And sometimes the morons try to kill you

I used to work in the fast food industry. I didn't particularly enjoy it but I really enjoyed annoying my mother. "Dana, you're so talented, so smart, so funny, why do you waste your time in these dead end jobs?" Would someone explain to me why I would take offense at her telling me I'm smart? I would usually end up saying something stupid like "I enjoy working with people. I'm a people person."

Ha. Try working 10 years in fast food/retail and see how much you like people after that. 10 Christmas seasons in the Mall. I really have to say, I hate people. And yet, you might wonder, why would I choose to work in a call center? Am I just insane? Well, the nice thing about my job is that when someone is screaming at me, they can't see me. I can stick my tongue out at them, I can hit the mute button, I can roll my eyes. And I don't really hate people, I just hate people when they shop. You want to torture me, drag me to the Mall during the Christmas season. Yuck. You want to be my best friend? Bring me to a library.

Anyway, I digress. So I worked fast food for this little taco joint before we were bought out by a big taco joint. And, since we were a big taco joint, we had to hire a lot of new employees. Suddenly, I, the assistant manager, was now the evening assistant manager, which was quite the shock for me. Suddenly, I was placed in control of people I would never ever have hired, not in a million years.

There were the Owie Sisters. Can't remember their names but they were 15 (this was 1986 and it was legal for them to work, they just couldn't do certain things) and pretty much all they were allowed to do was wash dishes. And every day I'd ask them to wash dishes, I would get this litany of complaints.

The water was too hot.
The water was too cold.
The detergent was too harsh.
They had just done their nails.
They had paper cuts and the bleach water would hurt.

Pretty much all they would do was flirt with the older and dangerous guys working there. One of them fell for a nice stable guy, the other one fell for the bad boy (Who I knew personally and would continually hiss "Jail bait" at him whenever he would come over to my apartment. And he would grin that bad boy smile. He was hot. A moron. But hot. I saw him about 4 years ago. He looks the same. Damn him).

Then there was The Putz. Complete idiot. I had two employees that did frying. Taco shells, taco salad shells, etc. One employee, Mr. Perfect, who was perfect in every way (and who I would have married in a heart beat except for the small barrier in the way of our perfect romance, the fact that he wasn't attracted to women) could finish all the frying in two hours. An entire day's work in two hours which was way above standard but he was perfect, after all. The Putz took two hours to fry a pan of taco shells. And half of them were broken.

I hated The Putz. So you can imagine my shock and horror when my roommate, Anya, comes over to the store, sees The Putz and falls madly in love with him. It was 1986, the hair bands were in full force and The Putz would walk around after work with the hair band rocker style wig on. And a mesh shirt. With his pasty white belly and man boobs hanging out of it. Shudder (At least when I fell for Mr. Perfect, he had the decency to be a snazzy dresser and attractive and in good shape and intelligent and witty and funny. And we had the same taste in men). I remember when Anya first told me she was interested in The Putz. I think my exact words were "Oh, God, no. Anya, it takes him two hours to fry taco shells. Two hours!" Which, now that I think of it, really wasn't that convincing of an argument.

But even The Putz wasn't the worst employee, not the biggest moron working at the big taco joint. No, that would be the really sweet, nice kid who just didn't have a clue. Clueless Boy would stare at you when you gave him instructions. He would watch your lips move. And then when you would ask him to repeat something back to you, he had no idea what you had just said to him. If you told him to wash dishes, he would cut tomatoes. If you asked him to sweep the floor, he would mop it.

I remember the night I got the warning that the district manager would be visiting our store the next morning. Clueless Boy was the only person closing with me. I went into a frenzy of cleaning, racing up and down the row, scouring and polishing everything. I asked Clueless Boy to do one thing for me. Sweep the floor. "Clueless Boy," I said. "I need you to do one thing for me and then you can leave. Sweep the floor. I want this floor so spotless you can eat off of it. Can you do that for me?" He nodded. I left to have a quick cigarette because I knew I would spend another 2 hours making sure the place looked perfect. I come back. He is standing in the middle of the floor, his eager clueless eyes looking at me like a puppy (Can I go, can I go?). I look at the floor. Oh, yeah, you could eat off of it. There was enough taco remains scattered on the floor to feed an army.

I sighed. "Okay, Clueless Boy. I'm just going to ask one thing from you. I need you to fill the mop bucket for me with Bleach and hot water. Then you can go." I continue my hurried cleaning. The water is running in the background. Then I smell this acrid scent. What is that? I start coughing. I look over at Clueless Boy. There is this cloud emanating from the mop bucket, along with the horrible smell that is making my eyes water. What is going on?

Then I see the Lime Away in his hand. Lime Away and Bleach do not mix well. There are warnings on the labels. There are big signs all over the wall near the mop sink that say "Don't mix Lime Away and Bleach. It is bad." Do you know why there were big signs all over the wall?

Because Clueless Boy was the second employee who tried to kill me. You would have thought he would have listened when I was talking to a coworker about the near death experience I had encountered the night before. Maybe he would have figured it out when I had the discussion with the staff that night about the dangers of Lime Away and Bleach.

You really would have thought he would have grasped the concept when I had asked him to make the signs to post on the wall, though.