Anywhere But McDonalds
I've always wanted to be a writer. When I was a seven year old Goosebumps fan, I took pieces of wood leftover from karate class and wrote titles upon titles of books that I would write. When I a thirteen year old Dragon Ball Z fan, I wrote a two hundred page, single spaced tome called Wishstones that was essentially DBZ fanfic with the names Goku, Gohan, Trunks, and Vegeta replaced with the names Chris, Bri, Kristen, and--of course--Pat. Then, Harry Potter fanfic. Then, a novel of my own that I tried writing but then realized that it was a terrible story. Then, an epic story that I wrote well but approached wrong. And now, a whole bunch of stuff that I'm proud of.
So yeah. I've always known that I wanted to do this. But what I didn't accept until I was seventeen was that I'd have to get a day job in the meantime.
When I started hanging out with people that a) didn't live down the block from me and b) wanted to go places, I realized that I'd need money. With my friends Steve and Laura at my side, I went job hunting, applying everywhere that would give me an application. 7-11, a deli, Hallmark, Blimpie (I know, right?), everywhere. Well, everywhere except McDonalds. It had been beaten into my head that McDonalds was sort of like the limbo of jobs. It's a place where you go and never leave. It's for people who aren't driven and who will, just like the teachers always warned you, be "flippin' burgers for a living."
Essentially, I'd apply anywhere but McDonalds.
But one day in 2006, my dad, fed up with me not having money of my own, told me to swallow my pride and apply at the McDonalds Express one town over. The manager there, Mario (one of the nicest dudes in the world), told me that he didn't need any more workers, but that he could forward my application to the normal McDonalds in the same town. Pride having been swallowed, I told him to go for it. Two interviews later, I had a job at the one place I was positive I didn't want to work. McDonalds.
On my first day, I was trained by a red shirt (naw, not the folks who die in Star Trek... a 'crew trainer') named Yolinda who was rumored to be crazy and violent. Also, she was a borderline midget. She warned me that Victoria was a bitch (Victoria was a bitch) and told me all the things I was allowed to do, all the things I wasn't allowed to do, and all the things I wasn't allowed to do but could get away with anyway. There was a lot to learn, from the way the computer worked and where the buttons were located to where a random and obscure sauce packet was tucked away--but I picked it all up pretty quickly. And... it wasn't terrible. Some of the managers were better than others, but overall... I liked it.
On my second day, I made my first friend. A short, birdlike girl named Jenna Sacks was cleaning a clean table in lobby with a rag. I cleaned an equally clean table next to her. "This is pretty much what it's like," she said.
"Huh?" I replied. Before that, no one had really said anything to me besides, "This is how you do THIS" and "Victoria is a bitch," so I'd never had to say anything besides, "Uh huh" and "okay" and "How do you...?"
"I got hired a week ago," she said. She had a lot of earrings, a hairstyle that was supposed to look messy but was definitely meticulously crafted, and an expression of endless exasperation in her eyes. "All day. Just cleaning tables, counters. No one really comes in in March."
"Oh. Huh. Yeah, it is kinda slow."
"So, what kinda music do you like?"
And I made my first friend at McDonalds. For the first year of working there, I actually liked it. It wasn't bad. I didn't mind the work. I liked my co-workers, aside from Victoria the Bitch and Betty the Snippy Boss. I learned how to work the grill area rather quickly, and befriended Ester, the seemingly grumpy old spanish lady in the grill that really just wanted someone to laugh with. I became a red shirt, and then I took a test with a lot of questions that I was somewhat embarrassed that I knew the answers to, and I passed and became a member of the #1 Club. Betty the Snippy Boss left. Kate Hunt, the unit manager (also, the millionaire daughter of the dude who owns the company Hunt Enterprises), left. She came back one day, saw my check, and told the new manager, a righteous guy named Joe, to give me a raise. She gave me $50 right there and apologized that I wasn't being paid what my work was worth. The raise ($9, from $7.50) didn't come for three months, so as an apology, Joe bumped it up to $9.25. I was promoted to Swing Manager. I closed the store three times a week in Summer 2007. I had egg and ice cream wars with Jenna and the new manager Will, who became her boyfriend. I tried to stop their relationship from going in the shitter, and I was somewhat successful (er, at first). I made Ester laugh. I ran the store well. I went to manager meetings.
But.
I also had to deal with the night crowd. I also had to count thousands of dollars worth of money. Betty the Snippy Manager came back, this time as first assistant (more power), and things slowly changed. There was a new policy. If the safe is short, the closing manager pays out of pocket. None of the responsibility was on the shoulders of any of the other numerous managers who were there during the day. One night, I closed with my friend Marvin, and the safe was perfect. We both counted, and it was as it was supposed to be. The morning manager, however, disagreed. They said it was $19 short. Without a chance for a Marvin/Pat-esque explanation, my check was docked $7.50 and Marvin's $11.50. He quit soon after.
