6. The Pilgrimage

At the moment, I am sitting in one of my good friend's room and am using her laptop to write this. I am in Chickenland mecca right now. This large city in North Carolina is the hometown of Chickenland. This is where it started. When I found out that I'd be staying within driving distance of the original, I knew I had to go. Unfortunately, the original is nowhere to be found seeing as it was started in a rough part of town. Our glorious founder had the philosophy that as long as the location of a restaurant was good, the food would sell regardless of quality. However, if the quality of the food was good, then it would sell no matter the location and he set out to prove this by putting his first Chickenland in the worst location possible. And it's grown to be the smashing success of a restaurant I now call my work home. This post won't be too long. Just a little photo tour of this corporate Chickenland we visited.

"Welcome to Chickenland!!!" Mario taking orders. He didn't want his picture taken. Oh well...

Surprisingly, the menu boar is the same except for this 5 for $5 thing they have. 

So much chicken!!! And it was only 10:00!

I walked in beaming. Ordered my food beaming. Talked up the crew beaming. Ate my food beaming. Left beam- well you probably know. The entire visit was awesome. These fellow slaves of minimum wage members of the Chickenland family were the nicest people I have ever seen inside one of these prisons stores! I got a 2-pc Wht dinner with pintos and mac n cheese. SO GOOD. Heaps and bounds better than any food I've had at my own Chickenland. Even the biscuit was super delicious and I hardly ever eat the biscuit. And the tea... I was able to get a picture with some of these amazing people.

Caitlin, Torria, Alice, Lacey

Caitlin, Torria, Lacey (being a boss), Alice

Caitlin, Amanda, Torria, Alice, Lacey

More pics can be found elsewhere on the internets if you look for them. All in all it's been a fantastic trip and I won't forget the deliciousness of this food. This is a different kind of Chickenland. They may be in the same boat as this writer, but they don't show it at all. This is not fast food. This is family.

5. Thanks For Choosing Chickenland! May I Take Your Order Please?!

"The Customer is always right."

You may have noticed that I've been capitalizing 'Customer' in my past posts. This isn't because Customer is the name of my best friend; quite the opposite. I do this because Customer is the only way I can describe this group of people hell-bent on making an already miserable job a suicide watch. Every customer is the same in their 'uniqueness', but after seeing a couple of thousand faces and hearing the same questions/comments time and again, that customer just becomes Customer. Part of the collective sea of humanity that feels the need to rain on my sunny day at Chickenland and get away Scott free! Customer can be nice and Customer can be mean and Customer can be downright nasty. On a normal day, Customer gets his food and leaves. However, THIS IS CHICKENLAND. Need I say more?

Of course I do! Seeing as not much is normal here at Chickenland, neither are the days. On a 'normal' day, Customer is stupid. That's right, stupid. Just dumb. This is an exchange between one of our managers, Chief, and drive-thru Customer:

Customer: I want X.
Chief: So you want X, can I get you anything else today?
Customer: No, that's all. Oh, can I get that to go please?
Chief: Are you sure you don't want to eat that here?

Good job Chief. That's the perfect way to handle stupid Customer: with sarcasm. They're so dim, that they'll think you're being polite.

Top 5 most annoying questions from Stupid Customer.

1. Do you guys sell... chicken fingers? (There's a picture on the board.)
2. Do you serve breakfast at this hour? (There's a sign saying BREAKFAST SERVED ALL DAY. In all caps.)
3. Do you sell just plain biscuits? (Uh no, we have to cut them in half and add love to them. 'Chickenland: Famous Chicken and Biscuits. It's written on everything. Really.)
4. Um... I want.... Uh... (Please don't waste my time.)
5. What comes on a chicken biscuit? (Well let's see... chicken and... wow I should know this one.)

Shawn and I have discovered a way to fight the monotony by playing games with Customer such as the 'meow game' and saying 'pull up to the second window please' (there's only one drive-thru window.Now if there's anyone that hates Customer as much as me, it's Shawn. Shawn wrote the book on Customer service. "We're servers, not servants!" Shawn is the cashier who will say nothing as Customer approaches the counter and will just stare at them, hard, until they're ready to order or just run away in terror. He is the most unhelpful and intimidating cashier I've ever met because he truly hates Customer. Even nice Customer. Nice Customer gives you a tip even though we're not allowed to accept them. Nice Customer doesn't just take their food and get, they stay for a minute and ask how you're day is. But Nice Customer doesn't come around to often. Instead, Mean Customer can't get enough chicken.

