#carhop problems

So, one of my coworkers, who henceforth I will refer to as Valley Girl because somehow she manages to look like a California Valley girl in this bumfuck town all the way across the country from Cali, and frankly I’m impressed.  Anyway, Valley Girl fell at work, and the doctors said she wasn’t allowed to work for the rest of the week. Because our GM is terrible, he didn’t schedule anyone to replace her, so tonight it was just me and Willow on one of our busiest nights of the week. 

Yesterday, Button and Willow, and even I, got a talking to from Dayshift for not stocking the night before(I guess they were relaying the message from the opener?). Apparently the caramel wasn’t stocked. Wow. Even though just one week earlier, this particular Dayshift worker had closed with me, and we chatted about the unfairness of how everything comes down to closing shift to deal with, and how opening(because she opens too) doesn’t take so much work that filling one syrup that nighttime forgot is the end of the world. 

So after our talking too, dayshift hightailed it out of there, and we turn around to find that the icecream machine is basically empty and there are only two waffle cones left in the container. Now, it is a big deal for Dayshift to leave crap for Nightshift, because Nightshift has so much fucking work to do already. It was the same deal today, and the same Dayshift.. No whipped cream was pulled for the front, ice cream machine was empty, and it was a fucking mess; that me and Willow got to clean up on our own. Oh yeah, and we were slammed. I don’t wanna hear that dayshift was too busy to stock or clean either, because from open to when they left at five, they did around 100 tickets. By the time we left tonight, it was in the 400′s.

As per usual for Sunday night, a horde of teenagers arrived to tear our patio apart, swamp us with work, tip us none, and be in the way. They arrived slowly, waited for all of their little friends to show up, and then all ordered simultaneously. But I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, until the last little shit. 

I could see him from where I was, his mouth was an inch from the menuboard, and he was bending down to do it. I could barely understand him because he was so loud it came through all garbled. I told him politely that he didn’t need to be so close for me to hear him, to which he shouted at the top of his lungs “ALRIGHT!”. Then he turned to his friend and said “She told me I didn’t have to be so close so I shouted alright at her.” What the literal fuck kid? So I replied; “Yes, I can hear you just fine” and told him his total. 

Last night I worked with two girls I helped train. They’re both younger than me, but one is taller and another is shorter. I love them both, though I feel more of a connection with the shorter one because I trained her more, and no one seemed to have any faith in her even though she was doing perfectly well. She stayed in training a little longer than some, but she handles herself perfectly well now. She’s truly my kohai. Anyway, I think of both of them as my little carhops, even though other people trained them too. 

It went pretty smoothly compared to what I expected. It’s half price shakes, neither of them have been here more than three months, and there was a game last night. We generally get slammed. We got moderately slammed, didn’t need to call anyone in, but we got a couple full screens. We were slow while the game was on and I convinced Willow to skate a bit, since she brought her skates last night. She was really worried about it but once she tried it she realized it was pretty easy. The only time anything went wrong was a couple times, hmm...lets call her Willow because she’s so tall and skinny, anyway she took the wrong tray a couple times. Then she got flustered and grabbed a purple drink, instead of a purple shake. The lady was really rude to her about it, and that shook her for the rest of the night. 

Then we realized hey...that purple drink should have gone out already. There wasn’t a scan up for it, and we couldn’t find a receipt for it. I suspect Willow scanned for it and took something else and never noticed. I know I never got the ticket for it, and Button(I’m gonna call her Button because she’s so darn cute and tiny) didn’t think she scanned for it and she’s very careful about reading her tickets. I took it to the people, who had been waiting a while, and just gave it to them because I didn’t know what else to do, and the manager was busy. In retrospect, I could have recalled the order and tried to get it to print a new ticket, but at this point my brain was scrambled because I had come in early and we were busy. 

Today was really looking to be a good day, I had just oiled my wheels and I was skating better than ever. 

Then I had the misfortune of answering the store phone...although I guess it's better that I didn't ask the new girl to answer it. 

Me: Sonic [city name]. Lady: *practically shouting* I just wanted to tell you how RUDE it is that you NEVER give me marinara with my cheese sticks! Me: *silently baffled*  Lady: I live all the way in [city a few miles away], and it is so disrespectful that I never get it. I even asked! Me: I'm sorry about that ma'am....would you like to speak to a manager? Lady: I just want to know, I mean, do you have to ask for it or something?! Me: Yes, you do have to request it, but if it says on your receipt that you've asked for marinara sauce then it should have been in the bag and that is on us, I'm sorry about that. Lady: Well I just wanted to tell you it was really rude! That's all. Me: Er...I'm sorry about that. Have a nice night?

Then I hung up and stood there in stunned silence for a minute. Maybe a half hour later, I have the misfortune of scanning for Ms. I Don't Understand How Cooking Works. I knew it was going to be bad when I skated up, and she was already glaring at me. 

Lady: *Glaring* Speaker: Welcome to Sonic, how can I help you? Lady: *Very angrily* I just wanted to make sure you hadn't forgotten about us.  Speaker: ??? Me: Hi, I have [her order] Lady: *snatches bag out of my hands* Let me tell you something, you need to learn to keep track of your orders, because that lady you just served pulled up and ordered after us, and I have a four year old in the back who hasn't eaten in hours. Every time you walked past us she got exciting thinking it was her fries. (She was practically shouting.) Me: I'm sorry ma'am, but the reason that lady got her order first is because she ordered something that is made very quickly, while you ordered chicken which takes a while to cook.  Lady: Well apparently ice cream doesn't take very long to cook either.

At this point I just kind of stared at her, processing, and she nearly ran over my foot backing up. I admit to muttering "No, because ice cream doesn't cook at all you crazy bitch" to myself as I walked inside. I'm not proud. I had to take a minute to myself not taking orders and just wiping stuff down because I was just shaking. 

There is nothing I hate more than being yelled at for things out of my control. I didn't bag Cheestick Lady's food, and I don't control how fast the chicken cooks.