Restaurant Days: Working the Grill at Wendy's

Another aspect of restaurants I have experienced is the fast-food restaurant. During the summer of 2004 unemployment was on the rise in Danville, and it was difficult finding a job anywhere. Wherever I went employers told me either they had no applications or weren't hiring. It was frustrating because there isn't alot of things to do in Danville. For most of that summer I spent most of my time trying to find ways to kill time until I returned to college. This mostly consisted of watching movies, lounging around, doing nothing and being bored. But when my dad was in a grocery store he saw an old acquaintance of ours, who I will call Tim. Tim and I used to play baseball together, and was now managing a Wendy's. My dad told Tim I was looking for a summer job and Tim told him to tell me to apply at his restaurant. He had a job for me if I wanted it.

A few days later I found myself working as a grill operator at Wendy's. It was not a job I relished. I had always hoped to avoid working in a fast-food restaurant because I don't support fast-food. I'm health conscious, and I had always maintained the only way I would ever work in a fast-food restaurant was if I needed the job, which was my situation at the time. Also, since I'm somebody who's attracted to things on the fringe of American culture I have always sought to avoid cliches, and a young person working in a fast-food restaurant is one of the most cliched images in America. It's so cliche it inspired someone to coin the term "McJob." But despite my objections flipping burgers in a fast-food restaurant was going to be my reality until I returned to school. I would indeed be joining the ranks of thousands of young people working a "McJob," and I didn't look forward to it.

Of course working fast-food was exactly how I expected it to be: fast paced and not a whole lot of fun. I had five duties as a grill operator: grill burgers, grill chicken, cooking potatoes, bringing the cooked potatoes up-front and bringing whatever people told me to get out of the fridge up-front. Since the purpose of fast-food is to serve ready-made food on demand I often had to do more than one thing at once, and this is the most aggravating aspect of working in a fast-food restaurant. Often when I was grilling somebody would demand I go in the back and get potatoes, or cook more potatoes, or get something out of the fridge. And I had to do all this as fast as possible so I could get back to what I was doing before. But this was often further complicated because once I finished some task--which I completed as fast as I could--somebody usually demanded for me to do something else, which further distracted me from my primary job; and the longer I stayed away from my post the more likely something was going to overcook. This--having to do more than one thing at once--creates alot of stress in a fast-food restaurant for everybody, and it is easy for people to get aggravated. One time when I was told to get something in the back one of my co-workers wondered where did the grill operator go with annoyance.

Another distasteful aspect was being a grill operator felt like being put through a fast-food boot camp. I suspect--although I don't know for certain--that the grill operator position is used as a way of testing first-time employees if they can handle the fast-paced nature and stress of a fast-food restaurant. This is because the grill operator is the most important job in fast-food culture. Most of the meals ordered at any fast-food restaurant will be burgers and chicken sandwiches, so a first-time employee needs to have some experience in this area. But since grilling food is the most important job at a fast-food restaurant it is the most challenging. As a grill operator you're taught to cook multiple burgers at once, and at any time you might have more than eight burgers on the grill. More than eight would seem like it would suffice customer demands at anytime, but this is erroneous thinking. During a busy time all those burgers on the grill won't be there for long; sometimes everything on the grill will disappear within five minutes. Sometimes people order double burgers and Wendy's also sold triple burgers. So if a person orders two triple burgers six burgers will disappear from the grill. And when anything disappears from the grill you have to replace it to keep up with customer demand. So if your not fast--or can't get fast--you will have a difficult time working the grill, and doing this for hours is exhausting, no matter how fast you are. The job also presented alot of mental challenges. All the raw burgers were soaked in blood, which meant getting my hands soaked in it. Every time I had to put my hands in blood I'd tell myself "It's just blood; it's not going to kill you." Also, soaking my hands in blood would remind me that what I was cooking something that was once alive and had been butchered for human consumption. At times this made the smell of cooking burgers and chicken seem nauseating. Also, cooking the remains of those animals required using grease, which presented another mental challenge. When I flipped a burger or flattened it with my spatula, the grease often splashed on me, burning me. I would stand there wondering what if that stuff got in my eyes? I imagined it would hurt alot, and maybe if it was hot enough I would suffer permanent eye damage.

I didn't stay for long at Wendy's. I stayed for about five or six weeks and then went back to college. Out of all the jobs I've had--and I have had alot of jobs--being a grill operator was the least enjoyable. I did appreciate what Tim did for me, but it doesn't surprise me that I didn't enjoy the job. It was filled with long, exhausting, boring hours and it was at odds with my personality. A friend once described me as being "sort of arty," and I have to agree with her. I've always found working at a record store, book store or theater appealing--things that have something to do with creativity. But working at a restaurant--any sort of restaurant--has little to do with creativity, unless you're a cook. And if there is anything I've learned from working in restaurants it's the sole purpose of any restaurant is to feed the public because sustenance is a basic human need, and for the most part that's all there is to restaurants.