Confessions Of A Fast Food Worker [Part 1]

The thing with these confessions, is I don't really have evidence besides having lived them. I write because I just hope we could learn something and be better, not to implicate anyone. While Pizza Mansion wasn't my first place of employment, it's where I've chosen to start.

G-Ma was starting to get fed up with my shenanigans. I also needed money for my habits and maybe a car if my spending decisions hadn't become even more poor than before. And thus, like at T-Hoes, my options were quite limited without a car. I handed out a stack of resumes on the outskirts of the city, but I only got one bite; Pizza Mansion.

To most people, it just seemed like a job, but it was emotionally stressful from the start. Out of all the places that could have hired me, I'd have an interview across the street from where Juliet worked. I'd just broken up with her so that she wouldn't end up on drugs and ruin her life, unable to guarantee which direction mine was going. She also seemed to be getting along quite well with the manager who ran the show over there. I didn't have much, but if he was a manager, he had to be making the big bucks.

It made equally as much sense to get a job with failing grades, as it didn't. I walked in, "Hello, my names Romeo... I'm here for an interview with the manager," I said. I was now worried because I hadn't thought to get the managers name, so I felt like I wasn't off to a great start.

She didn't take notice, "I'll go get Bon Jovi right away!"

My managers name would be Bon Jovi?! I thought wide eyed. The idea was mind boggling.

"Romeo?" a shorter, rounder, man came to the counter and asked.

"Yep," I said as we exchanged a handshake.

"Come on back," he said, motioning with his hand from around the counter. I was applying for the cook position. Mother Teresa had taught me lots about cooking, so it seemed like it might be a good fit.

Dealing with customers had grown exhausting for me at T-Hoes. I'd feel no less obligated to entertain the school there than I did at school. One time I'd stuffed 80 timbits in a box of 40 for some kids. No one to bug me from the kitchen.

He led me to a tiny office in the back. It looked like a security room. Two desks wide, but between papers strewn all over the place and the computer, there was hardly any space. I couldn't even find the tower, wondering if it ever overheat. The small TV for video surveillance was mostly obstructed from view.

The interview was weird. It lasted 3 times longer than my longest career-relevant interview would. Sometimes, Bon Jovi would go off on tangents that were irrelevant to Pizza Mansion. It almost seemed like I was interviewing him by the end. "You ever make a pizza?" he asked a 17 year old boy in high school.

"Well, not in a commercial setting. But I did work at T-Hoes and I'm a quick learner," I said.

"That's okay, you'll learn," he replied, going on to tell me another story about how busy he was one day. I didn't care. Busy sounded good. At least it meant I wasn't wiping down the same spot on a counter for my minimum wage.

"I like busy, keeps me busy," I said.

"Great! Then I think you're hired if you want the job," asking what seemed like a rhetoric question. If I didn't want to job, I wouldn't have showed up.

"Of course!" I said, thinking about ripping down the highway in a Dodge Viper.

He showed me around the place, introducing me to the staff. Nothing seemed out of place, just seemed like an average restaurant. "When can you start?" he asked.

"Anytime after tomorrow, I just need to arrange my ride," I said.

"Come in Friday, we'll get you right into the fray of things," he said.

Great... I thought, Throw me right in with no experience. My brain was already getting anxious.

***

On my first shift the following Friday, I met the other manager, Louis. He was an extremely handsome, friendly, well-dressed Spanish looking man. "We'll start you off on Chicken-Street," he said. I didn't know what he was talking about, I wasn't going to pizza joints for chicken. He explained that the company was in the middle of rebranding itself.

Posters lined the walls of my tiny cubicle station that contained recipes and respective cooking times. Two push timers and a clock on the wall if I needed a third. He walked me through the process but I was already getting mentally overloaded. "Okay..." I mustered. Pasta was one thing, but I'd have exhausting anxiety about undercooking a chicken and killing a customer. He must have seen my apprehension so he stayed during the first rush.

After the supper rush, he motioned for a high five "Not bad for your first night!" Louis said, "You'll need to pick up the pace and work on getting those pasta orders out with the pizzas, but that'll come with time,". It wasn't very reassuring for I hadn't needed to work there before to know that that Friday rush was hardly a rush. I'd also had Louis in my back pocket doing the heavy lifting. I just wished I could cook pizzas.

He told me to go have a cigarette and I wouldn't turn down the opportunity. I sighed gazing across the street towards Insane Mascot Arcade Land. I just hoped Juliet was doing alright. Before my next weekend shift, I'd have another 3 shifts with two on Chicken-Street. But they weren't very busy, one of the nights I only received a single pasta order. They put me alone the following Friday and it was insanely busy.