It's been a while since I had the misfortune of serving Mean Customer, but I ran into her two nights ago. Customer orders our family meal  using a coupon. I knew she was Dick Customer by the way she ordered:
"I want X, all-white meat, I have a coupon for Y dollars and I already know there's going to be an upcharge on in it, it's fine."
She says this very quickly and drives around before I can total it up. It comes to some reasonably priced sum and I even found a way to make it cheaper than the normal way of totaling it up. She pulls up and hands me her money, too little. When I tell her the price, she looks at me funny and insists I got it wrong. Not really sure how you can mess up three button clicks, but I humored Customer and looked it over again. I called Chief over and she found that the normal way of totaling it would have added X more dollars to the price. I was beaming. I informed Customer that I had actually made it cheaper than it should have been. Customer is not beaming and hands me the coupon.
Now my first clue should have been the Santa Claus hat on the Chickenland logo. Seeing as I'd been there for 4 years and have yet to see this, EVER, I immediately assumed it was from a Chickenland in a different franchise and I proceed to tell Customer that we cannot accept this coupon and she'll have to pay the actual price. I try to console her by saying that the meal is on sale now and that we couldn't take the coupon anyways.

Shit got real.


Customer never likes to hear "can't", "won't", "don't", or any other negative contraction. It's like kryptonite because at that moment they are forced to realize that they never had any power in the situation. Customer is just a passing guest in our home and they would do well to remember that. In this situation, Customer forgot. She gets a look in her eye that I know all too well: Customer Rage. It's a dangerous situation for the both of us because Customer might yell at me and hurt my feelings and I might flip my shit and jump through the window to teach her some respect. It's always uncertain and very tense. I call Chief over one more time and show her the coupon. She tells Customer what I'd already said about the sister Chickenland and then notices that the coupon would give a discount of around 80 % and is actually three years old! Chief says, "I'm sorry ma'am, we can't (there's that negative again) take this coupon. My boss would kill me if we did, but I will copy it and send it off to the district supervisor so they'll be able to investigate this further." And she walks to the office to do just that.
It's just me and Raging Customer now. Since, I'm in the crosshairs now, she tries to plead her case to me like I could actually do something. I tell her that I just push the buttons and take money and I have no affect on the prices and apologize. She 'says' she understands that and that she isn't mad at me and asks again how much it will be.
Me: It's still X dollars.
Customer: Well this is all I have.
(Look, I'm not going to barter here. That is not my job.)
Me: I'm sorry, but it's still X dollars.
Customer: Are you serious?! I come here every week and use the same coupon and get it for a lower price every time!
(Hold it, I've worked just about everyday this summer and have never seen you're lying self in this window. And just how many 3-year old coupons do you have you weirdo?)
Me: Ma'am I'm sorry, but I-
Customer: You know what? I'll pay it, but you've just lost a customer over this.
And more money suddenly appears! She made a big show of searching her bank envelope too for 3 extra dollars and ends up giving me another 20.

Lost a customer? OH GOD NO!!! The store is going to run into the ground and I'll lose my job because ONE Customer decided to never eat here again. Excuse me for a moment...



Well I couldn't find any pills to swallow and slitting my wrists is just too painful a way to die to me so I guess I'll have to live with this forever. Even though Customer said she wasn't mad at me, she proceeds to snatch away the food hanging in my hands and tells me:

YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!!!1!!111!1!!1! and drives off.

Hold up bitch. You don't yell at me for being a mature adult and NOT spitting in your food (or worse) and then say I don't know how to treat people. Do you have a friggin Ph.D in Hospitality because I know I have at least a 20-year degree because my parents raised knew how to teach me manners. And I just so happen to LOVE serving people. Ugh! The nerve. This was two days ago and I'm getting mad again lol. It's time to end this, but it's far from over. Customer will appear over and over in this blog in all of its incarnations from Nice and Sweet to Stupid and Unreasonable. And on behalf of everyone in the Customer service business, this is for all those unsavory types that try extra hard to make our lives at work hell:

Thank you Customer! Have a nice day!

