habemus managerium
We learned that one of our (many) bosses would be transferred to another store, which traumatized Eighties Girl. She wanted to know where and how a new manager would be found, like bossy people with few job skills are that difficult to find, but we have an involved search process.
First, everyone from the crew trainers on up to the Store Manager gather in the dining room and sing our jingle and pray before our mascot for guidance. Then, they lock themselves in the smoking break room and do not emerge until they have a new assistant manager. When white smoke curls under the door, the have a new manager and the General Manager goes to the Drive Though Window and says, �Habemus Managerium,� which you will not understand because if you were fluent in Latin you would have a much better job, then they will introduce the new manager to the crowd of people wondering why they could not get any service in forever (gosh). The new manager will have chosen a new name that is unpronounceable and difficult to spell.
After complaining about the previous manager for his entire tenure, the octogenarians who live at your restaurant will then commence mourning the old, better person and berating the new one, who is clearly an idiot and would know that a person who fought the Kaiser and only gets a fifty cent coffee and refills it all day is more important than anyone else on Earth, I mean (insert obscenity) kids today are so rude! Have they forgotten that we brought down the Ottoman Empire and turned the Middle East into a cesspool of malcontent?
When black smoke curls under the door, it indicates that your mother has been cooking again.
Working in fast food, not matter how much you get your way or how much you are loving it is not unlike being relegated to a special subdivision of Hades (conveniently located near the River Styx).
Reaching the level of management means you have worked your way from the shallowest level of Hell into the deepest ring.
The Tour De Hell begins in the Grill Area of whatever fast food establishment you are employed. While this area is definitely the hottest place, it is also clearly the easiest. You make the same sandwiches (and salads!) the same way, every day for the rest of your life. Occasionally, you will make an order wrong and someone will trudge up from one of the other levels of hell to berate you for it. As long as you do not display a shred of competence, you will never have to leave this level. Pretending to not understand English also helps (I am on to you Maxi).
The next level of Hell is the Drive Through. This is where you take orders and do the most arduous task of all � dealing with the public. The public in the drive through is in a hurry, so they are just as rude and befuddled as the public any where but they are in a hurry so that makes it different. This level of hell is not as bad as the next one because you do have a lot to contend with but the people are in a hurry and leave, besides having a Brittany Spears headset on and getting an earache from the person who used it before it is not too torturous.
The next level after this is the front counter, it has everything the drive through but it also has the octogenarians who linger (and malinger) all day, complaining about everything and keeping a running tally about how the old was better than the new. We should stop putting asbestos in the coffee; it is only making them live longer.
In addition to the elderly the front counter has the added hazard of the dissatisfied customers being in the store when they discover the faux pas of the Grill Area. They come to you and want you to fix the workmanship of people who do not speak English and an elementary teacher pursuing a Master�s Degree in Literacy (I am so ashamed of myself). They also make a terrible mess of the dining room that you need to clean. They do not ice-skate in ketchup at home, that is something you save for the special occasion of going out to eat.
Between this and the final level is the person who has to train the people for their different levels of hell. You have to be familiar with all the levels of hell, be proficient in them and lead others into sin while making it look fun and easy.
The final and deepest levels of hell are the graduated levels of management. At these levels, you resemble a sump pump. You take in all the garbage from the job, such as: incompetent, attitude-riddled, tardy, illiterate employees with poor personal hygiene; machinery and equipment that does not cooperate for the pure pleasure of it and the unhappy, abrasive customers who would be shocked by their own behavior in any other circumstance and then somehow turn it into a valuable employment experience or enjoyable dining experience for someone.
Instead of mandatory enrollment in our military for our young people to be humanized, as they do in many European countries, I think mandatory employment in fast food would be an excellent opportunity to bring kids down a notch and make them more compassionate towards others that they think are below them. I know it did a lot for me when I was a teenager and if something worked to make me more human, it should work on anyone�even Al Gore.
