This
past summer was like all other suburban summers: short and hot. Short enough so
that it came and went and, having not overstayed its welcome, would be welcomed
again. Hot enough that little kids cracked eggs on their asphalt driveways,
scrambled for a round of hide and go seek, and before the tiny seeker could
finish counting to ten and move her hands from her eyes, the yolks were very
well done. On both sides.
Brief
and burning though it was, certain opportunities did present themselves to make
the most of it. For example: Swimming in the murky polluted waters of the North
Shore. Swimming in the slightly clearer, still polluted waters of the South
shore. Swimming in the over chlorinated, somewhat urinated municipal swimming
pools. Swim—well, if in aqueous movement did not interest you, you could’ve
hosed up a rotating sprinkler in your backyard, hopped up and down for a bit
and called it a season. Or you could’ve found yourself a part-time, worked from
9-5 in cushy air-conditioning, and coasted into the cool evening.
That’s
what I did. The name’s Will by the by. Oh wait you knew that already. Sorry.
Right, so I had the pleasure, if you can call it that, to be employed by the
not so lovely people at the New Hyde Park McDonald’s. You know, the one on
Jericho Turnpike that looks like a house; can’t miss it. I figured that, well,
I couldn’t light up all day, or I’d have spent my stash before the Fourth of
July and I very well could not stand viewing fireworks sober. So I sucked it up,
peddled my way over and applied. I should have trusted my gut feeling and
bolted right out. But for some reason or other, I didn’t.
Being
as desperate as they were for cheap labor, since everyone and their uncle
wanted a brain freeze inducing McHFCSwithVanilla this or McHFCSwithCaramel that
(if you're confused, HFCS refers to the gluttonous goopiness that is High
Fructose Corn Syrup, since you probably didn’t catch on before), the lines of
cars ran out onto the road, and no one besides poor high school kids and
undocumented immigrants could suffer the daily abuse present at such an
establishment (in this case, more of the former group were available for abuse,
though just three towns over in Westbury, the opposite is true), I was accepted
right on the spot.
They gave me a wrinkled, stained black
polyester collared shirt with a certain funk I can only describe as fried BO
and a shabby one size fits all folded brim hat, also in black. Of course,
needless to say, stitched onto the both of them in gaudy yellow was the ever-present
Golden Arch, there to further bombard the customers with suffocating advertising.
As if being on the cups, bags, trays, straws, napkins, paper bags, by each and
every price of all items, on the bathroom signs and on the red (like the blood
and toil of the proletariat) flag flapping outside in the warm summer breeze
wasn’t enough, I now was just another spectacle of corporate interest.
You
may ask “why, Will, if you were so clearly annoyed by the idea of serving as a
cog in the McDonald’s machine did you decide to work there?” to which I would
respond that you clearly have not been paying attention because I did state my motive
(common I think to almost any other individual who is placed in a situation to
perform something they absolutely despise), which is of course money.
Also,
my lovely mother decided during this particular summer to give me another
staunch sermon on the value of exercise, saying something to the tune of:
“Oh
Will you really should shape up, ugh, look at those sagging folds from your
arms. Jesus, look at the cellulite near your navel. Revolting.”
She subsequently prohibited my use of her car
that up until then I had been using to go back and forth from school (sometimes
to motels and empty parking lots at night) and mandated I bike back and forth
to wherever I decided to work, because exercise.
God
damn it get to the interesting part of the story you’re probably thinking. Yes
I know, too much exposition, too much setting the scene, get to the point
already (get to the point evidently is a euphemism amongst gay IV drug users on
Grindr as a clue-in that they use too, or so I’ve been told, I wouldn’t know
personally).
Well,
shit hit the fan so to say right around two weeks into the gig. I had managed
to suffer through the drudgery of several hours of monotone robotic voiceovers
over poorly designed graphic tutorials on such lovely topics as “How to Greet a
Customer” or “How to Smile at a Customer” or “How to Not Look Like You are Only
There for the Money and Want to Gouge Your Own Eyes Out With Straws if Needs be
Because Your Shift is Still For ANOTHER FOUR HOURS” (disclaimer: not actually a
video tutorial). I picked up rather quickly on how to use the POS (point of
sale, not piece of shit) system since any idiot can sell a Big Mac or
Filet-O-Fish if the picture and price are fucking right there in front of you
on the screen.
