The Great American Letdown

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Kotsios

New member
Remember a while back when I was trying to get a job at that big ass theme park in my hometown? I won't link the thread(even I'm not that narcissistic) but to make a long story less tl;dr, I got it.

They stuck me in Food Services, of course. The one position I hate above all others. I've been shuffled around literally every job one can take in Foods, and yesterday, I got to help cook in the employee cafeteria. I met with my supervisor, this big tan salt and pepper-headed porn baron-looking motherfucker, and the first thing he says to me is "You know how to fry food?"

He DID NOT just fucking say that.

I spent the next seven or so hours shlepping deep-fried goods, cleaning shit, tripping all over myself on the deviously slick linoleum, and making pizza.

I made A LOT of fucking pizza. I'd say somewhere in the neighborhood of 20.

My supervising skin industry dropout asked for five pizzas at once right after lunch hour. While retrieving one from the oven, I somehow managed to drop the tray, the temperature of which had reached near-thermonuclear levels, on my forearm. Somebody apparently thought it a good idea to mop right in front of said oven just before I had to use it. Thanks, asshole.

I didn't eat lunch yesterday. After finally witnessing firsthand the methods by which food is mass-prepared, my childhood delusions of "what I don't know won't hurt me" have at last been shattered. I sincerely doubt I will ever eat at another fast food joint for as long as I live. The last shreds of hope I had for this country have dissolved in a haze of boiling grease. We are all going to die; bulbous mounds of lard, chasing Viagra with Slimfast and Coke smoothies, degenerating in the bluish glow of Fox News on the tube.

Yes. Seeing french fries floating in a deep-fat fryer has broken my spirit. What that says about my character, I don't know. The big bad Real World has delivered a roundhouse kick to my psyche, fellow WTFers. I have a sudden urge to write a letter to Santa, to grab my fleeing youth by it's undescended testicles and hold on for dear life. I want Superman pajamas. I got a business suit. I want my mommy. I got the American dollar.

But most of all, I never want to see another french fry again.
 
Shit man, did you put something on your arm? Coming out of one of those ovens I wouldn't be surprised if you got near-second degree burns.
 
Dude! How in the hell could you not know that french fries float around like that?!?

I mean, McDonalds has had that shit in plain view of the consumer my entire life. And after learning that cereals, oatmeals, canned foods, Hostess products, and other goodies are allowed a certain amount of insect parts in them... I decided, "Well if I've been eating this crap for the last 20 years, I still can today." Don't sweat it, it's just a oil fried potato stick. :D
 
Hey it comes with the territory. But don't give me that shit about it taking a way your childhood. I work in a fucking laundry room at a hotel. I'd sell my childhood twice just to get my soul back. So just to let you know if you ever need your spirit lifted, just visit your nearest hotel and know your life and your job is so much better that theirs.
 
I actually know how you feel, I worked at a bakery on the shipping side. Where I had to get to work at 3-4am, start "frying" the donuts, that where about 200 and you got 10-20 into the fryer, then sugar and jello them.

I had carriages(sp??) around me that just had come out of ovens of 200C.
I do not want to eat another bun in my life, it was 40C inside and it smelled sweet 8hours straight, I always had to shower, gross smell and feeling.

So I understand the conditions :happysad:
it's hell but youll get through you get the money :hug2:
 
You learned something. That's good! Too bad about your shitty job though.

I too worked in the food industry. It's pretty disgusting when you finally get to see firsthand what people will put in their bodies. More importantly, the shit that you have been consuming most of your life!

Now I rarely eat processed food and I'm pretty conscious about where I dine out. Most of the time when I go grocery shopping, the items go mainly in the fridge.
 
Food industry does suck man, I can tell you that. I've been working at a local Panera bread and it's no fun having to clean up rotten shit all fucking day. It gets old really quick.

The best thing to do to keep yourself calm during that whole lunch-rush thing (which fucking sucks, btw) is to relax before work. If you start working at say, 5pm, get up that morning no later than 11am and just spend the day relaxing. That way, you will only start to get stressed out after the dinner rush (or if you're working earlier, the lunch rush).

The only thing that keeps me in that field of work is the fact that I get paid better than minimum wage and that I want to buy an nVidia 8800 GTX. Once I accomplish that goal I'm fucking quitting.
 
It's not just FAST food it's ALL restaurants. I've worked in 2 restaurants and a fast food joint, and after all the sick shit I've seen I still eat out. Unless you grow your own food you never can know exactly what you're eating.

I know how it feels to be burned; I had a fry basket fresh from the fryer land on my arm 3 years ago. Just a few months ago a new girl flung a basket out of the fryer and a huge drop of grease landed on my hand. 375 degree grease. That sucked worse than the basket.
 
