My great-grandmother bought me a 1970 Chevelle Malibu that was owned by a little old lady who had a minor fender bender and wanted $100 for the car. I promptly fell in love with that white gas guzzler -- it was a great first car!
There was a Burger King in Westchester about five blocks from my high school -- so I sallied forth early one summer morning to the emporium and asked for an application. The manager, Afzal, was very, very nice during the interview and immediately hired me at a bit above minimum wage. Since this was 1 of 3 research and development BKs (BK was headquartered in Miami), anything new came to this store for trials. I was hired as 'The Hostess'. A new concept to improve the dining experience. Oh My Goddess!
Originally, Afzal envisioned me in a long evening dress swanning about the dining area and catering to the demands of the patrons. But no, instead the uniform was the butt-ugly red and yellow polyster pant suit and a poufy hat. With white shoes. And these were high-water pants as yep, not many 5'10" femmes were employed with BK. Sigh.
I was (and am still) quite shy so I dreaded my first day interacting with the BK customers. Ewwwwwww! I was outfitted with a little wicker basket filled with BK crowns (to place on the heads of the kids), whatever new toy was out that week (piccolos and bouncy balls are all I remember), condiments, sugar, stirrers, blah, blah. I had to go to each table and ensure the customer's meal was 'their way', clean up after they left, and just hostessed for 4.5 hours a day. One free meal a day so I invented the triple whopper before it became a recent menu item ;)
My high school was just one of four nearby schools and the lunch rush was un-fricking-real. One of the high schools was a Catholic boys school and I became a favorite of the shot-put team (I have no idea why). They even bought me t-shirts (one said 'bite-sized Mounds' and I can't remember the other). No, I didn't date any of them but I did become very good friends with two of the boys. I was R's 'fiance' during his school's mandatory marriage counseling class! Funny!!
The hostess program didn't seem to pan out so I was thus moved inside the kitchen to begin learning every station. First -- learning the flame broiler. Simply place the frozen whopper and burger patties on the conveyer, wait for them to move thru the grill, then place the cooked patties in a large warming bin. There was a broiler station on the whopper side and one on the cheese side. Wasn't difficult but I did hate counting the broken or gnarled meat remnants at the end of the shift to estimate how many patties were lost. Bleah. Covered in grease by the time my shift ended, I couldn't wait to get home to shower! Second -- running to/fm the huge walk-in freezers to man-handle the 50lb boxes of frozen meat to the broiler area. I did slide on a bun rack once and landed on my arse. No damage other than my pride!
I quickly mastered the broil, moved to drinks (piece of cake), fry station (more grease and some burns), then assembly (whopper side first then cheese side). I had a grease pencil with which I would keep track of the called-in orders since we all know everyone has to 'have it your way'. The counter peeps would call their orders over a microphone, either the whopper or the cheese side would assemble whatever was required and then shoot it down the chute for pick-up. We'd also keep a steady supply of 'regular' whoppers, burgers, frys, etc to maintain. The cheese side was responsible for the speciality items and thus, was the last of the kitchen crew stations to master.
 |
| Ugliest uniform EVER! |
We changed uniforms in late 1977 to a dark brown pantsuit with striking orange and red stripes down the side. And a much better hat than that poufy red and yellow monstosity. Still with the white shoes. Ugh. At least these pants seemed longer! I was sent to the front to learn dispensing and picking up drive-through orders but refused to call any order in over the scary microphone. Until the day my coworker had laryngitis so I HAD to. The kitchen staff applauded when I finally stammered out my very first order. It got much better after the first time, of course. I liked working the cash registers as counting out change was easy due to years of being a gas monkey ;) Plus, I met some amazingly nice people, loved the BK crew, and truly enjoyed working there. Did I tell you that we also shot two commercials at my BK?? No lines for the regular crew as we were just background -- even funnier was the BK Corporation dudes bringing us McDonald's breakfast before the shoot!!
As I mentioned, this store was a research and development and the new stuff would come to us to gauge the public reaction. The chicken sandwich? We had it first! Steak sandwich with onion rings on top? Yep, we had that. Fried shrimp? No, you don't remember that?? I guess it didn't make the cut! We also started the ice cream sundae (part of the drinks station -- right up there with covered in grease is also covered in strawberry toppings or exploded milkshake -- yuck). I was chosen with a few other of Miami's finest BK hostesses to the grand opening of a store up in ORLANDO! The BK corporation drove us up there to man three or four outside sundae stations -- OMG. It was cold (I think this was November 1977) and eventually sticky (due to the sundae toppings and exploding soft serve ice cream).
The other big thing in 1977 was the release of Star Wars. It certainly wasn't called 'Episode IV' back then -- it was simply the most magnificent, astonishing, cool as hell movie EVER! I went to see it every day with my Catholic school friends for about two weeks. We could recite all the movielines, imitate Chewie's growl, imitate the Tie fighters screech, oh yeah, we were geeks before we knew what geeks were! My best girlfriend and I named ourselves C3Leigh-O (that was me) and R2B2 (that was her). She chose Luke but I hankered after Han. Win, win!! R2B2 was also renting the third bedroom at the same house so we were roomies as well as besties going to the same school! Her place of employment was K-Mart across the street from my BK. 
During the summer, BK was giving away Star Wars glasses (collect all 4!), posters, and probably something else that I cannot remember. I had every Star Wars offering safely stashed at home and wish I still had them -- sigh.
I loved my little (fake) gold 'one year' BK pin. Wish I still had that as well -- sigh.
About half-way through my senior year, I was promoted to 'production manager' which meant I could wear black pants with a white shirt -- and black shoes!! NO HAT!!!! I was so excited! It wasn't only a pay raise but some cool additional responsiblities as well! One of which was 'opening' which meant getting to the store at 8AM on a SUNDAY to prep for opening at 10AM. Bags of lettuce placed in trays and refrigerated. Boxes of tomatoes and onions sliced, saran-wrapped, and refrigerated. Drink dispensers filled. Broiler started. Fry station filled. Gallons of pickles placed in their holders, saran-wrapped, and refrigerated. Lots more that I can't (or won't!) recall but suffice to say, it was exhausting but fun! My partner, a blonde-haired dude, would play raucous music on the radio to keep us entertained during prep. We'd also microwave a small cup of chocolate shake for a hot chocolate treat during the mild Miami winter -- hee! Oh wow, I found a wiki page that says the only recorded snow flurries in Miami occured January 19, 1977!! I REMEMBER that!! I was in my junior year at high school and we all ran to the windows to see this white stuff falling from the sky. One recorded snow event
Afzal left to manage another store, a new manager came in (nice guy) for awhile and then -- the worst boss ever. Okay, not really, just the worst BK boss I ever had. I contracted conjunctivitis and didn't come into work for several days 'cos who wants an employee with icky stuff oozing out of their eyes?? So this jerk FIRED me. I think it had more to do with my rebuffing his approaches rather than my minor illness. I promptly went to work for my former manager at another BK. But that was starting out at rock bottom -- no vaunted production manager status.
No comments:
Post a Comment