4. Deep Fried Romance

Before I begin, I'd like to pay respects to a Chickenland employee that has just punched in their last shift. Motormouth, Amanda (not her real name actually), Pretty... she had many weird nicknames names that were forced upon her by the powers that rule Chickenland. I don't know why she was given the opportunity to be successful somewhere else, but she'll be sorely missed by us at Chickenland. Probably just me and Shawn. Not many people cared for her. Shawn thinks the reason is that she may not have been 'good enough'. Is that even possible in this kind of work? I mean, really???

Now to the post. I don't know if it's all the grease particles suspended in the air or if it's the heat from the fryers grills and ovens in a 30'x30' room. Maybe it's all the old people that come and spend there hours in the lobby like there really is nothing better they could do with the rest of their shortening lives, but for some reason, what a man would see as attractive in public is a little skewed when he's working at Chickenland. I've seen men and women alike turn their noses up at the Customer that just walked out of a Hollister catalog and go crazy for the cranky, smelly, ick coworker.

The Parable of The Cowboy and The Horribly Disfigured Obese Bull (True story):

A young man we shall call 'Cowboy' and a female humanoid (because I wouldn't call her young, or a woman, or human for that matter) called 'Dodeca' fell "in love". Aaaaaw love in fast food. That's so sweet! you might think, but let me paint a mental image for you: a rodeo clown and a very fat retired bull with only two legs to support itself with. Dodeca had an ass that could swallow the g-strings of the world and still be hungry for more. I liked to call her T. Rex because if you spoke to her, she would bite your head off. That and she walked like a dinosaur. One leg at a time...
Anyways, Cowboy had had beautiful girlfriends in the past, I know, and he could definitely find another one too. But he had eyes for that big thing that none of us couldn't help but look at. Every shift with her involved the raping of my eyes; a very traumatic period in my time with Chickenland. Dodeca had also had some boyfriends in her past and even children believe it or not. Not sure how they managed to not be crushed by all the fat surround their little fetuses. Not sure how I'm going to make it through this story without ripping on Dodeca every other sentence either. hmm...
Cowboy fell for the monstrosity and the Chickenland world was abuzz with the juicy gossip. Why? What is he thinking? Why? How would that even work? Every day I worked with Cowboy, I heard one horror story after the next: She was surprisingly jealous (if any man would lower his drowning standards to be with you, then you don't have the right), very opinionated, and apparently being with her makes you sick. That's right, the day after he sealed the deal, Cowboy had to call in sick. WARNING SIGNS Well her jealousy got so out of control that the wicked witch Dodeca put Cowboy on a three strikes rule and he had already used like 5:

1. Got caught texting his ex.
2. Didn't get into a fight over her honor.
3. Got caught texting his ex again.
4. Called out sick after, well...
5. Got caught texting. Just texting. She's way controlling.

So they broke up! Well she broke up with him, but we'll never forget the moral of the story: Don't sleep with monsters. Am I right? Also, workplace romances are a BAD idea.

1. It's just weird.
2. We don't want to get dragged into your arguments.
3. What are you going to do when you break up?
4. What are you going to do if you get married?
5. What are you going to do if she comes to you with 'news'?

If you're thinking about that oddly pretty girl at work who flirts with you, then stop. Don't act on it. This is called sexual tension and there are far safer ways to relieve it besides disrupting your workplace or making things awkward between the two of you. Just remember the difference between hot-hot and work-hot. If you find your self attracted to the new meth head teen that just got hired, then stop and think, she's just work-hot. Not actually hot. Another thing, people look a lot different outside of their work uniforms. It's amazing what a t-shirt, plain colored slacks, and a baseball cap can hide, good and bad.

That's it. Here's a list of other workplace romances that inevitably failed and were successful at interfering with my life at Chickenland whether I wanted to get involved or not.

1. Turtle and Katiebug
2. Turtle and Nicky
3. Hamster and MasterBateman (say it fast and dirty lol)
4. Shawn and Ginger*
5. Shawn and Miracle*
6. Shawn and Dreamgirl*
7. Hamster and Scotty
8. Scotty and that Nott girl
9. Shawn and every other girl at Chickenland*

*In his dreams hahahahahahahahahaha

3. "X" Enough

Here's something business that you may not know. Businesses want to make as much profit as possible. Paychecks cut into profits. Businesses don't like to pay employees.