I hadn't needed to work at Pizza Mansion long to know that this was an exceptionally busy night. I walked in and went through the basic process of saying hi to everyone else that was in. "No rush, no orders on Chicken-Street!" That was about to change.

I stepped into the Chicken-Street station, tying my apron as I walked in. I was going to study all the recipes. I heard the sound of an order coming out of the machine. That had been fine, it would give me time to learn before a rush. But within seconds a second ticket had come out, and then a third. I rushed to tie my apron and my eyes widened as the orders continued coming in. When I was finished tying my apron, there was a total of 12 orders.

It had to be a mistake! I checked the orders and with the staff, but it was no mistake. Panic ensued. My processor shut down almost instantly. The noise became immense. My brain was a blob and keeping it together was a struggle on it's own. Phones ringing, managers yelling, someone crying, timers beeping, the sound of me going "Oh s$%t! Oh s$%t!". There were a lot of unhappy customers and screwed up orders. Perhaps it's because Bon Jovi was in that night that I kept my job.

"F^%$. No more Chicken-Street for you kid... That was a disaster! What happened?" he asked.

"I don't know. As I put on my apron, I had 12 pasta orders and two wings right off the bat, and the s%t show started from there," I replied instantly jumping inside having sworn. I'd quickly come to find it was a second language in this establishment. I'd come across a lot of weird things in my short stay.

***

One day I looked over from the pizza line. Squatted down, was Louis, happy and content. But he was doing something I found odd. "Why is Louis smelling the tomatoes?" I asked the line cook Matt with a raised eyebrow. He was moving them around, and seemed to really be enjoying the different parts to them.

Matt was head honcho of the line, the sous chef of pizza sauce. He was often blairing the boombox, usually to the newest hit by Lady Gaga involving Disco Sticks, only giving me more opportunities to be sad.

"Oh... that?" He's probably high on coke or something," he said laughing casually.

This was a revelation to me and I was shocked that someone in a superior position was undertaking such activities while at work. Drugs would turn out to be the third language everyone seemed to speak. Why this establishment was so dysfunctional would start to make sense. Like a naïve boy would, I enquired about doing drugs at work. But If you weren't doing hard drugs, you were smoking pot or stealing booze off the establishment.

I asked Matt to go for a smoke since it was dead. "Oh yeah man. Like, we don't really have a break system here like other places, if it's dead and you want to smoke or blaze, just go for it. Just don't be so obvious about it and make sure that orders aren't stacking up,"

I went outside where I'd find Louis and our newest Waitress, Clair. She was tall, blonde, slender, gorgeous and 23; 6 years older than me. They were quite flirty so I didn't want to intrude but was quickly included into the conversation. We conversed before Matt came out to ask for Louis.

"You want to smoke a joint?" she asked me.

"I'm still on break," I said figuring she understood rules more than myself and trying to seem hard. My self-esteem could use an easygoing conversation with a blonde hotty. She seemed like a very nice person, and I hoped she'd be careful around Louis, I doubted his intentions were pure.

From that day, we'd become really good friends. Clair had her own mental health that she'd been dealing with and she'd been long out of high school but not long enough that we didn't relate. I found someone who understood me and actually seemed to listen. She offered far more than "It'll get better". I felt comfortable opening up to her. I could talk to her about Juliet, and it was one of the few ways I might have been close to understanding what she was dealing with in all this.

I'd only be at Pizza Mansion for about a month, but that wouldn't bother me, it was a gongshow. One weekend was the worst of them all. The thing I'd single-handedly hate the most was the different businesses inability to not have erratic schedules. I was in for the morning shift this particular Saturday. The managers had forgotten to place an order the week prior, and one had just come in so we had a lot to prep.

Clair came in smiling big at me, asking me how I was. "I'm alright... Getting by," I said trying to muster up a weak smile for her, "How about you?"

"I'm good today! And with the order in, I can finally prep onions," she said. I laughed at how excited she was to cut onions. We were almost out and she had to explain to lots of people we had to be sparse on them. After making a joke about crying, she went off to cut onions.

It wasn't long before I heard, "Where's the onions?!" as Clair peeked around the corner and eyed up Louis, "Did you order onions? We needed those the last order!"

"Yeah... I ordered onions! We were right out," Louis replied.

"Where are they than? I'm not seeing green peppers either!" She said, going through the stock more frantically.

The two of them searched high and low. Insert Anime-style search montage. Inside freezers and fridges. On top of shelves. Outside. You name it. After a bit Louis piped up, "Uh.... F$%k... I must have not marked them down on the order sheet..." he said scratching his head.

"We only have one onion left! This is supposed to last us a week?" she asked.

