You haven’t seen the nasty side of human nature until you’ve worked a job dealing with hungry people who do not give a fuck about who you are. The little social niceties that stop people from succumbing to their momentary anger and verbally abusing their mate’s girlfriend who’s taken their seat in the library, for example, don’t exist in the world of fast food service. Workers in this industry have the ugly, toxic side of customer’s personalities spewed over them on a daily basis. It wasn’t until I stuck myself behind a counter, put on an ill fitting cap and a name tag that read “Hi! My name is…. Nice to meet you!” that I realised how nasty people can be.
Until about a two years ago I had never felt the need to find myself a part-time job. I had been getting enough money from my parents and never bought anything too extravagent so that my parents might suspect I’d been spending their cash on things that weren’t textbooks, thermals and fresh vegetables. That changed in mid-2014 when I can only assume Mum got CC-ed in an email from Dawn in Human Resources with a link to a Buzzfeed article titled ’17 Suprising Reasons Why Cutting Your Children Off Financially Will Improve Their Lives’. My parents stopped giving me money, which coincided with the exact time I decided to develop a four-packs-a-week smoking habit. In order to fund my healthy and also cool new hobby I decided the time was ripe to find myself a job.
After a few weeks of thrusting my meagre CV into unimpressed bar managers’ faces (my ‘hospo experience’ consisted of a one-time gig carrying around a plate of mini-sausage rolls at Mum’s friend’s 55th birthday bash), I somehow managed to wrangle a job at one of Dunedin’s most popular fast food chain restaurants. I worked there for five months.
The physical aspect of the job was tolerable. Making the same meal over and over again wasn’t exactly stimulating work and the pay was measly considering how hard I worked. The managers boasted no talents other than watching me do their jobs on the office security cameras and shouting “if you’ve got time to lean, you’ve got time to clean!” if I spent a minute of downtime doing anything that wasn’t wiping a surface.
It wasn’t a dream job by any stretch, but whinging too much about the meniality of an entry-level service role is hugely patronising coming from somebody in my priviledged postion. I was earning pocket money. If I got fired nothing that bad would happen. My parents would help me out if I really needed it. Thousands of people work twice the amount of shifts at similar jobs in order to feed and clothe their children, so I can’t really moan about unclogging a few toilets.
Rather, it was the interpersonal nature of the job that I’m going to moan about. Well, not moan; more illustrate how dealing with the general public on a 20-hours-a-week basis altered how I engage with and perceive every new person I meet. Hanging with friends, family and flatmates is one thing. They have an interest in being nice to me and tolerating my flaws and idiosyncraicies. I don’t think anybody can understand the noxious underbelly of human nature until you’ve worked in a job where the people you’re made to serve couldn’t care less whether or not their momentary whims totally ruin your day.
The job required, as about 17 signs on every surface reminded me on a daily basis, ‘NO JEWELRY, NO PIERCINGS, NO HAIR TO BE SHOWING’. This was annoying because I’m not all that cute without my shiny distractions. Wearing the uniform stripped away any sense personal identity from my outward appearance. It was shocking how much looking conspicuously like a fast-food worker changed the way people spoke to and acted around me. When placing their order, customers would talk slow and emphasise key words, like they were teaching their half-deaf grandma how to switch on her first cell-phone. They’d talk loudly about stuff right in front of me in a way that showed they either didn’t care about me hearing, or they thought their conversation would go over my dumb little head. From customers’ sexual frustrations to their bowel irregularities, I overheard it all. Customers weren’t seeing me through the expensively dressed and groomed lens I usually benefit from, and the resulting switch in their behaviour was very obvious.
One reason people give for showing at least some respect towards servers is avoiding the awkwardness of running into the McDonald’s worker they screamed at for over salting their fries at university. “Don’t be so snappy with the staff”, I’ve heard a daughter whisper to her lizard of a mother. “Everyone has part-time jobs now; you don’t know who’s son could be serving you!” When friends proudly let me know that the reason they didn’t lose the plot when they were overcharged by twenty cents is because they “don’t judge a book by its cover”, it’s a little like being proud of the fact you’d date a disabled person. The implication is that they see their choice as heroic and worthy of praise, not something that any normal, well-adjusted person would do without hesitation. They are basically only being respectful because they want to avoid an embarrassing future run-in, not because they possess a decent level of respect for all people, regardless of their life choices.
Don’t get me wrong; I wasn’t expecting each and every customer I served to be as friendly as I was being paid to be. They could have just lost a family member, or run over a cat, or have anxiety issues, or whatever. People didn’t have smile, or say thank you or even make eye contact; all the respect I could hope for was that if there was a delay or a mishap, that they’d calmly – even begrudgingly - accept that their food was a couple of extra minutes away and to their credit, most people were.
However, there were a small but significant slice of customers who would take great delight in treating me like trash given half the chance. The thing is, when you’re an employee at a food outlet, ninety nine percent of the stuff that goes wrong is not your fault. Out of tomatoes? No more Red Bull in the Fridge? Unsurprisingly me and my $14.75 an hour salary are not even deemed senior enough to know where the key for the staff toilet is hidden, let alone be given the responsibilty of determining tomato supply.