IF YA GOT TIME TA LEAN, YA TIME GOT TIME TA CLEAN!!!1!!1!!!!!11111!
STAY BUSY GUYS!!!!!11!1!!!!


These are a few of the motivational phrases used at Chickenland. The driving idea behind this behavior is the fact that they say we are paid for our time, so if we're not working while at work, then we are stealing money from Chickenland in the form of 'time'. Some managers freak out and proceed to go into seizure whenever they spot a crew standing by the drive thru talking. Lookouts are often posted, but we always slip up and get caught. The posting of a cleaning list for the shift is a tool used often by every manager.

The list was posted and the crew slowly took

Shy little steps, each scared to look.

What task would await them?

What's the punishment? 

For whom?

One by one, they all passed by and each surveyed his fate:

Wash the parking lot.

Change the billboard.

And get it done by 8.

It's 6:45.

GAAAAAH!

 The pain!

Why is my job so tough?

But that hallowed phrase comes to mind and you say

Clean enough.

Is this pan worth scraping?

Nah.

Clean enough.

Is cleaning this dumpster area worth the effort?

I think not.

Clean enough.

No matter how mind numbing the task,

How pointless the stuff,

Just do your best at it

(Or not)

And say

Clean enough.

"Clean enough." Shawn and I thought that up last week. The phrase. Not the idea. Us and everyone else new about this unspoken rule in the fast food business. If it looks clean, then it probably is clean. Management wants to eliminate the possibility that 'it' is in fact, clean always. So whenever there's a pot with burned beans cake to the bottom of, scrub what you can (or will) and leave it for the next shift. This phrase can also be applied to other parts of Chickenland. Say a customer is unnecessarily pissed that their whole chicken will take 10 more minutes to cook and once the chicken is done, you realize that you forgot to ask the cooks for fries (1 more minute). You spot the fries that had been petrifying in the fry bin since you walked in 4 hours ago and glance at the annoyingly pissed off customer and see them looking the other way. Fresh enough. It's a judgement call.

There are some who abuse the 'clean enough' act. Those who leave bits of food in mostly clean pans. People who place a greasy dish in the sanitize water and ruin all of the clean dishes stuck in there. Here's an exchange between me and Dodeca.

Me: Uh this pan isn't clean.

Dodeca: I "worshed" it.

Me: Okaaaay, but it's not clean.

Dodeca: Uh ya, but I "worshed" it.

Me: Dodeca! I'm not saying you didn't wash it, I'm saying It's not clean!

Common sense is not so common.

I'm not sure if I've covered everything about "'X' enough", but I have some pretty good CDs I'd like to rock out to. And I just got home from work so I'm pretty tired too. Meh, it's good enough.

2. That Was Then, This Is Now or PROCEDURE

Procedure is a strange creature, it changes every time a new manager comes to Chickenland. When I started, procedure only encompassed big ticket food prep, i.e. chicken and biscuits. But as the months turned to years and managers and employees came and went, I watched procedure grow to swallow up cleaning, smoke breaks, ALL food, and customer service. Even the way the money is lined up in the register has some touch of procedure. "Tumble-tumble, dust-dust, dip-dip, shake-shake, tumble-tumble, dust-dust." That is the procedure for dropping chicken. The idea of breading chicken is to cover the chicken in flour and put it into hot oil. But at Chickenland, it is of the utmost importance that the chicken is held in the correct position, dropped into the flour bone side down, and dusted off by tapping the tops of your wrists together. Tapping the bottom of your wrists or tapping the chicken itself together is NOT PROCEDURE and is therefore the wrong way to do it. "But I learned how to fry chicken a different way." Unlearn it. "But so-and-so taught me to do biscuits this way." Doesn't matter.

For the employees of Chickenland, procedure is: the most inefficient and time-consuming way to finish a task. All for the sake of uniformity in taste. You WILL press the biscuit dough 6 times before using one of the two rolling pins. No more, no less. You WILL only use the mop with the red handle for the frontline and only for the frontline. The oil in the vats WILL be filtered for EXACTLY 15 minutes. You better not finish your job in under an hour or somebody's going to get written up. Oh procedure, why you no make sense?!

