Epiphany

So. An epiphany--I work at McDonalds.

I get back from Spring Break (yes, I'm still on college-people time) and I discover that we have instituted a new thing at the place of my employment. We each have been given a small book that has pictures in it (I suppose that way we all understand) and these pictures instruct us to do something, such as "smile" "say hi" "fast service" and so on. I picked on up and was flipping through it, completely aghast until I managed to say, "WHAT, is this?" I was told that if a manager sees/hears/observes us doing those things, they sign our book and if we get it all filled, we get a prize. Wow. I need a moment. *** Okay, I'm back. I had to take a moment and let the utter insanity of what I just wrote catch up with me. How incredibly ridiculous is that? We have all just quantum back-flipped our way to grade school. So if we don't get our book filled, do we miss recess? Are they going to call my mommy? It's completely...i have no word to describe what it is. Well, I have not receieved my book yet since I missed the meeting (no worries though, my meeting will be tomorrow) and my manager told me today that it was too bad I didnt' have one because she would have been able to check off lots of things for me. I asked her since I didn't have my book, could I drop the "politeness charade" and be rude since it didn't count for anything? She just laughed, missing the ridiculousness of my question. Who does that? We all are polite and don't need a book to make sure of that. One of the things we have to do is "look the customer in the eye." It will now be my goal to look at the forehead of each customer and see if I can fake out my managers. How childish have we become?! We are employees, not 1st graders trying to fill a chart up with stars. Seeing as I work for McDonalds, I think there is not a "prize" that would really excite me. What is it, an autographed photo of Ron himself? Free food? I'll find out more at my special meeting tomorrow. I can hardly wait.

During my breaks, I watch CNN and I have noticed that Hong Kong has been strongly promoting tourism. They have these really long commercials about people visiting and having the time of their lives and all these great things. Kinda like a mini-movie. I'll bet someone who cries easily would cry at the end of one of them. Anyways, just an interesting observation. Puts our "Go see Arkansas" commercials to shame. We should take cues from Hong Kong. They're effective because it makes me want to go. I actually stop eating to watch them. I've seen two different versions so far. So some mad props go out to Hong Kong.

shopping

So I decided to go shopping, which I haven't done in a long time. I'm not much of a shopper; I have to be in the mood to do it. Well, I felt "in the mood" and I wanted to look half-way decent at an upcoming wedding this weekend. I trekked to St. Jo to the mall (I know! wow!) and began my search. I have a few shopping downfalls. #1 - I really don't like to spend money on clothes so in order to buy something, I have to really really love it, or someone has to persuade me that I really really love it. #2 - I'm indecisive about clothes, so I always say that I'll look somewhere else and come back, and then by the time I've looked "somewhere else," I've completely talked myself out of buying whatever it was that I liked.

So, bearing my faults in mind, I entered the mall. I entered through the Sears hardware department and got lost trying to find my way into the mall. I briefly stopped in the "too small- too tight" section, commonly known as the juniors to see if there was anything appealing. #2 kicked in and I told myself I'd come back. I then proceeded out into the mall, feeling confident that I could accomplish my mission. I walked into a store that had some pretty nice stuff, and promptly walked out when I saw the prices. You call that on sale?!? Too bad, because their stuff really WAS nice, but I can't talk myself into buying a shirt that costs over $20.00. Do you know how much rice/pasta that would buy?!

Undaunted, I walked into another store and found some stuff that looked awesome on the perfect little model things, but not so much on me. Plus, I ran into the size phenomenon.
In stores such as this one, I find that all concepts of size have been altered. Think you're a medium? Think again! You have entered the realm of "extra-small" and "size 0." A large or X-large usually fits as a medium on me. I wanted to try some stuff on, but the dressing rooms were locked and I had to wait for one of the clerks. I stood around and waited, listening to two girls, one of which was named "Bianca" (made me happy for some reason) talk about prom dresses and how one of them (not Bianca) was unable to "fill out the dress" as well as the other. Nice. I finally was granted access to a dressing room and tried on some stuff. Didn't quite work for me, so I left Bianca and friend in search of another store.

I tried a few more stores, to no avail. I left one store when I couldn't figure out whether the thing I was touching was a skirt or a shirt. This perplexed me for quite some time, and I stood there looking at it for awhile before I realized I was way out of my league. I found other stores where there were shirts that looked terribly complicated to put on, and I had to throw myself into a clothing rack circle thing to avoid being run over by a group of teenage girls, all wearing pretty much the same thing, only in different colors. I then tried another store that didn't look so "too small-too tight." I walked in and slowed down to listen to the music playing. It was familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Then I realized that it was "You light up my life" (to which I found myself singing along to) and some old lady was whistling (badly) the tune. It wasn't the singing version, but like "Dino does the 60's" instrumental version. Wow. I smiled, and walked out. After having exhausted all possible stores, I finally gave up. I found NOTHING. But my quest continues, and for those of you who will be in attendance at the wedding, if you see me wearing something new...I have won.

