| My night with Dave |
9/17/2003 |
by Jon
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I pray that you all burn in hell.
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A True Story.
I arrived precisely at seven o’ clock on Monday night. Extinguished my cigarette on the side walk and boldly opened the door to my first night shift as a part time employee at Wendy’s.
“The house that Dave Thomas built” I thought as I hustled past waiting customers to get across the counter and into the back. I felt their eyes pierce my red hoody as I passed. They thought I was going to cut them in line. I went up and saw my boss Mike. Decked out in his dark blue shirt and red tie with tan diamonds on it, tied nicely together by his untied sketchers, he told me that I would be making burgers today and that I should be excited. I was then introduced to my teammate who was also named Mike. We made small talk; He told me not to be nervous, too just stay focused and I would make it through just fine. I put on some gloves and looked up at the order screen. The letters BIGCL-Com-/c/t/exk started flashing on the monitor.
“Ok, go for it Jon!” said Mike.
I looked at the screen for a few seconds truly believing I might be able to decode that message and convert it’s text into a delicious sandwich, but it just wasn’t happening. I looked at Mike, and he got really pissed. “Come on man, just do it, that’s a big bacon classic, now make it.”
I have here some direct quotes from Mike that I feel explain the first three hours of my time at Wendy’s.
“The onions go on top of the pickles damnit!”
“ONLY ONE TOMATO!!!”
“Come on man this is Wendy’s. Squirt the honey mustard to form a W on the bun.”
“How many times am I going to have to teach you how to tuck and fold the burger wrapper Jon?”
After the traffic slowed down we got into some more small talk and he introduced me to the burger man. His name was Mike and he was a veteran of the gulf war. He flipped a mean burger. Mainly because he had mastered what he called the “art of the four corner press”, apparently this maximizes burger size and taste when the four corners of the burger are pressed flat while cooking.
My burger-mate Mike then took me in the back freezer and said I was going to learn how to stack fries. He must of seen the look of terror in my eyes because for some reason he quickly replied “Don’t worry man, it’s not hard”.
After it was done we went out back to get more buns from the outside freezer. Once out of the building he lit up a cigarette and watched me transport 12 empty dough pallets and a pile of cardboard while he smoked his cigarette and chuckled. At the outside freezer, Mike’s friend, who introduced himself as “splinter”, started talking to us. Splinter talked about getting high and losing his job at Walgreen’s while Mike regaled us about how he is actually a manager but “forgot his tie at home”.
We went back inside and Mike talked to head Mike and head Mike put me on trash duty. The rest of the night I emptied barrel after barrel of trash. They gave me a dolly to haul the huge grease bags in because they got quite heavy. I named my dolly the only name I could think of…Mike the dolly. I ate my late-night not free dinner behind a dumpster while I sat on the ground and watched people drive out of the Home Depot parking lot. When they saw me there shoveling salad in my mouth in a Wendy’s uniform sitting on the ground they nearly drove off the road in disgust.
At the end of the night they had me scrub down the walls outside under each drive through window. After I learned the difference between blue paper towels and white paper towels from Jen the cashier they let me vacuum the dining room. When we closed at one the cook set down his spatulas on the un-cleaned grill, picked up his coat and beret’ and left the building on his motorcycle. That left big boss Mike, Jen, and myself there to clean the store. Two hours later as I threw my last bag of trash in the dumpster and went to punch out, (which actually was more like writing out because you just wrote your name on a blank piece of paper and then the hours you worked that night), I asked my boss the one question I can’t believe I never thought off.
“ How much am I getting paid?” -Jon
“6.50 an hour”. -Mike
“Your kidding me” -Jon
“How much do you want?” -Mike
“Nine” -Jon
“Jon there are people who have worked here for two years and don’t even make 6.75.” -Mike
This last comment made me religiously sick. I honorably told him that I’m glad Dave Thomas was dead and that he should “BIGGIE SIZE THIS”, then I stuck up my middle finger and stormed out. But I would be climbing the truth tower a little higher if I said that ‘s just what I thought of saying after I was in the parking lot and that I actually called him the next morning and quit on the store’s answering machine.
I wish those guys good luck in the future, a fine product made by fine people. You know what their store goal was? To out match their neighboring towns Wendy’s in the “time served” category. Mike said that if they hit 28 seconds, that’s from the first syllable spoken by the customer to the moment they drive off, they would take the record from Gilford and all their dreams would come true. I asked him what the world record was and he told me it was 12 seconds.
“Holy shit” I replied. “Who managed to do that?”
He said one word.
Dave.
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