This memo failed to reach a swarth of Dunedin’s population, who took great pleasure in letting me know in no uncertain terms what they thought of me and my perceived ambivalence to their misfortune. Apparently nothing short of falling to my knees, sobbing, and begging for forgiveness when a customer’s cheese-of-choice has run out will do. The statement “I know it’s not your fault, but…” is almost always followed by something that implies the fault for the culinary injustice they were facing indeed lay squarely on my shoulders.
This treatment didn’t even come close to the times when it was actually me who screwed up. I’d squirt the full fat mayo of their meal when they’d specifically requested ‘lite’, or return them 20 cents less change than they were owed. Annoying mistakes sure, but by the reactions I’d sometimes receive you’d think I’d whipped out my cock and dragged it along the length of the sandwich bar. The fast-food worker standing in front of them becomes the receptical for all the untreated-sewage of their misreable lives. “Finally!”, they thought to themselves, “a chance to let off all that steam!” Being sworn and cursed at is one thing, but being talked down by a stranger, like they’re teaching you a lesson for your bad behaviour is the most patronising and frustrating thing, especially when the verbal-tirade spews from the mouth of a person who grew-up in an era where univeristy was free and they’d never had to resort to working a low-paid service job. What the hell made them think they had the right?
Worst of all, the occasional person was awful for no reason at all. One asked me if I could have another staff member prepare his food. When I asked why, he said “no offense mate, but I don’t want you poofta hands touching anything my family are eating”. How the hell am I meant to respond to that? It could’ve been worse though. Even though people could tell I was gay (and my hands have indeed been in some very un-family-friendly places), at least I ticked all the other Aryan boxes. On busy Friday and Saturday nights when the boozed up men started to stumble in, my female and non-white co-workers were treated far worse than I ever was.
Given the high standard I was held to, it was remarkable the low-standards of intelligence customers displayed. I had this conversation at least once a week.
Customer: I’m doing the paleo diet so I can’t let gluten enter my body, ok?
Me: Sure.
Customer: Yeah so that lettuce you just used, can you double-check that it’s actually gluten-free?
People surely couldn’t be this stupid when it came to their day-to-day lives; I saw them park a car outside and that required at least some brain-activity. No, it was more like stepping through the doors of a fast-food joint gave them a sort of momentary-lobotomy where they didn’t feel the usual rules of the world applied. It was a place where it wasn’t at all embarrassing to mispronounce the word “caesar” (seriously though, the amount of times I got it as “kaiser” aka the leader of WWI Germany), or to and sit down after I’d calmly explained they needed to stand by the counter and pick the filling themselves. “It’s like subway!” I’d yell across at them, and they’d still just nod and smile at me, docile and unmoving. I learned to treat each new customer with an equal level of disrespect for their intellectual capabilities. I picked up this monotonous tone that sounded like Microsoft Sam, that Windows 98 program you’d type naughty words into for the thrill of hearing a computerised voice say ‘blow job’. After a few weeks I’d nailed this spiel so even the most determined customer who’d decided to change their mind mid-order and claim I’d misheard them couldn’t wriggle around my water-tight ordering system.
However, for every stupid, exhausting, or mean customer, there were lots who were really nice. Many people exuded warmth and understanding, and made it clear they respected and valued the small food-making (well more assembling) role I was playing in their lives. When I messed up a customer’s order, often they’d go to great pains to stress that they didn’t mind, that I could take my time, and that I was doing a great job; it’s like they were horrified about the idea that something they had done had made me stress out.
What does this contrast say about humanity? That some customers were so understanding while others were just about ready to bite off my head off if I placed a toe (or a unwanted condiment) out of line. I think that once people reach a certain degree of seperation from an undesirable position, it’s easier and more comfortable to stereotype people occupying that position into oblivion rather than engage with them on a person-to-person basis. Older, wealthier people were much more awful to me than their younger counterparts. It had been long since they’d been in a position similar to that of myself or my co-workers; perhaps they’d never found themselves in such a place. Our live’s were so at odds that it’s not surprising they’d be unable to comprehend that I saw any reason to exist on this earth other than to make their breakfast. It’s little wonder why they were so awful; they didn’t see me as the same class of human as they were.
This is what inequality does; it drives a massive wedge between swarths of the population so that the old and upwardly mobile, who are more often those with political power, become completely clueless about what drives the average person, who luck out big-time because the decisions being made on their behalf are drafted by people who wouldn’t flinch over spending $400 on a bottle of merlot. I think exposure to at-the-time unacceptable facets of society is what leads to understanding and acceptance. Just like those who’ve never met an openly gay person are more likely to be big old homophobes, people who’ve lost any connection with those hanging off the lower rungs of society might not be inclined to care about their welfare.
I quit this job after 5 months without a promotion, payrise, or even a compliment from the management; “you look less sunburnt than last week” was, I think, the kindest thing the owner ever said to be. However, I don’t think it was a waste of time. I didn’t learn the value of hard work as mum had hoped. In fact, I think I developed a severe allergy to elbow-grease standing behind that counter. I spent most of the money I earned on long-ago stepped-on sunglasses and tickets to a music festival I don’t remember being at. However, what I can tell mum is that maybe I discovered the reason why bad things happen out there in the world. From wars and genocide, down to the small injustices that plague every society, everything can be neatly explained by the fact most people are, at their core, rotten from selfishness. Whether they’re invading a neighbouring country or angrily demanding a refund for a sandwich they finished eating without complaint ten minutes ago, if people can see a way to further their own self interest at another’s expense without making themselves look bad, they will almost always do it.