Jobs I’ve Had – Burger King Serf
15-May-09
Only days after my 15th birthday, I did something stupid. I don’t remember just what stupid thing I did, but I remember the consequences. I did the stupid thing and Dad decided that it was time for me to get a job. He didn’t care what job it was, just that I got one. And soon.
As it happened, a girl I’d “dated” early in junior high was employed at the local Burger King. You can’t really call it dating if you’re counting on parents and youth ministers for rides. This is one of many reasons why she and I weren’t dating anymore — with or without quotation marks. But she was still mostly friendly, so I asked her if Burger King was hiring. Sure, she said. I just needed to come by and fill out an application. So I did.
I was hired on the spot. I’m positive that it was my charm that won the manager over. That and my pulse. Before the week was out, I was issued a uniform and sent to Redbank for three nights in a row for an experience known as BKU. And yes, the “U” in BKU does stand for “University.” No lie. Three nights of watching videos in the back room of a larger than usual Burger King.
The uniform. Suits and business casual aside, I’ve only had to wear two uniforms in my entire work life. And the first of these two was the worse, by far. Imagine the least breathable polyester ever extruded. Now shape that into an ill-fitting polo shirt in maroon with coordinating pants of the same material. To seal the deal, top off the outfit with the cruel choice of a visor or a mesh-backed trucker hat. The uniform was positively impenetrable as far as any comforting breeze was concerned, and yet it managed to pick up a variety of food smells from any six to eight hour stint in the Burger King kitchen. So did the hat. The miasma of burger, fry, fish sandwich, milkshake and Pepsi combined to form a scent that bore a distinct resemblance to melted plastic. Plastic that had been dipped in grease. And broiled.
Grease really was the word at that place, if you’ll forgive me. It got everywhere and it went with you when you went home. On your skin, in your hair, on your clothes, in your car.
Turns out that a kid from my neighborhood worked at the same Burger King. Michael. A few days after I started working there, I noticed that his Lakeview High class ring looked like no other. The stone was black and had a white streak down the middle. “How’d that happen?,” I asked him. “Fry vat,” he answered.
Turns out, he’d watched the ring slip off his finger and sink right into the bubbling torment of the molten fry vat. Luckily, he didn’t follow his immediate instinct to plunge his hand to retrieve it. Instead, on his next break, he told his manager — now my manager — what had happened. She said that he was welcome to drain the vat that evening after closing, just to see what he could find. The ring, for what its worth, was little the worse for wear. All but the stone, of course, because it used to be blue. An aquamarine, supposedly. Like my class ring. Which I left at home from that lesson on.
My assignment after graduating BKU, suiting up and arriving good-and-early for my first shift? I was given the task of feeding the broiler. Or rather, The Broiler. Respect is due. The BK Broiler — the contraption, not the latter day marketing gimmick-sandwich — is a giant metal box that measures about a meter across, a meter wide and stands on four sturdy legs with a semi-permanent fume vent that is mostly attached to the ceiling. When you drive by a Burger King and catch a whiff, this is what you are smelling. Beneath the box is a rolling deep freeze with a sliding lid. It rolls so that one can push it mostly out of the way under the broiler. Filling the rolling deep freeze are patties of two sizes. You have your frozen normal burgers and then your frozen Whopper burgers. Ever see a Whopper burger before it becomes the primary component in one of the highest calorie sandwiches ever invented? The frozen patty is almost the size of a 45rpm record. Or rather, they were when I was a fresh BKU graduate. So the broiler feeder stands behind the broiler — the “In” side — plucking patties from the deep freeze and placing them on the metal conveyor grill that never stops conveying. With a rather solid clang, the patties start their relatively brief journey through the box. This journey will take them over a small sea of yellow flames, just long enough to send a one-side grilled burger out the … well, I guess the “Out” side, as it were.
One of the most important lessons I recall from BKU was to always place the burger on the bun with the broiler stripes facing upward. It’s true.
How long was I at Burger King? Maybe five or six months. Our manager left to take on a marginally better job at the local Pizza Hut, so several of us followed suit. I suppose we figured that waiting tables had to be better than breaking down shake machines and scraping salty grease-skin off the fry bin.
And it was. Sort of. But that’s another job. For another post.
This post was inspired by Rusty Tanton’s on-going “Jobs I’ve Had” series, a trend also followed by Garrett “They Call Him Big Papa” Vonk. (Oh, hai! Sara is on board as well!)