"Look away! Look away!"

I was on my break the other day and found that they had also sent two other guys on break at the same time. We were all sitting down there and I told them they could watch whatever they wanted on TV. The new guy turned it to some drama/cop real-life story channel thing. Not really my thing, but no biggie. I concentrated on my fresh-from-a-box salad. A story came on about a chick detective who started dating another detective in the force, who just happened to be married with kids...only she didn't know. Hmm...great detective work, eh. Anyways, they showed a picture of the guy and he was black. The other guy proceeded to start singing "Jungle Fever." Nice. I was a little thrown off, but took it as childishness. I went back to my salad and the new guy spoke up and said "oh yeah, I think you're right. He is a colored boy, isn't he?" My fork was halfway to my mouth, and I froze. My mouth was still hanging open and I turned and stared at him. "Colored boy?" I can hear the band warming up "Dixie" now. Who says that?! I realized I was still staring, my eyes wide and my mouth still open, yet smiling now in disbelief. I kinda shook my head and bent my head low over my salad. Nice. I had no words. I don't remember much of the show after that. Something about a murder and stuff.

Mercy

I have found that I dispise the way I say the word "mercy." I don't know why, but I don't like the way I say it. I've tried to say it different ways, but it won't come out right. I don't think it sounds weird to other people, but I can't stand hearing myself say it. Weird huh.

I was thinking about that the other day because I love watching people speak and listening/watching the way they pronounce words. Have you ever thought of all the different ways people say your name? Very fascinating to me.

I went to the Geog/Geol banquet last night at the Hangar. A good time was had by most, if not all. G-Pac sported a newly made scarf that really brought out his eyes. He also did a reenactment of my gas station adventure, which brought back some fond memories. We watched "The Pacifier," or "the Punisher" as some might call it. It was good, a little cheesy, but still fun. MC teared up a little at the end. What a softy. I can predict the next dance craze though. Pretty soon, everyone will be doing the "Peter Panda Dance." *clap clap* I'm amazed at what the man was able to construct inconspicuously in his quiet suburban town, and I loved the incorporation of the panda dance. Nice work. I think our top national secrets should be guarded by such means, so that anyone attempting to steal them would have to show off some mad dancing skillz in order to get them.

Inspection

We had our inspection at McDonald's the other day, which meant we went crazy cleaning the place in the morning. I was supposed to be back in grill, but I worked my way up to front drive and then back to pit, where I became the envy of all employees. The beauty of being in pit, is when it's slow, you have the option of either staying back there, or coming up. They really can't put you to work doing anything major, because you never know when an order might come up and you have to take money. Being in front drive, you're easily replaced, but since I'm the only one with a cash drawer, I have to be back there. So, the inspector comes through the drive through, and we all recognize him, so it was no surprise. He wrote some stuff on his palm pilot, and then stood outside and timed us. Luckily, it was a day with unusually warm weather (not as good as this Sunday though) so our customers were in good moods and the line went fast. As to why I was the envy, our good friend decided to pay a visit to the grill next where he made TONS of new rules and pretty much picked on everyone.

Our new rules are incredibly ridiculous. We now have to go "by the numbers" with our products. If you're back in grill at a certain time, a piece of paper tells you that at that time yesterday, from say, 11-12, we were really busy, in "ultra-high" mode and tells you how much meat and product to keep up. Neat huh. Wellll, it doesn't really work, because no two days are the same. So that means we have wasted more food with this system than ever before. Good plan HQ! So the paper is telling us to keep 5 trays of meat up, but the people who are back there EVERY DAY and are not stupid, know that we could get by with 2 or 3. But we have to go by the paper and end up wasting 2 full trays of meat. They completely ignore the fact that we have common sense and know how much product to keep up and can judge for ourselves the busy-ness of the day. If we had gone by the numbers today, we would have wasted enourmous amounts of food, because we were surprisingly dead. BUT, according to the paper, we were "ultra-high." It's ridiculous.

I worked back in grill the other day and our head manager decided to help out, meaning she was really there to implement all the new rules. I took a vow of silence and kept my mouth shut. It was hard.