Anyways,
there I was, selling McFlurry’s on the fly, 2 for 5’s and 2 for 2.50’s, mixing
and matching, so fast. On the drive thru or at the front counter, no problem. Until
the swing manager came one day while the place is dead (you know, that time
right around 3 pm when the lunch rush is long over and rush hour junkies aren’t
due yet) and called everyone to the back office for a meeting. And he said
“Guys,
as you probably all know (I did) there are 8 people at any given time during a
busy shift on the floor. For some reason or other, our headsets keep breaking
(they’re cheap as shit) and we aren’t getting new ones (privately owned
franchise tend to be frugal as fuck). Today, one of our 8 still functioning
headsets is ugh, malfunctioning but not broken.”
He then proceeded to
pump the volume up all the way and all my coworkers winced in sudden
realization at the nature of the headset’s malfunction. You see, all McDonald’s
model CDG67 bi-channel headsets are programmed to repeat this message every
hour on the hour: “Please check the restrooms,” the flat monotone of the
robotic voice sounding vaguely feminine. Except, this particular broken headset
repeated this particular message not every hour on the hour, but every minute
on the minute. He continued
“Would
anyone please volunteer to use this headset? Unfortunately we need all of them
during the lunch rush.”
And I thought, well,
nobody else seemed too keen on the idea, and it didn’t seem like it bothered me
too much at the time, so why the hell not.
“I’ll
do it.”
Everyone just turned to
look at me like I had two fucking heads or something and the manager gave a
sigh of relief
“Oh
Will, great! Here you go.”
And then I don the
headset and immediately I am bombarded by the shrill metallic timbre of a
female robot. Over and over and over again. You may be thinking, hmmm, couldn’t
you just mute the headset? You see, if McDonald’s was actually a humane
corporation (they aren’t) that would be a possibility. However, since “the
customer is always first,” being able to mute the headset could lead to not
being able to hear screaming stoners at 3 in the morning at the drive thru
monitor while restocking, so mute was a no-no. And even at the lowest volumes
the bitch’s voice still cut right through, straight into my brain. I say bitch
(I am not sexist, I just have much contempt for this, well, woman of sorts) but
she has a name: Janet.
My
coworkers were ribbing me about how fucking annoying that headset must be, and
I’m like
“Yeah
this bitch is so fucking annoying.”
And they look at me all
weird like and say
“Bitch.
Oh you mean the voice? Haha…what’s her name?” laughing nervously. “Hmm, I never
really thought about it. Janet, I guess is the first thing that comes to mind
(forgive me all the non-bitch Janets out there).
And Janet never shut
the hell up. When I’m taking an order, “Please check the restrooms.” When I’m
dunking frozen fries into the deep vats, “Please check the restrooms.” When I’m
mopping the lobby, “Please check the restrooms.” When I’m already in the
fucking bathroom and cleaning shit from the bowl, there’s NO ONE THERE JANET,
“Please check the restrooms.” I screamed at the bathroom mirror and punched it,
cutting my knuckles up fierce. The manager called me into the office and asked
“Is
there something wrong (nothing was wrong, nothing at all). You can’t do
something like this again or there will be severe consequences, understand?”
And I nod and say
“Understood.”
And everything seemed
understood for a spell. I still heard fucking Janet’s voice every single waking
minute of every shift. But she was slowly becoming manageable, doable (not like
you do a girl). And then some woman walks in one day, like two weeks later. She
was dressed in a tight-fitting blue long sleeved shirt, black bell-bottoms and
high heels. She’s got this luscious brown lipstick on (maybe it was closer to
mauve; I might be colorblind, maybe you could check that for me) And she stared
at the menu and looked to me and started talking. And I should’ve been
listening, I really should’ve doc, to my manager and her. Instead. I just
stared at her left breast (listen) and right smack there, in bold black letters
over gold, was the name JANET. And I twitched and something, I don’t know, just
switched. And the next thing I knew ripped off my headset, grabbed one of the
cages out of the oil in the fryer, jumped over the front counter and bashed her
right on the side of her head. Over and over and over again. Some guy in a hat
tackled me to the ground. The police came, took me to jail. Some foofy musky
smelling middle aged woman with glasses filled out some paperwork, now I’m here
writing this letter to you since you wanted me to “share your recent
experiences and elucidate me upon the circumstances of your arrival” (Well,
there you go).