"I guess so," Louis said, "We won't have anymore until the next order so just be conservative with onions and green peppers,"

I was confused as to why we didn't just go across the other street to the grocery store and buy some onions.

"This isn't going to last a Sunday lunch!" she said, angrily cutting the only onion we had left to serve customers. With so little onion, she grabbed the container from the pizza station and filled it up. Next she was off to prep lettuce.

I was prepping pizza dough; your perforated pizzas, regular pizzas, ones with crust folded around cheese stri- er... I mean stuffed crust. I'd drop a regular dough trying to do an Italian inspired pizza toss when no one was looking. Quickly disposed of that and marked it down as sour. I just about dropped the second of my short career when I heard a shriek.

"Ahhhhh!!!!!" Clair screamed, throwing the lettuce down as we all rushed over. I wondered how she cut her hand on the plastic lettuce knife. "Cockroaches!" now she was dancing around. There, in the container of lettuce, was 5 presumably dead cockroaches. The ladies and I were shocked while one guy bust a gut laughing.

Louis came over, "Ah... It's just a few creepy crawlies. Just pick them out and make sure to triple check the lettuce we got in. Don't want to be serving roaches!"

"I've got a couple of roaches we could get rid of if anyone's down," the guy laughing said joking about pot.

"Wash the lettuce good too, it'll be fine!" Louis finished with.

"Gross!" Clair said and I couldn't have agreed with her more. Low on onions and green peppers, now serving roach lettuce? Those things were riddled with disease, weren't they? This pizza ship was going down fast.

When she wasn't taking break with Louis the Heartthrob, sometimes ours would land together and that particular day they had. "S$%t, that's just gross," she said while we smoked a joint, and I knew what she was talking about but things weren't about to get better.

"Right? And who's even going to get the blame for that? It'll probably be me..." I said squinting my eyes, knowing I got the blame for everything. But she laughed and that was enough to stop my being angry. I'd help her understand the reality of Louis, and she'd contend with such reality. We went back in to finish our 12 hour shifts.

***

As the supper rush approached, Louis conducted a meeting once all the staff were in, "These are our only onions and green peppers," he said poking around at the two containers that were side by side in the station, "We need to make them last all week," he said and for some reason poked more violently at the containers.

"Whoa, careful with those containers, they don't sit very well...!" Matt warned. They didn't and he'd previously asked for dividers to prevent jostled containers falling.

Perhaps Louis had a point to prove as he started wiggling the peppers dish, "Eh... Doesn't seem too bad to me..." and as he finished his sentence, the pizza gods heard his taught. The onion container wiggled out of position and crashed to the refrigeration unit below.

I'd looked under that station before when Matt needed me to grab him a product from down there. It was filthy and gross and I doubted it had been cleaned in years. Greasy dust caked the edges and specks of god knows what lined the bottom. Louis opened the door to inspect the damage while we all looked upon spilled onions, "Crap," he said thinking for a second before scooping them back into the container, "It is what it is," and to my shock, he went to put it back in the station without even watching them. Someone was going to get extra crunchy bits.

Maybe it was Karma now sending him a message, but as he put the container of gross onions in, the green peppers went crashing down below, "F#$k!" he yelled, his frustration mounting. The situation wasn't nearly as bad as the onions so I figured he'd just leave the few green peppers that had fallen out. Nope, he scooped those back in too. Even the guy cracking jokes earlier was no longer laughing.

That entire shift hurt my brain a lot, but I couldn't quit. After a couple weeks working, they asked if I'd be alright working till 2 AM on weekends. As long as I could get a ride, I didn't see why not, I wasn't able to sleep anyways. Might as well work.

**

During the following week, Louis tried selling me pills, "I got all kinds. Uppers, downers, inbetweeners,"

"Nah, I'm good man, I just smoke pot," I'd consistently tell him. Clair came out and Louis shot her a dirty look before brushing past her and going inside. She looked defeated.

"You okay Clair?" I asked.

"Yeah..." she sighed.

"Louis being a dick again?"

"Yeah..."

"He's still selling pills ya know, so I doubt he's quit doing them,"

"You didn't buy any, did you?!" she asked with vibrant concern.

"Of course not, not my jive!" I assured her, emptying my pockets.

"Good!"

"What do you even see in this guy?" I asked, trying to understand if all these girls I met thought they could just change these guys. Why were they always falling for cute scum? "He's always strung out on something..."

"Yeah, I know... But when he's not completely off the rails, he's the sweetest guy," she said. I couldn't help but wonder if I was like that in Juliet's eyes.

"You're an amazing person Clair, and you deserve nothing but the best. Not just someone's who's got a bit of spare time for you," I said. Our friendship only grew stronger from there, at times having me question if it was going somewhere else.

