten times as long retelling stories about Wendy's, but I've probably bored you people enough, so I'll stop riiiiiight...................................................
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