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).