I was frustrated, but I didn't let it get to me much. Then, Jenna Sacks went to college. Then, most of the friends I'd made there quit. Then, Joe was replaced with Kate Hunt's brother Matt Hunt, who seemed like a cool dude. Then, his second day there, I was kneeling on the floor, cleaning the stainless steel when he bent down to me and said, "So, when you quit, are you gonna just leave or are you gonna give me the courtesy of two weeks notice?"
"Uh, if I do quit, I'll give you two weeks," I said, bewildered.
"Okay."
It became clear quickly that, though she was second in command, Betty was in charge. I didn't dig it. I stopped going to meetings, because decisions were out of my hands. Work stopped being fun. I had Ester, and I had the new crazyfunny grill lady Anna, but things just weren't the same.
After that, nothing was ever consistent. Matt was terrible, but then... he got awesome and then he left. Betty was on and off, between awful and very nice. Mario, the dude from McDonalds Express who got me the job, came to work there. There were cool managers, there were cool workers. But my last year and a half there was spent knowing that I was going to be quitting as soon as I could.
Then, I got a job at a bookstore. The same day that I was put on the schedule there, I drove to McDonalds and asked if that week could be my last. Betty, who I told weeks earlier that I'd be leaving, said that was fine.
On my last day, I worked as if it were a regular day. I made all the sandwiches for the last time, worked alongside my coworkers for the last time, and did fucking backbooth (the worst job in the store) for the last time. But when Ester and Anna came in at 5pm, and I realized that it was the last time I'd work with them, it was anything but a regular work day. I didn't feel sad, not really, until Anna was in the back, and Ester and I were alone on the table.
"I am going to miss you, Patricio," she said. "Four years, we work together."
"I'll visit, Ester."
"And bring Dunkin Donuts. The small ones. I love."
"Alright Ester," I said, clenching my teeth, trying to keep my eyes from getting all watery.
The rest of the night went quickly. I ran across the street to buy Mario his cigarettes. I took a "this-is-my-last-day-so-I-don't-give-a-shit" amount of food, and I wrote Ester a goodbye letter, hugged her, Anna, and Mario, and left. A bit sad, a bit glad.
I have the fond memories (laughing with Anna at the sauce drawings I made on the tortillas, when I convinced everyone it was Ester's birthday and they bought a cake and Ester was embarrassed and choked with laughter, me and Will's secret language--"Double cheeseburger and a happy meal toy"..."reeses pieces"--and so many more good times), I have the bad memories, and I have four years of experience. I'll miss it. I'll miss being there.
But only a little.
And only for a while.
It was an experience, and I'll look back on it mostly fondly with some sprinklings of suckage. But now I've moved on, I'm happy where I am, and I'm looking forward to whatever comes next.
So yeah. I've always known that I wanted to do this. But what I didn't accept until I was seventeen was that I'd have to get a day job in the meantime.
When I started hanging out with people that a) didn't live down the block from me and b) wanted to go places, I realized that I'd need money. With my friends Steve and Laura at my side, I went job hunting, applying everywhere that would give me an application. 7-11, a deli, Hallmark, Blimpie (I know, right?), everywhere. Well, everywhere except McDonalds. It had been beaten into my head that McDonalds was sort of like the limbo of jobs. It's a place where you go and never leave. It's for people who aren't driven and who will, just like the teachers always warned you, be "flippin' burgers for a living."
Essentially, I'd apply anywhere but McDonalds.
But one day in 2006, my dad, fed up with me not having money of my own, told me to swallow my pride and apply at the McDonalds Express one town over. The manager there, Mario (one of the nicest dudes in the world), told me that he didn't need any more workers, but that he could forward my application to the normal McDonalds in the same town. Pride having been swallowed, I told him to go for it. Two interviews later, I had a job at the one place I was positive I didn't want to work. McDonalds.
On my first day, I was trained by a red shirt (naw, not the folks who die in Star Trek... a 'crew trainer') named Yolinda who was rumored to be crazy and violent. Also, she was a borderline midget. She warned me that Victoria was a bitch (Victoria was a bitch) and told me all the things I was allowed to do, all the things I wasn't allowed to do, and all the things I wasn't allowed to do but could get away with anyway. There was a lot to learn, from the way the computer worked and where the buttons were located to where a random and obscure sauce packet was tucked away--but I picked it all up pretty quickly. And... it wasn't terrible. Some of the managers were better than others, but overall... I liked it.
On my second day, I made my first friend. A short, birdlike girl named Jenna Sacks was cleaning a clean table in lobby with a rag. I cleaned an equally clean table next to her. "This is pretty much what it's like," she said.
"Huh?" I replied. Before that, no one had really said anything to me besides, "This is how you do THIS" and "Victoria is a bitch," so I'd never had to say anything besides, "Uh huh" and "okay" and "How do you...?"
