Burger King- just another word for nothing left to lose

“So, I see here that you have a college degree. Are you thinking management?” “No. 

  ...No...I just want to be part of the team.” 

“Well, we can start you off at $6 per hour…”

 “Sounds good…”

 “...We’ll see where it can move up to from there.”

 “Whatever’s fine… ...Do I get a uniform?”

 “No... I have some on order.”

She came back with a shirt one size too small that read “Have it Your Way” along with a “100% Whopper” pin she threw in for bad measure.

I punched the proverbial clock the next morning sporting my skin tight T-shirt and “100% Whopper” flare like nobody’s bidness.

 I wanted to flip burgers.

 For real. 

Same pay.

 But instead, they put me up on the front line as a cashier, facing the public and trying to finagle that crazy Texas Instruments Speak and Spell cash register of options. 

I’m just going to say this, once you press Mustard, you can’t press it a second time to undo it. You can call a manager or just grab a different Whopper and hope it’s “To Go.” 

At the start of my second week, the boss mentioned some flim flam about me training on drive thru. 

A teenage girl was assigned to be my mentor, and bless her heart, she was trying to be patient, but I can’t count out change for one customer while the next one is shouting numbers in my ear like:

TWO cheeseburgers, ONE WHOPPER, THREE fries.

 No. Give me ONE more cheeseburger,

 Make it THREE.

 Actually, just TWO fries, and can you make ONE of those a hamburger?

 "Did you want cheese on your Whopper? "

“No, Just give me TWO cheeseburgers.”

 “So FOUR cheeseburgers?”

 “No TWO.” “I mean total.” “Oh. All right. So what do you say you just give me THREE cheeseburgers…” 

I just ripped the headset off and told the timid high school sophomore that I didn’t think this was going to work out for me. 

Tears may have been involved. Mine.

She was confused, because the boss had told her to train me, and now she was clearly worried that she would get in trouble.

 “Oh. Just tell the boss you tried your best, but I kept messing up orders. Tell her I gave someone the wrong change.  (Very likely.)

The next thing I did was not actually quit...  I just asked the boss if she had made the schedule up for next week- which she hadn’t. 

“OK. Good. Can you please not put me on it? I might be moving to China to do mission work, so I’ve got lots of odds and ends to tie up next week.” 

And that’s true. I might have been moving to China, and if I was going to do that, it truly would require my full focus, not being side tracked with drive thru and paper crown folding. 

We kind of left things open ended, but I never did go back. 

They say you can never go back.

 Liberty.

 Freedom.

 Just another word for nothing left to lose. 

I can hear Janis Joplin singing it, walking off the job at Burger King.