Saturday, April 6, 2013

The day I nearly got in a gang fight

So I was sitting here, not doing jack crap, just staring off into space when I started thinking about how I used to zone out in school during Geometry (which is probably why I nearly flunked that class) and then I remembered school starts Monday and I got a little icky over the matter.

I don't wanna go to school.

Pathetic, right? Two quarters in and I wish I didn't have to go.

I think it's more to do with the amount of change that I just went through (moving, vacation, other crap I haven't thrown out there for the entire online community to read, etc) and less to do with my apparent desire to return to Burger King.

Because I know that's what would happen if I cut back on school (relax, Mom! I'm not going to. I'm just typing out loud here).

You know, Burger King wasn't all that bad. Sure, it made me hate the public as a whole and I used to daydream about a land where people didn't request thirty packets of ketchup with a value size fry because they just ended up smearing it all over the table, the booth, the tray, the trash cans, and the effing floor, but I did work my way up from a crew person to the store manager. I had to. The sheer amount of idiocy in that place drove me nuts. I couldn't get people to listen to me as a team member so I had to own them. Which I did. Sorta.

Recently a friend of mine asked why I stayed with the company for so long.

For the stories, really. Check this out.

One day, about three months after I started working there, I was running the Drive Thru window. Burger King was doing the Wild Wild West promotion (yes. I am aware that this dates me. To 1999, specifically) and we were selling sunglasses as part of the Wow Factor. There were two colors available: silver and gold. Each color came in a separate case, but arrived two weeks apart. We sold the silver pair first and had yet to receive the other color. This is how marketers get their revenge on fast food workers.

So I was on DT, taking this chick's order and she asked for the gold glasses. I told her we just had the silver and would she like those.

Apparently she did not because her response was, "Bitch did I ASK for the silver? Get your f*cking manager and meet me at the window," and then proceeded to screech away from the speaker and floor her ugly ghetto hooptie to the DT pick-up window.

May I remind you, I was brand-new to BK. I did not yet have a hate-filled heart and I was all about helping the customer. I was perplexed and really wanted to help her. I ignored the fact that she had just swear-vomited all over my ears and I met her at the window, a big stupid smile plastered on my face. Except she was stashed in the passenger seat, with some dude driving the car. Both were dressed like gang-banger wanna be's and there was a bag of weed on the middle console. Except I didn't know that's what it was at the time.

"Ma'am, I understand you want the gold glasses. We have yet to receive those, but I can show you the silver pair."

I was so nice to that crap-bag woman that my current self wants to invent a time machine and go back, punch my teenage self in the teeth and stab the woman in the car. But only in the leg. I wouldn't go to jail for her because judging from her temperment, it would only have been a matter of time before she smoked a bunch of crack, stole a car and ended up in prison. Oh, yeah, I would basically need to be a bionic woman before I went back in time so that I could out-run the police and also so that Crack Whore and I didn't end up as cell mates. I'm still working on that plan.

So her response to my inquiry was to call me a bitch, again, and to scream through the window that she just knew my boss was hiding the glasses in his office (which he wasn't, but the fact that she knew exactly where we kept promo items makes me now realize that she had to have worked for a BK in our area. Which makes me even more depressed that I was classified with people like that. Ew)

The Crack Whore then threatened to "kick my lily-white ass" if I didn't get her a pair of glasses.

Peeps, I was 19, naive, and scared of human beings. I thought I was going to die.

Besides, did she ACTUALLY think behaving in that manner was going to make me bow down, run to the office and acquiesce full heartedly to her request?

Um, NO. Because I was paralyzed.

There were a lot more swear words that I don't specifically recall, so I started to shut the window while I called out to my supervisor, Rich, for help.

At that point, homeboy sped off in the car (sans food) and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Until about 72 seconds later when the front doors blew open and homeboy came flying into the restaurant, screaming that he was going to kick my ass. He actually climbed up onto the front counter before two of my supervisors grabbed him and shoved him off.

Did I mention our district manager was there to witness this ordeal as well? It was the middle of lunch rush, so about half the city saw it as well.

I stood in the DT area, stunned and unable to comprehend what the hell was going on in front of me. The guy was screaming that I had called his wife a b-i-t-c-h, and I was flabbergasted. Back then, I didn't use a lot of swear words and I was upset that this individual was accusing me of calling his wife names when I had done nothing of the sort.

Eventually, the police showed up and hauled homeboy away (he happened to have two warrants for his arrest. Interesting) and I went about my business.

Only later, when my bosses pulled me into the office to see if I was okay, did we work out what had most likely set homeboy off.

What swear word rhymes with my boss' name, Rich?

You guessed it. When I was closing the window, I was also calling out to my boss for help. Dude totally went to jail thinking I was a liar. For about a week I was slightly concerned he would come back and stab me with his straw, but I never saw him again.

This is by far NOT the worst situation I encountered during my 12 year stint in the fast food business, but it's the most memorable. Because after this incident, I began to turn numb.

It's okay. You can't really work around people if you feel things.

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