Burgers and Fives

The cute little saying goes that good things come to those who wait. Well, there was a lot of waiting for food going on at Friendly's the past two days, and the results were pretty disgusting. Yes, I was on grill. And let's just say that cooking was not how I remembered it. I learned grill last year for a little while and hadn't cooked since then until last night.
Of course, last year we had competent cooks. In the spirit of self-expression, I was used to cooking with people who knew what they were doing, not getting stuck running wheel on my first day back on grill because there was no one else who would even try.
I should have many humorous stories to impart about the grill side of the restaurant, but I've tried too hard to block all the horrific details from my mind to remember anything remotely amusing. I cooked so many burgers today that I shall probably have nightmares about them. And there's nothing that will rain on your parade more than feeling like a soggy French fry drenched in grease.
There was one slightly entertaining moment last night, though, when one of the other cooks putting cups of clam chowder in the food window looked away from what she was doing and slowly dumped two full cups all over the heating area.
"Um, why did you do that?"
"I got distracted by a cute guy in the dining room!"
Oh well, who wouldn't rather stare at them anyway.
But besides disliking the ridiculous insanity, I missed being clean.
I looked at all the nice neat little servers in their spotless black aprons and cute little pastel polos, and here I was on grill saying, "How the heck did I get mac and cheese on my butt?"
It's a man-versus-food world back there.
There was a spot of cheer in my day today, though. Some woman was apparently so impressed with the speed at which she got her food that she imparted a five-dollar tip to each of the cooks.
It's not a million dollars, but hey, I'm just a dirty little cook and I'll take it.

Soup and Slogans

"Ice cream makes the meal!"
If I hear that phrase one more time, I will take a sledgehammer to the nearest ice cream freezer and see that it is permanently out of commission. I swear it on my mother's grave.
Good thing my mother is a hearty soul.
But really, every now and then at Friendly's you'll get a week that will just kick your butt. Sometimes it's just the customers. Sometimes it's because it's hard not to bring your personal life to work with you. And when the personal seems to be going down the tubes, it's easy to let work get pulled down with it. Then nothing goes right no matter how hard you try.
But other times when appliances break, cooks are slow, fountain is even slower, and you've got someone yelling "Ice cream makes the meal!" in your ear every 25 seconds, you begin to wonder.
Is it that I'm a sucky server? Or is it just Friendly's? I mean, where else would we wait to fix a freezer until the ice cream is soup, and then bring all the squishy ice cream cartons up front where we have to serve customers? It's a fool-proof plan. What could possibly go wrong?
Now there's a good question. Perhaps it should be the new slogan.
"Bye folks, come back and see us where what could possibly go wrong!"
Definitely an improvement.
Friendly's isn't a bad job. It's pretty fun and unpredictable and the coworkers are great. But it's weeks like that where I almost lose sight of my million-dollar dream.
Almost.