Has anyone here ever worked in Fast Food? I feel like I missed a rite of passage by not working in the industry.
Those who have, please elaborate.
My impression is that fast food work is increasingly no longer a rite of passage for teenagers. At least around where I live, fast food restaurants are increasingly hiring Mexican immigrants, as opposed to teenagers. But anyway, I have done some other jobs while being a student - shelving books in a library, office assistant, pasting flyers, and volunteering as a test subject for scientific research.
I was basically a janitor at a Dunkin’ Donuts for a few months in HS. Got fired because I mixed two cleaning products together that apparently shouldn’t be mixed and almost killed everyone in the store. I was also a short-order cook at a ski area snack bar, probably the most fun job I’ve ever had.
Couldn’t the mexicans be teenagers too?
I suppose they could. However, restaurants don’t need to focus recruitment on teenagers, who are likely to leave after long and require replacement, when there is an adequate supply of adult workers.
I worked at a bar for two summers in college, working the bar, cooking up anything I could make in the fryer and occasionally being forced to wait tables. Also probably the least work-like job I’ve ever had.
worst job i had was bus boy at a country club, i wanted to kill all the rich snobby members
Ammonia and bleach? Believe it or not–they actually teach us in Marine Corps boot camp NOT to do that, because so many people have done it and almost killed themself.
I thought you lived in San Francisco. Is there a surplus of Mexican immigrants there? I don’t remember seeing a lot of Hispanics in northern CA (except for Salinas).
It’s been a loooong time so I don’t recall, but it’s likely it was ammonia and bleach. I probably added bleach to something that had ammonia in it to get a little more of a kick.
For a few summers I was manning the deep frying station for a company that put up food stands at a number of music festivals throughout Europe, mostly Germany but also Denmark (Roskilde) and Hungary (Sziget). The job was sweaty, exhausting and at times downright disgusting - yet, I had the best time, travelling around, barely sleeping, seeing lots of great bands and hooking up with wasted festival chicks. Wouldn’t wanna miss it.
CvM, surely, you have worked some odd jobs yourself, even if it wasn’t fast food, I would think the experience is likely similar.
A high school buddy took a job at Wendy’s, where he last a WHOLE 4 hours. It was his first day, and it was his turn to take his break, at which point he just left and never went back.
CvM’s Odd Jobs
Caddie (Pre Tiger) - didn’t dig it, old racist fcks!
Grocery Store Bagger - Fun. Whoppin’ $4.75/hr. I was lucky to break $100 weekly paycheck after taxes and union dues were taken out. Don’t get me started on the union…
Cab Driver - Fun times, most of the time.
Club Bouncer/Security - Good times.
Club Bar Back/Janitor - Fun.
Club Valet - Fun, but pretentious dbags often with borrowed/rental cars.
That’s about it. I’m sure I’ve done other things to earn a few $, can’t think off the top of my head. I was at that club for waaaay too long.
^Mmmm, Baconator.
I worked at a full service car wash very briefly at the end of high school. That job was terrible. Hours of standing around in a humid building vacuuming cars. I lasted 2 weeks I think.
I worked at the counter at a pizza place.
I worked at an “Italian” type restuarant during high school, from pretty much age 14-17. It was a late night place with a bar so I worked Friday and Saturday evenings a ton and some nights during the week. Not a great way to spend the high school years but I made a ton of money (by high school standards) and I learnt what hard work meant. By the end of my stint there, I was managing adults when I was just a kid.
Since then, I’ve never had to work as hard. Having 15 orders up and people yelling and flipping out in 50 degree celcius heat in front of an oven is as much pressure as anyone could face (other than maybe some trading jobs?).
The threat of physical violence was very real with some of the nutso types that work in kitchens. Seen lots of people assaulted as just a matter of course. You slip up as a newbie and you could get punched out. Insanity. Huge egos and if you stepped on someone’s toes, a fight would break out. Regularly. It was a weekly occurance that some guy would go home with a broken nose or hand.
Didn’t help that mob like guys ran the show… never determined how legit they were. It really was a crap shoot. At the end of the month, you’d get a cash payment roughly equal to your earnings as “tip.” I was making 2x minimum wage which is pretty solid for a teenager, plus tips.
And the time would go by so quick because you were busting all out the entire time. You never felt like you were working until you collapsed near death the second you arrived home.
The restuarant business either builds character, or turns you into some kind of freak. Very different than fast food though. They have no standards and my perception is they are much more slack than a real food establishment. Working in a real kitchen is serious work.
Funny: I was a busboy at a country club and it was quite enjoyable; I got lots of tips, and we were allowed to eat as much as we wanted from the kitchen (as long as we let them know what we’d eaten).
I’m a fan of the old classic whopper. It just has that flame cooked taste.
big mac and wendys just doesn’t have it, for them it’s just the cooked meat.
On the rare occasion that I go to a very nice restaurant or hotel, I am always suspicious of the service people who treat me very well. Are they like this igor guy who secretly resents the customers but smile through their teeth? I mean, there are several levels of being nice - there is “normal people nice” and there is “nice to the point that you feel guilty”. I am generally uncomfortable when I know that I am paying for people to treat me a certain way.
I worked construction with a foreman that was just released from prison for coke and had no driver’s license. We called that forman Dank Frank. He used to put, literally, 16 sugars in his gas station coffee.
He was a pretty bad foreman though, which was nice. We’d drop him off at one site then we laborers hed to another to get started tearing off a roof or something. On the way we’d stop at one of the older guys’ house and drink beer from his kegerator. Then we’d go walk on a roof with crowbars and rip shingles off. Good times.