[Previous entry: "Could We Please Speak In The Present Tense?"] [Next entry: "Monday with Nathan"]
09/10/2004: "Big-Assed Weekend Edition (Have You Tried Our Delicious Apple Pies?)"
OK, so the other night I'm at the fringe Cabaret and one of the featured
acts was a woman who did a monologue about the year she spent in India
studying Hindi. Now, don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad piece - a little
underdeveloped, but not bad. I hated it, nonetheless.
I'm tired as Hell of having to hear the moderately talented offspring of
the privileged class spout off about the time they spent abroad. How, in
the name of Hubbard, am I supposed to relate to that? Instead of hearing
some pimply little trust fund larva drone on-and-on about the year he spent
in Paris documenting the history of bidets, I'd much rather hear about the
year someone spent working at McDonald's - like I did.
Now, if you've read my official biography (Published in 1996), you might
recall that I stated I spent the year after my High School graduation, and
before attending College, living in London and serving as the Lord of the
Exchequer. Well, that's not exactly true. I spent that year working
at McDonald's.
In case you haven't already guessed, McDonald's is a terrible place to work
(A friend of mine once theorized that working under the soul-crushing
conditions at McDonald's will, given enough time, turn anyone into a Marxist
revolutionary), but it was even a worse place to work back in 1981.
The recession and Reaganomics were both just beginning to kick in so, not
only were there the usual teenage wage-slaves like myself working behind
the counter, but we began to be joined by more and more people in their
40's and 50's who'd been laid off from their former jobs. There is nothing
sadder than seeing a 42 year old man, with a family to support, wearing a
button that reads "Trainee".
What was I doing there? Well, McDonald's was the only business in my
hometown that was hiring. Or, to be more precise, McDonald's was the only
business in my hometown that would hire me. You see, although I'd
managed to graduate form High School, I read on what I'd estimate to be a
fourth grade level and I had no math skills to speak of. My plan was to
send a year on a "self-improvement project" at the end of which, I'd be
ready to apply for College. Why didn't I attempt to learn everything that
I'd need to know for College while I was in High School? Well, during my
High School years, I tended to be more focused on survival than
academics.
In order to finance this year of self-improvement, I would need a job, and
the only place hiring unskilled labor was McDonald's. I don't know if this
is still true or not, but - at the time - you didn't even need to be able
to read to get a job at McDonald's. The manager who interviewed you would
fill out your application. So, the only real trick to landing a job there
was being able to sign your name, and even I could do that.
Once hired, I was handed a uniform and taken to the "Break room" to watch
a series of instructional films (These were in "film strip" format - still
pictures with voice-overs. This was pre-VHS, so the films were shown on a
special McDonald's monitor/film strip combo unit. For more information on
this device, please consult George Orwell's 1984) that were not
only completely asinine, but so completely insulted my intelligence that
I kept scanning the room for the four-year-old that the presentation was
obviously meant for. "What? I should wash my hands after taking a
dump? Wow, that never occurred to me. No wonder my entire family has
cholera."
After I viewed four or five of these instructional films, the manager
appeared and asked if I had any questions. "Yes," I said "would you
describe those works as Cinema Verite, or Film Noir?" And that's
how I got assigned to empty and clean the grease bins.
The term "instructional" is a bit misleading, because nothing touched upon
in these films was of any use to either me or my fellow inmates - ever. For
example, we were told that if there was a small child at the counter, we
should say to him or her "I'm sorry, Ronald isn't here today, but I'll
tell him that you came by." Maybe this is useful advice for the fast food
worker laboring behind the counter in a McDonald's located in an affluent,
gated community, but in an angry little steel town, this was an invitation
to disaster. I only witnessed someone attempt to use the "Ronald isn't here"
line on a child once. It was a young girl on her first day behind the
register. I little boy of about five or six years walked up to the counter,
pointed at a picture of a Big Mac and said "Gimme that" (This was standard
ordering procedure, along with "How much that?" for children in my
hometown.). After getting his order together the girl smiled down at the
youngster and beamed "I'm sorry, Ronald isn't here today, but I'll tell
him that you came by."
"What the fuck wrong wit you?" was the reply that greeted her youthful
enthusiasm. She quit less than 20 minutes later.
I have dozens of horrific tales like that one from my tenure beneath the
Golden Arches. But what I didn't have, at the time, was any perspective on
my situation. That was until my self-improvement program collided with a
prisoner in a Soviet gulag.
I'd been spending my weekends searching book stores for mental stimulation.
It was during that incredible year that I first read books like Catcher
in the Rye and Naked Lunch. One Saturday, while browsing the
bookshelves, I came across One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (Who was known to me, chiefly, from being
parodied in an SCTV sketch).
Now, I suspect that the lesson that a normal person would take away from
this reading this book is "Gee, my life sure does suck pterodactyl dick,
but at least I'm not in a Soviet gulag." Not being normal, what I gleaned
from it was that a situation might be bad, but that doesn't necessarily
mean it's permanent.
Ivan Denisovich, despite the drudgery and monotony that comprised his life,
know that someday he would be free, so he struggled to make the
best of his situation. The trick, it seemed, was never to lose hope. Do
that, and the clown in the red wig wins. Armed with this knew perspective,
I was able to show up at work on Monday with a smile on my face. I returned
to the fry vat and bided my time until I could make my escape.