Procedure can be gotten around though. It all depends on who the manager is, if the manager is watching you, if you're on camera, or if it really doesn't make sense to do it by procedure. The Customer wants an item that we don't have at the time and will take about 10 minutes in the oven to cook. No worries, we'll just throw it in the fryer for 4 minutes. Customer gets food, cashier doesn't have to stress, everyone's happy. If no one's watching you, you can get away with just about anything. Procedure says that we can't use a hose to rinse off the floors. So? Alright, enough about procedure (the little monster).

1. The Crew

I was ready to join the rest of the drones and dish out fried food to the masses. I had my khaki hat, khaki slacks, slip-proof shoes, and a burgundy shirt with the most ridiculous saying on the back: "Gottawannaneedagettahava". I know. I think it's humorous that I still remember this. I arrived to work on July 9, 2007 at 2:00pm to begin my training. I was to be trained as a cook. Oh cool! I get to learn how to become a chef! WRONG. I got to learn how to clean stainless steel! By procedure mind you. I'll talk about 'procedure' later on. The guy training me was Chris. I never got his last name since he was fired a month later. But as the title of this post says, I will be listing the cast for the docutramedy or tragedomedy or life that is Chickenland. I'll save the nicknames for another chapter. There is SO MUCH I need to write about this place! 

This is the 'character list'. No need to read it all (it's leeeeengthy), but note the number of *'s there are. High turnover rate in fast food and I know for a fact that I missed about 16-20 *'s when I was not working there this past school year.

Actually, before I attempt to name all of employees I've worked with and their fates, my father warned me about the potential lawsuits that could ensue if I used real names. This is good because it allows me to introduce you to people's nicknames. Nicknames are a BIG deal at Chickenland. But you'll hear all about that. The 'cast'...

* Fired

** Left

*** Quit

**** Transferred

Owner: Don

District Supervisor: Mother

Über Manager: Papaw, Gobbler

Unit Directors

Julicious, Hamster ****

Diva

Managers

Sarge *

Mama Shirl ***

Mama  ***

Cockeye (Left?)

Cockeye’s Brother *

Jerry **

Kathy **

Red (Transferred, Fired-embezzlement. Juicy :3)

Doroo-wthy ****

Dino ***

Cupcake, Bug

Punkin ****

Sunshine

Openers (Wake up at ungodly hours to prep the store for business)

Juicy

Becky

Katiebug (Quit/Fired?)

Jamma (Jammer) *

Crew

Me!

J. Jones

Brittnadia

Cowboy

Lil’ Satan *

Amber (Skipped town)

Turtle *

Shawn Tapley!!!!

Melodious

Rhino

‘Miracle (Walked Out)

Ghee Off *

Barney

Tee Tee

Bella

Forrest Gump

T-Burger, Gobbler

Pretty, Amanda (Yes, it is a nickname)

Loud Mouth

Dreamgirl

Marnarina (Think marinara sauce)

Corey*

I think I got everyone I worked with. This does not include all the people that were hired/fired in the 9 months I was at school in Memphis and a host of other humans who have left whose names I can't remember, but their antics will always remain with me. Like that creepily perky cashier who told me fried chicken was invented by the Westward bound settlers as a way to preserve their chicken. She snapped and got in a fight with an Aryan biscuit maker we called 'The Amazon' in front of all of the customers. They were both fired.

Introduction: Getting the Job

This blog is called This Is Fast Food. As if the title didn't explain that well enough. I got the name for the blog not from Blood Diamond, but from my year in Kenya in 10th grade. My American friend would always say "TIA" whenever something I didn't understand happen. Things like the packed 12-seat van that started driving down the sidewalk, or seeing the prisoners go to work from our bus stop. Every morning. They started waving at us. But I digress haha. "TIA" stands for "This is Africa". Things like vans and prisoners don't happen in my small town or even in cities in America. Only in Africa. Hence the name of my blog.

I'll be writing about all of the crazy stuff that goes down at my job which I will refer to as 'Chickenland' for the sake of playing it safe with my employment. Famous for their chicken and biscuits. Stuff that happens here doesn't happen in normal restaurants. Don't think I've seen it on TV either. I first started working there as soon as my family got back from Kenya. Like the week we moved into town. We moved in Saturday. I filled out the application Monday morning. I returned to correct the phone number Monday afternoon. I got the interview as soon as I was leaving to go back home. I started working Thursday. That's how I get it done hahaha.

Woohoo! My first job! I did not know what on earth I was getting myself into.