Writing Groovin with Chicken on Lazy Sunday Afternoons [PG-L]

[Brasil]

When you work at Boston Market, you find yourself sitting on your ass more than usual. Yeah, there?s a huge dinner rush that can last for two, maybe three hours, but that starts around six or so. If you?re unfortunate enough?or maybe lucky enough, depending on how you look at it?you have absolutely nothing to do in the early to late afternoon.

With no customers coming in, nothing needs to get restocked. The hotcase needs a stir every once in a while, and occasionally you?ll need to make sure the coldcase Jello?I?m sorry, Jumping Juice Squares?and chicken salad and such stay fresh. But other than that, you?re keeping the dining room chairs warm.

It?s even worse on a Sunday, because the old people usually come in at eleven in the morning, when the store opens. I could never understand why anyone would want Creamed Spinach or Meatloaf before noon?or really, any time in general. Plus, Boston Market doesn?t even serve breakfast. Why we open in the morning is beyond me. I guess Corporate just feels that even if only twenty people want chicken for Sunday breakfast, we need to be open for those twenty people. That really makes a lot of sense.

But there was this one Sunday in particular that was absolutely empty nearly the entire morning. We opened at eleven and only had a handful of customers. My coworkers and I sat at a table in the dining area for three hours with nothing to do.

David, my boss? 14-year-old son, who didn?t really work there and who wasn?t supposed to be working there, would occasionally survey the hotcase and bring something out. Matt would sit next to me and order his little brother around as much as he could. Their father?our boss?chilled in the office doing paperwork. He didn?t need to be present out front, because Matt was a certifiable Manager. He knew the protocols, he knew the codes. He knew how to run the store. He just didn?t have the title. Plus, Corporate didn?t exactly know.

So, David, Matt and I were all leaning back in the uncomfortable wooden chairs, nursing whatever kind of soda we could stand. When you work at Boston Market for the time we did, you start getting tired of the ?variety.? I had a mixed drink of orange soda and fruit punch Hi-C, David had a Diet Coke, and Matt was sipping fruit punch and root beer, which was a pretty ghastly combination now that I think about it. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and Boston Market Sundays were at the very bottom of the desperate times spectrum.

We were chatting about random crap, just trying to pass the time, when we heard this swoosh. We felt a brief gust of cold air and groaned. Matt and I glanced up. David turned around. I turned to Matt. He asked me whose turn it was.

?I?m not getting up,? I replied.

?Me neither.?

We both looked at David and said, ?Get up, Bitch.?

David told us we both sucked and got up to serve. We were making obscene gestures with our hands and faces as David tried to keep a straight face for the customer, but he would shoot us an evil glance every now and then. He moved to the register and rang up the meal, making sure to enter the Senior discount. The money was exchanged and David faked the goodbye smile.

David walked on back to us and sat down. ?You guys really suck. You?re serving the next two customers that come in.?

?Nah, we don?t think so,? we replied.

Matt and I weren?t bad employees?we were actually pretty stellar ones?but quite frankly, when it came to Boston Market Sundays, we just didn?t give a shit.

[Shy]

[size=1]How mundane... and not in a bad way... this just feels like something I'd write. It's very real, almost to the point where I feel like this is in the wrong forum. I could share a few work-related stories of my own right now, heh.

You pretty much nailed an employee's complete and utter disrespect for their customers in this one. Especially when you sell something like Meatloaf, it's difficult to respect the people who come in at 11am to purchase it. It also amuses me the politics of working at such an insignificant job. The fact that you can call someone at Boston Market your "bitch" is ridiculous, but very telling. This is exactly the kind of stuff I touched on in my "Ice Cream World" story, and I think there's a lot of untapped potential in telling these kinds of offbeat and suburban stories.

Well done, Alex.

-Shy[/size]

[Annie]

[color=#404142]And I wonder why the local Boston Markets are closing :whoops: <-doesn't get used.

Disrespecting customers, I can relate. Try working at a coffee shop in New York. It's sad to say that the people in Middletown are worse than the people in New York City. Though, I don't think I had a "bitch"; it would have been nice.

Wonderful depiction of employees fed up with their job.[/color]

[Manic Webb]

Ah, Sunday mornings at Boston Market. Apparently, it [i]doesn't[/i] get any more boring than that. I've always felt sorry for the employees at Boston Market, because I could never quite tell if they were open-- due to the lack of customers. You really captured what it's like to work at a job where you have absolutely nothing to do. It's boring. The irony is that once a customer finally does show up, no one wants to serve them.

[Mitch]

[quote]I guess Corporate just feels that even if only twenty people want chicken for Sunday breakfast, we need to be open for those twenty people. [/quote]

Who's "Corporate"? Is it the corporation? This sentence, and the other one where you used "Corporate," confused me as a reader. Either clarify it in the piece or just say "the corporation" if that's what you mean.

It was a nice story. Very mundane, but that made it interesting.

It isn't like that at the Steak Buffet for me. . .if I'm washing, I'm [i]constantly[/i] washing dishes, pushing them through. Doing something. Especially if it gets really busy, you don't have a second to relax. It gets tiring because it's so monotonous.

[Brasil]

[quote name='Mitch']Who's "Corporate"? Is it the corporation? This sentence, and the other one where you used "Corporate," confused me as a reader. Either clarify it in the piece or just say "the corporation" if that's what you mean.[/quote]
We called it Corporate. We didn't say "the corporation." We said "Corporate." It's not so confusing when you think about it.

Working at a place like Boston Market, where you only mean something in that store and that's it, you're not going to waste words talking about the executives and higher-ups that have no idea what's really effective on the front line and what's just a waste of everyone's time.

"The corporation" doesn't convey that blank, obscured, malicious power like "Corporate" does. Saying "the corporation" is giving the higher-ups more specificity than they really deserve. Trust me on this.

[Mitch]

[QUOTE=Siren]We called it Corporate. We didn't say "the corporation." We said "Corporate." It's not so confusing when you think about it.

Working at a place like Boston Market, where you only mean something in that store and that's it, you're not going to waste words talking about the executives and higher-ups that have no idea what's really effective on the front line and what's just a waste of everyone's time.

"The corporation" doesn't convey that blank, obscured, malicious power like "Corporate" does. Saying "the corporation" is giving the higher-ups more specificity than they really deserve. Trust me on this.[/QUOTE]

All right, I trust you. It's just confusing as a reader. Just pointing it out, sir. ;)

[James]

[color=#B0251E]I actually don't like either "the corporation" or "Corporate". "The Corporation" just doesn't sound right; it sounds somewhat simple and clumsy. But Corporate is admittedly just a little confusing, if only because of the way it appears in the sentence.

However, I'm going to be totally useless and offer no suggestion on how to improve that. Perhaps "Corporate" can still be used, but maybe the sentence itself can be modified to be a little clearer.[/color]

[Manic Webb]

What about saying "the corporate office" instead of "Corporate"? Or perhaps "Corporate Headquarters."

[future girl]

[size=1]When I worked at Homestead [a hotel] we called the corporate offices just "Corporate." I think they do that in most places, it's just implied and I as a reader had no difficulty understanding.

Anyway, this kind of pins the tail on the donkey on what it was like working at the hotel. I usually worked from 3 in the afternoon to 11 at night and it was so boring it depressed me. You basically have nothing to do from 5 to 11, but when someone does want you to do something for them it's annoying. I imagine it's much worse when you have to serve food, you go home smelling like meatloaf. Ick. So yes, it was a very good piece, not too extravagant which is good because it makes what the characters feeling hit home.[/size]