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The Electric Grapevine | Ignorance is Grease | 06.22.2010

Nik Green
By Nik Green
June 23rd, 2010

The kids behind the counter at a fast food place are often the target of many folks’ ire as they make for easy pickings given the standards of their place of employment. We all know they are simply on cruise control awaiting their shifts’ end so they can go home and listen to awful music. I’ve avoided taking this cliched route for some time, but after a pair of frustrating transactions at the same donut shop I can’t help but vent via my unique channel.

Two visits a week apart to a donut shop–let’s call it Jim Morton’s for legal purposes–had me ready to laugh, cry, and hurl something at the stunningly inept staff that were given no help from their adult superiors. A pass through Hope last week had me standing at the counter only to hear repeated calls for more product which were each met with, “We’re out of that!” by some other 15 year old. My camera operator and I stood patiently for quite sometime before being given our breakfast combos.

To begin with, we were told that substitutes had to be made as they were clean out of eggs. So instead of getting an egg muffin-type deal, I ended up with three sausage patties glued together by three layers of cheese. Not the end of the world: I’ll just use my hash brown to soak up a little of the grease.

But no such luck as they’re out of those too! Instead, I’m given a random donut of their choice after explaining I shouldn’t be accepting this ever diminishing “combo”. Either way, no big deal until we reach the truck and my camera man’s also lacking a good 40% of his meal. The staff seem stunned that we would request goods after paying for them. Anyhow, “they’re just kids,” so back on the road.

A week later after telling my girlfriend just how inept the staff there were I decided to give them another chance as we were nearby. The exact same gals were on so I thought it was a perfect time to watch them on a good day. Not so much. Two breakfast combos turned into a random assortment of goods that I neither like nor want. My English muffin turned into a biscuit but I ate it anyways knowing that I had the donut to look forward to.

I ignored a young man declaring the country’s second largest coffee chain had run out of cream and simply dodged his news by having hot chocolate instead. I’m almost home free, I thought to myself. I slam down the totally wrong breakfast and bite into a Boston Cream donut. Great except for the fact I ordered a chocolate dip and hate cream filled desserts. My girlfriend reminded me that the auto pilot coma that occurs during fast food transaction can go both ways as I had started barking orders into a garbage can at a Starbucks drive through hours earlier before my first brew of the day.

A particularly concerning sight is that of the chains that keep the embarrassing “trainee” tag on their staff for far too long. One local eatery had a girl in training to the point where I’m fairly sure she could run a franchise on her own at the age of 15.

If you haven’t mastered the delivery of “Do you want fries with that?” after a number of months I’m afraid it’s time to quit the fast food industry and pursue easier vocations: perhaps management at BP is in your future. Either way you would be responsible for injecting our planet with grease and shortening lifespans the world over.

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