This sphere of a woman had been screaming at the employee now for six minutes and twenty-one seconds. She had kept count by looking at the clock directly ahead of her. It was a sick joke that they had designed the front station to face the clock. They reminded every employee of the minutes wasted standing and serving.
The man in line behind the sphere had kind eyes, and his daughter was too busy staring at the other children in line and the display for new toys to notice the screaming woman making a scene in the middle of the order area.
“I asked for extra pickles on both o’ these sandwiches and y’all gave me mustard instead! I demand pickles!”
“Mam’ I distinctly remember you asking for must-”
“How dare you talk back to me the customer is always right! I want to talk to your manager you little shit! Who taught you how to treat your elders?”
The man in line behind this crazed woman held his mouth shut, but the employee could see the defeat in his face. The sadness stemming from the dark reality that human beings like this existed in the world. The employee walked around back to the small managers office behind the grill line. The manager had his legs up and was on the phone. The office was small and cramped with shelves going all the way up to the ceiling.
“Yeah, baby, I swear I’m at work, I was gonna’ call you,” said the manager into a small rectangular device, rubbing his crotch after he had touched his well-trimmed, military-grade moustache.
“Hey, we got a lady complaining about-” but the employee was cut off.
“Yeah, yeah, hold on.” The manager kicked his legs off the desk and his chair swiveled to face the employee. “What do you want kid?”
“There’s a lady. Complaining about pickles.” The employee said without a sign of emotion beyond animosity.
“Take care of it, can’t you see I’m busy?” He kicked his legs back up. “Hey babe, I swear.”
The employee started the long walk back to the front counter. The constant sizzling of fries and burger patties emanated from the long line of machinery. The employee suffered minor grease burns from the incompetent fry cook on shift who always forgot to scrape off the grills after cooking a batch of patties. Negligent morons dotted this well-oiled machine.
The employee returned to the sphere. “Ma’am the manager is busy at the moment. I swear I can take care of any issue, but this one is not refundable.” The employee attempted to break eye contact with the sphere, with only marginal success. “Next in line please.”
The man with kind eyes took a step forward and the screaming woman lurched over the counter and grabbed the employee, barely scrapping onto her nametag, ripping it off her polo shirt. It didn’t have the greatest build quality in the first place. Nametag profit margins for the company were roughly .5% of the gross profit, nationally.
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“Now look you little shit,” the sphere screamed over the counter, her belly flaps molding to it, “ you go back and get your manager, and I’m gonna’ have you fired, or you can get me sum’ them burgers but with extra pickles this time. Do your god damn job!”
The employee looked down at her shirt. She knew she was going to have to buy a replacement polo, and it was possible that this woman would refuse to return her nametag. That would be another forty dollars mark up for her uniform costs, which at this point, were already presumably high due to all the makeup shifts she had to take over for the incompetent grill and prep staff. This had been her sixth double in a row. She had worked fourteen days straight. Her manager refused to give her any off time, and she was the only one able to fill in for the huge swaths of absences that had been happening lately. She was done. The sphere inhaled, preparing for another onslaught of southern charm.
“I swear I ordered two burgers with pickles, and don’t give me any of them thin pickles, I know you skimp on the pickles, I want extra!”
“Look here you fat sack of garbage,” the employee began, “You ordered two big ass burgers with mustard, two cups of water, which I have seen you, by the way, with my very own peepers, use for regular cola, and an extra-large French fry with no salt, causing us to have to make a new batch without salt, that you then put extra salt on, just so yours could be ‘fresh’. That was your order. It was totaled to $36.45. If you look here at this screen, you illiterate blob, it will show you that this was your order. I put it into the system, a few clickity clacks. The system even records our conversation! I remember struggling to listen to your fat lips move and groove. And you’ve now been here for nearly eight minutes of everyone’s time flapping your giblets about seeking attention your ex husband or abusive stepfather never gave you. Now sit down. Eat your fucking second burger like a big girl and go be a huge pain in the ass to someone else.”
The sound in the restaurant had fallen deftly silent with only the sound of children playing in the ball pit in the distance clattering about. The manager had appeared right as the employee spoke her last sentence.
“Ma’am, I dearly apologize about this. Here, let me get you a twenty-dollar gift card redeemable at all locations of Der Burger. Please.”
The woman hadn’t said a word, and the line didn’t move. The manager had printed out a receipt and grabbed a gift card from behind the table.
“Here you go ma’am, have a wonDERful day!” the manager turned to the employee. “Kid, you’re fired.”
The employee stared at the manager for a moment. Taking in the absolute absurdity of the situation in which she, the reasonable employee, was getting let go over a lying sack of pickles.
“Fuck off you gabber, you wouldn’t know flip-a-dip leadership if it punched you in your fat knocker.” The employee pulled her fist back and stopped. The manager flinched. She threw her hat on the table with a twirl and walked out.
“Y-yes, hello, Mr. Manager, can we get a number 2 and a kid’s meal?” said the man with the kind eyes.
The now ex-employee waltzed out the door, holding it open for the elderly couple coming in. “Have a wonDERful day you two!” she said with a smirk. The hot breeze pushed her matted greasy hair out of her face and made her self-aware of just how bathed in sweat she was. The gargantuan parking lot sprawled for hundreds of yards on all directions. She started her hike to the employee section across the hill. She took out her McPhone and shot a text to her roommate asking her if she was home and slipped the McPhone back into her back pocket.
She approached her 2003 Honda Accord. Its red paint was chipping all over and the roof, as well as the hood, were completely covered in rust. She manually unlocked the door and jumped in. The dash was cracked and the only thing that looked new was the stereo system panel, which was a sort of gawdy dark blue grey, covered in bumps and buttons and bright lights. She plugged her phone in and attempted to start the engine twice before it shot on the third time.
“What a time to be alive,” she said to herself, alone. So very alone.