Life: The Version of Record

I had a pretty bad meltdown this morning over having to leave my son. He was being extra-snuggly and clingy, and when he started crying so did I.

My job has been really stressful lately. And by lately I mean for months. I didn’t know what to expect starting out new after being in the same place for 17 years, so when things seemed difficult in the beginning, I figured it was just me adjusting. But I’m not adjusting very well. To make a long story short and vague, I am in a situation where it is exacerbating my OCD, and that in turn exacerbates the situation. I’m taking steps to get help, but it seems like a lot of the steps involve appointments which takes more time, and time is the currency where I always come up short. Continue reading “Life: The Version of Record” →

Fast Food: The Team

At all the restaurants where I worked, most of the time we really did function like a team. Sometimes it was a team of miscreants if we didn’t get along with management or had to deal with difficult customers, but still…when it came to moving customers through the line and filling orders, everyone did their part.

Aside from the shared goal of “Get the customer in, fed, and back out the door,” there was an unspoken agreement I quickly picked up from my restaurant peers. In a nutshell, it was “Do your job, don’t interfere with anyone else’s job, and MYOB.”

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Fast Food

I just went through eight hours of management training (which wasn’t so bad, surprisingly), and some of the activities required me to go tripping down memory lane to jobs I’ve had in the past.

All through my undergraduate years, I worked in fast food. I probably shouldn’t name the names of the places for fear of being sued, but one of them was THE fast food place, then there was one of the big-time pizza places, and finally there was one of the big-time ice cream places.

While some of my coworkers were high school or college students, some were career fast foodies. There are some really interesting characters in fast food. Some of the managers were awesome, and some were asshats. It’s about like anywhere else I guess, but then again, in some ways it’s not.

The customers are one way it’s not. While working in an office gets boring sometimes, I will say I am thankful for one major feature of office work: The door. Anyone, and I do mean anyone, can walk into a fast food place.

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