On the list of "Most Desirable/Sought After Jobs" , fast-food isn't even remotely towards the top. If course, it's also low on the list as far as 'Easiest Jobs to do Well". The later is a little-known fact. I'm one of the 'lucky ones' who knows first hand. If you think fast-food is an easy job, 1) you've never worked at Wendy's and 2) you're not doing it right!
Picture, if you will, a loud kitchen area...people talking, some yelling while a mere 4 feet away, while you strain to hear the man placing his order over the roar of his diesel engine. There are metal pans being dropped and multiple beepers and buzzers going off. To talk to the guy at the speaker, you have to hold a button down on your headset (the earpiece has no padding and is squeezing your ear). It works like a walkie-talkie except you can hear anything being said as long as someone is at the speaker.
Now, you listen to the order...among the several items, (which you have to push the button on your headset to ask needed questions, with one finger, giving you only one hand to do other things with at the same time) there's a few combos, in which even though the guys is rattling off several , along with we'll say 4 Frosty's, drinks and each burger is made differently. For one simple 'single cheese combo, medium with a coke, no pickle extra onion, there are exactly 10 buttons I have to hit on the register. If he adds a sour cream and chives potato, that adds 8 more buttons to the mix. That's a lot of buttons to push before he simply moves on to the next item, isn't it?
At the same time you are taking this order, you have to scoop the ice into a cup for his drink (holding the cup in one hand, using the ice scoop in the other). The Frosty machine is several feet away and he wants 4 of them...6 buttons and again, holding the cup in one hand and lifting the lever to the Frosty machine in the other (while he's continuing to order), He adds a 5 piece nugget no sauce and then a couple seconds later, changes it to a combo, with no sauce, small sized with a Frosty shake, vanilla. Total buttons.... 12. Meanwhile, the beeper in the back is going off and being the order taker at drive-thru, that's your job to turn it off, stir the chili on the stove, and yell out for them to 'stir (chili) wipe (down their sandwhich stations) flip (flip the cheese in their pans over) and rotate (the chicken and potatoes, to make sure the old products are romoved and the new products are rotated up front). During all this this, you ran out of small cups and the stock room is about 25 feet away. Guess who has to run back and get them, open them and reload the holder? That'd be you and even though you're finished with the diesel truck guy, there's another one right after them and so on and so forth.
After 2 o'clock, half the staff goes home, usually requiring all of the above, plus the collecting of the money (and counting back correct change), bagging your orders, getting the fries, dropping more fries (and the same with nuggets). Can you count and talk and listen all at the same time? Well, and do everything else I've mentioned at the exact same time? Don't forget that smile on your face. And all this takes place in under 3 minutes, a lot of time it's under 1 1/2. Our average lunch time wait is 'under 100 seconds' from the time they place their order to the time we hand it out the window.
Some customers give you the added 'treat' of not even looking at you as they hold they're money flapping in the breeze. I mean, we're just lowly fast-food workers, why would THEY give us the time of day? The ones who blow cigarette smoke in your face or leave the windshield wipes on full blast, showering you with water as you collect their money just make your day.
Honestly, I know there are lots of jobs out there that are more stressful, but walk a mile in a fast-food workers shoes and you'll see that most jobs have nothing on what we have to deal with several days a week, hours on end with no breather and not sitting down. If you do happen to get a vreak in customers, you get yelled at if you talk about anything other than 'burgers, fries and drinks' are stand there catching your breath...you have to get ready for the next rush of customers. Plus, those same people that look at us as we're beneath them would go crazy if all of a sudden we weren't there. Yeah, they'd survive but they'd have to take time to pack their own lunches in the morning 5 days a week (Oh my!)
I know a lot of people who wouldn't last a day doing what I do while they claim they have it so much harder than me....HA! (My ex husband jumps to mind, lol) Of course, you know what they say...."If ya can't stand the heat....."Just a little something to think about when you're at the drive-thrus speaker and are asked "Would you like fries with that?"
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