"I got hired a week ago," she said. She had a lot of earrings, a hairstyle that was supposed to look messy but was definitely meticulously crafted, and an expression of endless exasperation in her eyes. "All day. Just cleaning tables, counters. No one really comes in in March."
"Oh. Huh. Yeah, it is kinda slow."
"So, what kinda music do you like?"
And I made my first friend at McDonalds. For the first year of working there, I actually liked it. It wasn't bad. I didn't mind the work. I liked my co-workers, aside from Victoria the Bitch and Betty the Snippy Boss. I learned how to work the grill area rather quickly, and befriended Ester, the seemingly grumpy old spanish lady in the grill that really just wanted someone to laugh with. I became a red shirt, and then I took a test with a lot of questions that I was somewhat embarrassed that I knew the answers to, and I passed and became a member of the #1 Club. Betty the Snippy Boss left. Kate Hunt, the unit manager (also, the millionaire daughter of the dude who owns the company Hunt Enterprises), left. She came back one day, saw my check, and told the new manager, a righteous guy named Joe, to give me a raise. She gave me $50 right there and apologized that I wasn't being paid what my work was worth. The raise ($9, from $7.50) didn't come for three months, so as an apology, Joe bumped it up to $9.25. I was promoted to Swing Manager. I closed the store three times a week in Summer 2007. I had egg and ice cream wars with Jenna and the new manager Will, who became her boyfriend. I tried to stop their relationship from going in the shitter, and I was somewhat successful (er, at first). I made Ester laugh. I ran the store well. I went to manager meetings.
But.
I also had to deal with the night crowd. I also had to count thousands of dollars worth of money. Betty the Snippy Manager came back, this time as first assistant (more power), and things slowly changed. There was a new policy. If the safe is short, the closing manager pays out of pocket. None of the responsibility was on the shoulders of any of the other numerous managers who were there during the day. One night, I closed with my friend Marvin, and the safe was perfect. We both counted, and it was as it was supposed to be. The morning manager, however, disagreed. They said it was $19 short. Without a chance for a Marvin/Pat-esque explanation, my check was docked $7.50 and Marvin's $11.50. He quit soon after.
I was frustrated, but I didn't let it get to me much. Then, Jenna Sacks went to college. Then, most of the friends I'd made there quit. Then, Joe was replaced with Kate Hunt's brother Matt Hunt, who seemed like a cool dude. Then, his second day there, I was kneeling on the floor, cleaning the stainless steel when he bent down to me and said, "So, when you quit, are you gonna just leave or are you gonna give me the courtesy of two weeks notice?"
"Uh, if I do quit, I'll give you two weeks," I said, bewildered.
"Okay."
It became clear quickly that, though she was second in command, Betty was in charge. I didn't dig it. I stopped going to meetings, because decisions were out of my hands. Work stopped being fun. I had Ester, and I had the new crazyfunny grill lady Anna, but things just weren't the same.
After that, nothing was ever consistent. Matt was terrible, but then... he got awesome and then he left. Betty was on and off, between awful and very nice. Mario, the dude from McDonalds Express who got me the job, came to work there. There were cool managers, there were cool workers. But my last year and a half there was spent knowing that I was going to be quitting as soon as I could.
Then, I got a job at a bookstore. The same day that I was put on the schedule there, I drove to McDonalds and asked if that week could be my last. Betty, who I told weeks earlier that I'd be leaving, said that was fine.
On my last day, I worked as if it were a regular day. I made all the sandwiches for the last time, worked alongside my coworkers for the last time, and did fucking backbooth (the worst job in the store) for the last time. But when Ester and Anna came in at 5pm, and I realized that it was the last time I'd work with them, it was anything but a regular work day. I didn't feel sad, not really, until Anna was in the back, and Ester and I were alone on the table.
"I am going to miss you, Patricio," she said. "Four years, we work together."
"I'll visit, Ester."
"And bring Dunkin Donuts. The small ones. I love."
"Alright Ester," I said, clenching my teeth, trying to keep my eyes from getting all watery.
The rest of the night went quickly. I ran across the street to buy Mario his cigarettes. I took a "this-is-my-last-day-so-I-don't-give-a-shit" amount of food, and I wrote Ester a goodbye letter, hugged her, Anna, and Mario, and left. A bit sad, a bit glad.
I have the fond memories (laughing with Anna at the sauce drawings I made on the tortillas, when I convinced everyone it was Ester's birthday and they bought a cake and Ester was embarrassed and choked with laughter, me and Will's secret language--"Double cheeseburger and a happy meal toy"..."reeses pieces"--and so many more good times), I have the bad memories, and I have four years of experience. I'll miss it. I'll miss being there.
But only a little.
And only for a while.
It was an experience, and I'll look back on it mostly fondly with some sprinklings of suckage. But now I've moved on, I'm happy where I am, and I'm looking forward to whatever comes next.