Believe it or not, a good fry cook can find a job anywhere in the world. It's a vastly under-rated skill, involving much more than just skillful french fry flipping.

I'm not sure about other countries, but here in the US, almost every kid starts out either working in a fast food place, movie theater, or cleaning something. I think there was something in the Declaration of Independence that requires us to begin humble.

There are some things it's just better not to know - like the nutritional value of See's candy, or what actually happens when we send our food back to be prepared the way we asked, or where those stains on the hotel rug came from.

It's a shame about your lost innocence. In an act of rebelliousness, you could get yourself a couple pairs of underoos, or prominanantly hang your super-hero cape on the coat rack at work. Ooo - or maybe display a few action figures above the fryer and place bets to see which one jumps in first?
 
Yikes, yeah... I'll never work in the food industry again, EVER.

When I was in Munich(I've told this in another thread, I believe), I worked in a traditional bavarian restaurant http://www.munich-info.de/restaurants/pfaelzer-weinstube/welcome_en.html


This means: sauerkraut(the real stuff), weinerschnitzel, rollbraten, bratwurst... all of the nasty shit that smells horrible when it's being cooked. I was the dishwasher. I hated this job probably more than any I've ever had. I didn't speak fluent German(not even close). The only one that spoke decent English was the dude from Yugoslavia.

The floors were always slick and greasy. I came home smelling like sauerkraut and bratwurst. Disgusting.

Once, the dishwasher broke. The servers yelled at me in German, the head chef yelled at me(quite the formidable type)in German, there was soapy water all over the ground. I slipped and fell, started crying. It fucking SUCKED.

I broke at least 6 dishes a day. :thumbsdn:

Fuck the food industry. Get out!
 
I love you.

No, really. That is the best idea ever, bar fucking none. The park I work in is owned by AOL Time Warner, and they have the rights to several pop culture icons like the Looney Tunes and superheroes like The Flash and Batman. The Characters department actually has people dressed up and walking around the park in superhero and cartoon character outfits. I could score a Superman costume with nearly no effort.

Come on, if the Man Of Steel can leap over tall buildings in a single bound and all that shit, just think of how many pizzas he can make in 10 minutes!
 
Heh, I've worked at several pizza joints, they've all been fairly clean as far as I can tell. I'd either at all of them again with the exception of Pizza Hut...

I think it depends more on how concerned the managers are about keeping a clean workplace. I know my Pizza Hut had roaches in the back, but the store was mostly clean. My Papa John's was super clean, but I know one of the other stores in my town had rats in the walk-in freezer...

I work at a pretty upscale joint now, GREAT food. But I'd ike to point out I've never worked at any real fast food place, I'm sure that's a little different.


Just depends.

But when it comes down to it, I've watched that dude on Man Vs Wild drink water by squeezing it out of elephant poop, put a piss covered towel around his head to stay cool,eat raw meat off the shoulder of a zebra carcass, and eat a raw egg from a bird in the desert...

I think we are far too pampered these days. It's great to have high standards and all, but dont think for a second that it's absolutely necessary. We could survive eating insects and slugs if we had to.
 
I know where you're coming from. I happen to work at a fucking Arctic Circle, which i guess is similar to a Tasty Freeze, or Dairy Queen.

It's a clean place, and I surely eat there, however, the one thing i find irritating about my job is the level of intelligence displayed by the average consumer. I mean, how many times do i have to tell you sir? There are no fucking onions on the burger you want to shove in your fat face, so stop asking me to leave them off. Furthermore, i would really appreciate it if you would tell me you had some fucking coupons before i rang you up. I know, I know, it's a stretch to read that sign with letters so big you could read it from fucking space.

Another thing i noticed, is that the person who always fucking bitches is that 230 pound woman, with 6 fucking kids in the 1981 Honda. No matter what, i fuck something up with that cow. I love how she informed me that i'm "a useless, stupid, little bastard who will never amount to much." I quickly retorted with Ma'am, I have a 156 IQ, And I'm joining the Navy in either the field of Nuclear Engineering, or Advanced Counter-Intelligence. I assume you're like, what, a paralegal or some shit?."

Yes it got me written up, and sent home, but i don't care. She was being a bitch because there was "no mustard on my hamburger," when it doesn't come with mustard traditionally. It's like jesus christ, how am i supposed to know what you want lady? Do i have "Savant" written on my forehead?


I really hate my job.

None the less things do get better; it's always helped me to know in my heart of hearts, that i'm smarter than the majority of our consumers. You should keep that in mind Brack.
 
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