I'm a real
stickler for breaking down boxes. I get onto my wife when she puts
an empty box in the trash can without flattening it. Every time I
explain that it's wasting space. If you break it down it leaves so
much more room. I'm like a broken record. I got really anal about
it when I worked at Burger King. I've written thrice about Burger
King already (The Summer of Crickets, Optimism in a World of Shit, and False Prophets and Wicked Laymen) and now I'm writing about it again. My first job was
very influential to me.
Throughout the day
at BK we would empty out several boxes and just toss the empty
corrugated fiberboard containers toward the rear door. After close
of business it was time to take out the trash. It's obviously easier
to cart out thirty flattened boxes to the dumpster than making five
trips with assembled boxes. We had two large dumpsters, but a single
day's trash would easily fill them to capacity if filled with boxes still in their 3D states. I should have used box cutters but always
found myself showing off by using my bare hands to pop the flaps
apart.
Generally speaking
the dumpster was not a place you wanted to congregate around. Even
the smokers didn't typically use taking out the trash as an excuse to
light up. Old rotting food in a stuffy steel box in the Texas heat
has a way of hitting you hard. One evening a lady in the drive thru
made a rather dubious claim. She informed the cashier that she had
heard a cat in the dumpster and was afraid it was trapped. Somehow I
drew the short straw and was assigned the vile task of rescuing our
forlorn feline friend. Joy.
I headed out there
and popped up the lids. Nothing seemed amiss. I heard nothing
strange. I saw nothing out of order other than ketchup sprayed on
the walls like a scene from Dexter. I called out, “Here kitty
kitty.” Nothing. I waited a few moments. I weighed entering the
garbage receptacle. What if I stepped on the cat? What if I got
rotting food all over me? I really didn't want a three day old
Whopper to end up the inside my shoes. In the interest of critter
conservancy I opted to commence Operation Dumpster Dive. I climbed
into one of the dumpsters and picked a corner. I flipped things
over. I moved things around. Then I went to another corner. Then
another. Then another. Nothing. I went to the other dumpster then
repeated. I continued this for a while. Hesitancy is how I
initially pursued this endeavor, but defeat still tasted bitter. I
gave up. There never was a cat in there. I went back to work.
Apparently I was out there for an hour. All of that crap I did and I
was paid $5.20 BEFORE taxes. Did I ever mention the high turnover
rate in fast food (Hint: YES).
Stuart K is the
fraternal twin of Nick who worked at Burger King. I guess Stuart
must have been visiting Nick or whatever because he was there once
when I was taking a trash can out to the dumpster. We were probably
talking about band or something (He was also a trumpet player that was
featured in the Branson Story). He had some
matches and started lighting them and tossing them in the trash can I
was rolling out there. After a couple he melted the trash bag. He
kept tossing them in there though. Tossing and tossing. Thing is,
trash cans at fast food joints have paper in them. Bags, tray
liners, burger wrappers, receipts, etc. One of the matches ignited
something and there was now a fire in the trash can. Holy cow!
Instead of walking to the dumpster we were running! I threw up the
lid and picked up the can and dumped the contents in there. I
slammed shut the lid and figured lack of oxygen would extinguish the
flame. Nope. The lid was plastic and eventually enough heat was
generated to warp the lid. Now it didn't cover the whole dumpster
anymore. Black smoke billowed from the orifice of litter. We were
both like, “Crap!” I made my way back to the building smoke
still poured out of the dumpster. I decided to just go back to work
and forget about it. I didn't want to get in trouble. Stuart left
and I never heard about a great trash inferno again. I guess it just
worked itself out.
Another lady,
though I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same “cat lady” , lost
her ring in one of our trash cans. She flagged me down and said she
dumped her tray in the can and guessed that her ring hit the flappy
cover thing and came off. I told her, “no problem,” and removed
the can out of the rectangular prism container from which it resided.
I said, “here you go,” and she just sort of gave me a dirty
look. What? She wanted me to dig through the trash? I was making
$5.20 and hour. Sigh. I pulled out the can from the neighboring
container. I started carefully scooping trash from the offending can
and dumping it into the other. Nothing. She realized she probably
left her ring at home. What?!? How does somebody make this mistake?
Was she purposefully torturing me? Was she exerting some sort of
sick power over a teenage boy making minimum wage? Screwed up world
we live in.
I was blessed to
enjoy a job for spending money. It paid very little and was truly
inglorious but a lot of people in the world work a lot harder for a
lot less. Still though, while I have said I would recommend this job
to everybody if just for a short period, it is not good work. 20
years later I always treat fast food workers with the utmost respect.
It may not be noble work, but the person doing it might be a noble
worker. It would behoove everybody to be kind and courteous.
Ideally we would treat a fast food worker ( or any person in an
“undesirable” field) with the same attitude and cognizance as a
lawyer, police officer, doctor or teacher.
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