We were allowed all the pop we could stomach for free, but Clair would sneak me glasses of chocolate milk from time to time. I'd told her it was my favourite drink at one point and she started doing it. She liked that I listened and I noticed that she listened.

I respected Matt as well, but he could often get distracted monkeying around. Clair said it was effecting her tips. Now when I'd see orders stacking up while the cooks were getting high and I had nothing on Chicken Street, I'd make her pizzas. I didn't make the other ladies pizzas though.

One time she had a large order, a bill in the hundreds. She spent two to three hours catering and only serving one giant table. After, the man charged with paying declared he wasn't giving a tip because it took too long for the pizzas to get there. There was nothing I could do but let her cry on my shoulder after. But I vowed to ensure that none of her orders were waiting.

"Care if I add you on Facebook?" I asked. Not wanting it to seem weird since she was much order and I was terrible with understanding peoples intentions.

"Not at all!" she smiled, "I'd like that," Now we would talk on social media outside of work and both started opening up more about our past. It was freeing in such a time of chaos, almost like a separate reality I could visit. She wouldn't go around telling people about about the things I'd say. Nothing to go around my school or work for gossip. But I'd only be employed there one more week.

***

I came in for my last shift already in a fowl mood, only a few days off having made my situation with Juliet even worse. Both managers had as well. It was also destined to be the busiest night I'd faced yet. They decided it was the perfect time to throw me back on Wing Street, now my third time. After a few steps short of lighting the establishment on fire, Louis stepped in and yelled for me to back up, "Just can't do anything right, can you?" he angrily said.

"Oh... I'm sorry..." I said apologizing for my failures. I briefly wondered if it had something to do with Clair and I. I might argue in the future that this was the day my life changed. I couldn't argue with him, much like I couldn't argue when I used to get teased that my mother must dress me. Survey seemed to say I was a failure.

Shaking the basket of wings and without looking at me he said, "Yeah... I just don't see you making it here man. Just leave your uniforms on the counter and you can come grab your last check on payday this Friday,"

There was nothing left to say, I just went into a defeated shock. Everyone was mad at me; Juliet, Tinder, my parents, my grandparents, employers, teachers. I couldn't do anything right. And a complex began to form. I wasn't sure how after witnessing all I had at Pizza Mansion in one month, I was somehow the worst person alive. All I'd been seeing was people doing worse things than me or dark corners I thought I'd never find. The worst friend, and son, and brother, and boyfriend. But that's all that really made sense anymore to that weird boy. A complex that I couldn't shake for a long time.

I changed clothes and left mine on the counter. I wasn't to say goodbye to Clair as she was working but I couldn't find her. As I left the establishment I found her outside on break. We talked while I waited for my ride.

"On break?" she asked, confused about my lack of work attire.

"Louis just fired me..." I told her, feeling like a failure and hoping I wouldn't cry in front of her.

"No way! For what? You're one of the few people who care to work," she said. And that felt nice to hear. At least I wouldn't be leaving as a failure in her eyes.

"Ah... Well... Louis is just in one of his moods, but honestly, if he called back and apologized I doubt I'd come back. I've been pretty done since the whole cockroach, onion peppers day,"

She tried not to laugh at my remark, wanting me know she was being serious, "Well, I had a really fun time working with you Romeo. It's not going to be the same without you around. Who else am I going to sneak chcolate milk to?" she said smiling.

"I had fun too. You're the only person that I ever liked here to be honest," Matt was an easy second but lost points every time I had to do his job.

"Awe...!" she said giving me a big hug, "Stay in touch, okay hun?"

"You know it," I said walking over to the Loser Cruiser and getting in. I'd try to keep that promise, but would eventually be burdened with endless anxiety of feeling like I was just bothering people too much or that might not want to actually hear from me if I left it too long.

Mom looked over at me, "Who was that?" she asked, concerned for my confused teenage brain, knowing I'd already made a huge mistake that would take a lot for Juliet to understand and get over.

"Eh... Clair. Just a really good friend," I tried to brush it off.

"Be careful about rushing into things," she said probably knowing there was only one girl I really wanted. But I also hadn't told her she was 23 or I'm certain we'd have had a different, more heated conversation. She would have gone on about something I didn't think could actually happen, and I'd have argued that I'd do whatever I wanted even if I didn't think it could happen.

I road home trying not to cry. Juliet would just know that I wasn't working anymore. Mother Teresa wasn't hard on me because we'd talk when I wasn't entirely mad at her for everything and she knew about the shenanigans at work. I got home and on my desk was an apron with the Pizza Mansion logo, "Crap!" I said, worried they had cops that would track me down to collect the apron. But they wouldn't even notice it.