Sloppy Joe's

When you go through the drive-through of your favourite fast food restaurants, you may not realize what goes on behind the scenes. Other than the fact that it’s naturally not healthy and that pimpley kid making your french fries needs a haircut, you might not even give it a second thought. If you are ever one of the lucky people who gets to work at a fast food joint you’ll probably know what I’m talking about; and if you’ve never worked in a grease basket I apologize in advance for potentially ruining your fantasy about the world of fast food.

The rules stand as thus: wash your hands, move fast and always smile at the customers. These rules don’t always go in that order, and as you will see these rules only act as a guideline.

Let’s start with wash your hands. Every time you walk into the kitchen, or cooking area, you wash your hands. After you handle cash, you wash your hands. Seems to be like a sound theory right? Well… not so much. The problem with the rule ending at wash your hands is that when everyone is running around super busy and it’s +40◦ in the kitchen you are not on you’re A game. On top of being overwhelmed, you are covered in sweat. Head to toe. And the parts of you that aren’t covered in sweat are covered in grease. Yum.

The ‘move fast’ rule comes into play throughout your entire shift. Sometimes there are rushes and orders can’t be put through fast enough. Sometimes you’re short staff so you need to make up for it in speed. Other times you just want to avoid being harassed by your supervisor so you get the hell out ASAP. No matter why you’re flying around quickly, one thing is bound to happen, mistakes. I’ve seen food being dropped on the floor to only be picked up and put back on the customer’s tray. Even worse I witnessed a girl that was so busy that she put her hand in the deep fryer to pick up something she had dropped. If that’s not an obvious sign that moving like lightning will screw you up in some way then I don’t know what is.

Smiling at the customers may seem easy enough on most days. But I’ve witnessed the worst of the worst. Not to mention co-workers taking on some disgusting revenge. One particular incident I had a customer throw a hot burger at me, I delt with the situation with a smile (secretly swearing at him in my head) and told him we would fix his order. I found out later on that my friend had seen it and hawked a loogy on his burger and into his drink. Disgusting I know. But I can’t help appreciating my friend for taking some sort of stand against the way that customer lashed out.

Throughout this gross, greasy experience I got to realize that sometimes your work isn’t what makes things worthwhile, it’s the friends that have to go through it with you. Your jobs aren’t going to always define who you are right away, but they will lead you to the person you will become. I don’t regret working there; I think I’m more thankful for the experience and memories that I get to keep with me forever, no matter how many hot burgers get thrown my way.