Fire, 78, Busy....

Odd title? Yes, I know it is. Those three words played hugely important parts in my day today and I'm about to explain how. Lets see...where to start.

I went to school in the morning. I got a lot of homework but that is nothing out of the ordinary. I didn't really want to go to work after school but I had to because I started at 4. I was not looking forward to a long night of working. I arrived at work about 15 minutes early but I walked over thinking I would talk to my coworkers. I saw Juanis (my manager) standing in front of the store talking to Keit (who left at 4) and Hung (who left at 5).

When I walked up Juanis looked at me and said "Laurel I was so mad at you and Tom the other night". My mind began to race...what could we have done, "You almost burned down the entire food court" I was like WHAT! Juanis continued to explain that on Wednesday after I had cleaned the grill I had taken the rag and put it in the dirty rag bin...well...even though this is what I always do...and it has never happened before...apparently even though I could pick the rag up in my hands without thinking it was remotely hot...and even though it had been in there about 15 minutes before we left, and Juanis left after that...even through all of that in the middle of the night it began to smoke and something sparked and the bin was on fire I guess?

The Security guards called Juanis and she had to come in the middle of the night, probably with my bosses, to clean up the mess, Juanis got yelled at by my boss and they were all pretty mad. Juanis said that it had happened before to Adam, a guy that I used to work with.

I was stunned, I hate being yelled at and that is all this was, Juanis was yelling at me. I was so upset I was almost in tears. I was upset that I was being yelled at. I was upset that I had almost set the place in flames. I was upset that no one had ever told me that this could be a problem. I was upset that this happened even though it had never happened before. I felt terrible. I was so worried Mark (my boss) would yell at me. He wasn't in work today though, so I don't know if I will be yelled at anymore. So that's how I felt before I started working. (on top of that my coworkers teased me the whole night about being an Arsonist, the teasing kind of helped to lighten the situation but it made me feel bad still).

Then I started the actual working. The hours weren't long 4-9:30 with a 30 minute break, but i figured we would mostly just be sitting there because it is a Friday night. Every high school student should be at a football game. This was not the case, we were fairly busy. There were four of us working at 5 o'clock, we had a steady flow of customers. Jim was scheduled to leave at 7 but Juanis said that he could leave at 6 because he had somewhere he wanted to be. Shannon was in the bathroom when Jim left, before Jim left he told me that he had finished the work in the back (that is one of the requirements if you leave early). After Jim left we had just about non-stop customers until around 8:30. The night was insane.

This busy Friday night would have been completely terrible if it had not been for one wonderful man. Max Starks, number 78, Pittsburgh Steelers. Max Starks was at the mall with his girlfriend and they got in line for our store, we got pretty excited. Jesse was on register and he could barely speak! So we got to make an order for Max Starks. Jesse, Shannon, and I all got his autograph. I asked what they were doing out at the mall tonight and Max told me that they were doing community service hanging out with a group of mentally disabled kids for the whole day. They were at the mall for the rest of the night. Max came over later in the night to tell us that the food was wonderful. I was really happy to know what he was doing there because it is such a good cause.

Anyways, after Max we had even more customers, we were non-stop until 8:30. At this point Shannon went into the back to discover that Jim had not finished all of the dishes or the floor. So Shannon began that and I went to get change next door. When I got the change I told Juanis that we had been having a problem with the ice container, the melted ice wasn't draining. (Shannon and I had been sticking our hands into the freezing water in an attempt to unclog the drain using methods that had worked previous times we had had this problem, none of our antics worked). Juanis said she would bring over a tool to fix it. So I went back over and began to clean the grill, we got a few more orders as we tried to clean. Juanis came over and used the tool to fix the drainage problem.

After Juanis was done fixing the ice container she looked around and began to comment on all the things that weren't clean, at this time I was cleaning the grill (which requires lots of leaning over the hot surface and scrubbing), Shannon was in the back doing dishes and the floor, and Jesse was filling dressings in the back. So, Juanis was pointing out all this stuff that hadn't been cleaned and I was like Juanis you've seen it, we've been non-stop all night how do you expect us to have it all done. She kept pointing stuff out and I kept telling her we would get to it and we were doing our best and we were working non-stop what more could she ask from us. Each time I said something my voice got louder and stronger. I was so mad. We were working so hard and she comes over and complains. Finally I told her that she could go next door and when it is time to close she can come back and everything will be done. I was, of course, correct.

We worked our butts off...but we did finish all the work. I am now thoroughly exhausted from my crazy day...physically exhausted. My brain is still running, it isn't as though I could sleep or anything.

I think I mentioned every important detail in there...Fire...78...Busy.... Yes, I think that covers just about everything. This is where I'll end my rant for now, though I might write some more tonight. One can never be quite sure.


Loving Everyone Always Forever