Look...at....my....hat....carefully.

Upon recently starting a fast-food job here in the little town where I live, I assumed that people would know, since there are only two or three fast-food restaurants in said town, what store they were in.

Oh well....

A lady walks into the store, and comes up the register.

All is well. I know how to do this.

"What can I get for you this morning?" my mouth asks. (this has become involuntary...)

The lady hands me two coupons.

The lady looks at me expectantly

At this point, the top of my head flips open and spreads my brains liberally on the ceiling like a blender with the top open. Not really. But that's what it felt like. You see, I've been working there two days, and know virtually nothing about how things go, except what I've managed to cram in my head in the 6 hours that I've now worked there.

I catch all the falling brains I can and stuff them back in where they belong, and resolve to just do my best.

"Ah-ha!" I think. "there's a little button on the register that says ' coupon' on it! Eureka!!"

I glance down at the coupons that the lady handed me.

"Wait...." my left brain says to what's left of my frontal cortex, "I don't remember anything on the menu called a 'whopper.' I don't remember that at all...."

I stutter in body language, and the lady picks up on it. Pointing at the coupons, she explains that they are "buy one, get one free" coupons, and what each of them is for, and what she wants to do with them.

For the first time, I look carefully at the coupons.

I give an audible sigh of relief, followed by a suppressed outburst of hysterical laughter, barely kept under control as I say, "Ma'am, if you look carefully right here," and I point to the appropriate spot on the coupon, "These are for Burger King."

The lady looks up at me again.

I add, "I'm sorry, but we don't accept Burger King coupons here."

Slightly embarrassed, the lady then makes her order, without using either of the words "Whopper" or "coupon."

Thankfully.

Thanks for the hilarium ad infinitum, Ms. Customer, but next time, look at my hat. It was there all the time.

:-)

And so what we have learned applies to our lives today... II

Musings upon a first day of work:

1:
While an employer might require you to be clean-shaven, using a new razor (in order to get a nice, close shave) is not always advisable. Use an old one. You may not look like you walked out of a Gillette commercial, but then again, you won't look like you had an incident with a poorly trained executioner accompanied by a blunt axe on the way to work either.

2:
When you first look at your schedule, do away with all your preconceived notions of a calendar. From personal experience, don't expect the third column on a work schedule to be "Tuesday." It might actually be Thursday, you never know.

3:
Always verbally double-check the days that you work with your manager. Don't assume that you follwed #2.

These will hopefullly save you from the fate of walking into your workplace and having your manager say "Umm...you might want to come back the day after tomorrow...."

I'll probably laugh about this...eventually...