Job #3 Wendy's Old Fashioned Porn

Let me start this one out by saying I have earned very few jobs on my own merit.  I believe it to be nigh impossible.  You Must Know Some One.  The best evidence of this I know is that even to get a job at Wendy's I had to know Wilson, who's mom was in management there.  Thus I got a job.  So did a few more of our friends.  It didn't take long for nearly our entire group of friends to be employed here and it was a misfit operation. 

This was a fairly enjoyable job, what with good friends always around, the understanding that work could never really get worse than this (at least in this country).  Minimum wage and every day you left work wearing clothes and skin that shone with grease.  I shared a house with Neal who also worked at Wendy's and every day when we got off work we would toss our clothes down the stairs into the cellar.  If we could have afforded a containment unit we would have had one.  No amount of washing can take that sour smell of used grease out of cotton and polyester.  I believe we burned the clothes and the shoes our last day of employment.  If they were looking, astronauts probably saw the flames lick the sky from space.

There were all kinds of shenanigans to be had while working at Wendy's and each of us seemed to take special delight in one particular activity.  Whether it was throwing pickle slices onto the ceiling to see how long they would stick up there above the front counter or hiding meat in the fridge to see how long it would take management to discover where the smell of rotting flesh came from we all had something to bring a smile to our faces.  Half the management was utterly clueless and often raised our ire.  I got scolded one day during the lunch rush for putting the onions on a burger before the tomato.  I looked at Debbie like she was an idiot and asked if she was serious.  She informed me that she was very serious and that I was making the sandwich wrong.  I bit my tongue until the rush was over then found her at the manager's desk and informed her that that was the most fucking ridiculous thing I had ever heard.  "Do you really think the customers give a shit if their onions or their tomato is on top?"  "Yes, I believe some do and there is a right way to make a Wendy's burger."  I let her know I felt she was an utter moron and went back to the line. 

At Safeway presently we have just started offering the Shanghai Dinner for Two which comes with noodles or rice plus two sides and 4 eggrolls.  Most Safeway's don't have a self serve buffet and this is obviously designed for those stores where the deli workers are already dishing up what the customers ask for.  We however have a self serve buffet so when a customer wants the Shanghai Dinner for Two they come up to the deli counter and ask a deli clerk who then has to come around the counter and dish up the customers food for them at the self serve buffet.  I told my former boss and present District Merchandiser that the concept was completely ridiculous and asked if she'd thought about what she was telling me.  She looked stunned and said we simply had to do what corporate told us to do.

Which brings me back to Wendy's and my favorite story of unruly employees which involves Wilson and the head manager Kevin.  Kevin asked Wilson to take out the trash one day after lunch rush so Wilson grabs a broom and starts sweeping up the kitchen.  Kevin notices this and asked Wilson "What are you doing?  I asked you to take out the trash?"  To which the eloquent Wilson responded "Are you fucking Stupid?  Think I'm gonna take out the trash without sweeping first?"  He then went back to sweeping and Kevin stammered a few bits of nonsense before awkwardly turning around and walking to the back room.

There are so many beautiful Wendy's stories to tell it's hard not to tell them all.  Like when a customer found a dog biscuit in his Chili and asked one of the staff "What is this?"  "Well, sir, that appears to be a dog biscuit."  Or when a few unnamed staff members stole a few of the training videos and dubbed over short clips of hard core porn at opportune moments.  Such as Dave Thomas saying things like "And this is how you stuff a pita...."  Cut to porn.  Or "and while you're learning the four corner press I'll be..." Cut to porn.  After the editing process they then returned the videos to the training room for some innocent young new hire to discover.

My favorite day of working at Wendy's though had to be the night of some formal event at the University.  Three or four couples came in for dinner before attending.  Men in tuxes and beautiful women in elegant black dresses.  I was working the front register and shortly after they left they returned.  One of the lovely young ladies approached me to ask if she could dig through the garbage can for she had apparently dumped her keys in when she threw her trash away.  I refused to allow this lady to go through an evenings worth of trash looking for her keys knowing they surely fell all the way to the bottom.  Luckily she remembered which can she had thrown them into so I pulled out both cans and began transferring the trash from the one into the other.  Before long I was down to about three or four inches of sludge (ketchup, frosty, soda, grease, fries, and hamburger bits at the bottom.  I dove my hand in and swirled it around through said sludge until I came upon her keys.  I pulled them up and held them at eye level where they dripped goo into the can.  "Let me wash these off for you."  After returning her washed keys she thanked me and her boyfriend slid a five dollar bill over to me.  I pushed it back to him saying "I'm sorry I can't accept that.  Just doing my job."  He looked at me like I was a lunatic and pushed it back "No, take it.  Really."  So, with hesitation and apparent regret I took his bill and thanked him for his generosity.