I took a week off because I was in the school play. When I came back they had completely gutted the store and reorganized all the machines. A new process had been instated by corporate for each food item, to insure that every McDonald’s meal was even hotter and fresher than before. They had installed something called a “Q’ing oven.” The “Q” stood for “quality.” If a customer asked what it was, you were to say “it’s just something we do to make your food taste better.”
The Q’ing oven was a microwave. But you were NEVER to refer to it as a microwave. In fact, they said, from now on, you are NEVER to use the word “microwave” while inside the store. Whether you are at the register, at the grill, or in the break room. Whether your shift has begun or not. If you are heard using the word “microwave,” you will be fired immediately and escorted from the building.
It was the “big” manager who gave this talk, Mark. The one who went to Hamburger University. The degree was framed in his office where there was a mop bucket and an ancient Tandy PC he would use to enter our hours to the second. That’s how you knew it was some serious shit– him talking to us was like a presidential address. And the word was so doubleplus ungood that Mark seemed scared of saying “microwave” even in the sentence “you must never say the word ‘microwave.’”
Mark wasn’t a bad guy, although I never forgave him for the time I fried my hand on the clamshell grill and got a blister from my pinky to my elbow, and he just scotch taped a bandage on it and made me work the rest of my shift. But he was human. He was just beaten down from fear of losing his job at McDonald’s, fear of bringing nothing home to his family. He just got so indoctrinated with corporate bullshit that he had to spend his days making a room full of teenagers terrified of saying “microwave.” The value of fucking work.
I left, but not before earning a ten cent raise as a “senior grill crew” member and a special pin for how long I’d worked there and how little I’d fucked up. Every job I’ve ever had since has been exactly the same. Someone clogged the toilet and some asshole is yelling at you to fix it, and you’ll get fired for saying what shit really is.
Epilogue:
I checked them out on Yelp. See how the alma mater’s doing. They have one star. “Order had errors. Fries were not warm. Sauce pumps were all empty. My meal came with a drink and I had to remind them. Counter was dirty. My filet only had half a piece of cheese and no extra tarter sauce like I asked.”
Fuckin Grill Knaves.
God Damn Do I Want to Fuck My Intern
Christina. Christina from Colombia. She is not hot, but she is 23 years old and looks 15 and wears puffy white skirts sliding down at the back to show half an inch of innocent pink cotton panties; sheer blouses where you can see the outline of her bra; she sits with her legs open. You can’t see pussy but you know it’s there. You imagine it under all that soft white fabric. The girl knows how to do laundry; her skirts are always white and fresh. There must be some pheromone going on because I just get this sense around her of wanting to fuck urgently, like a jackal. She is innocent; she comes off as a girl who hasn’t been with a lot of boys in her life. But that sexuality. Colombians.
I was fucking Gertrude drunk and half asleep and in the darkness I saw her face as Christina’s. She is in my subconscious. I was so drunk I really thought it was her for a second, and I was elated. The dream was coming true.
She is subservient. When she texts and emails she calls me “Mr. Tacos.” A little tongue in cheek but it gives me a deep and profound boner. She asked me if I ever get lonely. Every pore of my being was screaming that what would make me less lonely is you bending over this desk and giving me your tight little virgin cunt, but I was working too hard and just told her I didn’t really have time to answer the question. I actually prefer to be alone at work. Even with an office mate whose womb you want to plunder down to the very marrow of your bones, you know, if you’re not going to actually do that, better to have the quiet.
I could have her. If I wanted. But I can’t. I couldn’t make a move, and I couldn’t run with it if she made a move, which I think she would do if we were ever drunk together. It would be too weird seeing her at the office; we don’t connect like that. It’s not a flirty, sassy banter type relationship, it’s wanting to ravage a budding child. She must be ovulating today because it’s especially bad. I’ll need to cum into a Staples® brand C-fold paper towel in the office bathroom later, thinking of her. The seed that should have been hers.
I want her very badly, and I could have her, but I can do nothing about it. Sexual harassment laws— the Sharia of our times.
Autopilot
He was awake. Hands on a steering wheel. Trees rushing by. Most cars were self-driving these days but he enjoyed it the old fashioned way. Everything was coming back to him. He was on his way home. Emily was making a chicken pot pie. His favorite.
The day was over and he remembered nothing. The new stuff was perfect. Used to be you’d get an image peeking through once in a while, an emotion of some kind. The phone would ring and you’d get a little stab of fear. You’d still have no idea what it was about, but you’d flinch. Now, nothing. Waking up, nice hot coffee, kissing Emily goodbye. The drive to work; starlings swirling over the river. Pull up to his parking space– it was in god damn Siberia, but, who cared; he would forget the walk. Twist the dial in the crook of his elbow left, right, left again. Then he was awake and driving and the sun had moved. Ten hour shift gone by like it never happened.
People couldn’t ask “what do you do” anymore. That was almost the best part. He was old enough to remember the way things used to be, when that was everyone’s second question after “how are you.” He wasn’t exactly ashamed of his job but he never quite nailed down the one line explanation for it either. So he’d had to think about it in detail for a second, and thinking about his work made him remember his work, and suddenly his mind wasn’t at a party by the punch bowl but back under buzzing florescent lights getting reamed out by some prick.
Now, no one could ask because no one had any idea what they really did all day. It was like anesthesia. Count backwards from one hundred, you make it to about 96 and then you wake up and the work day was over. They put a reservoir of the medication right in your arm these days. You turned a dial in a combination only you knew, for safety, and the correct dosage dripped out for however long you wanted. Almost everybody had one, even Emily, who didn’t work. Just in case some trauma happened, or for a long plane ride.
He’d been in a sales gig when it came out. He hadn’t wanted to use it. But when it started to take over work itself had changed. They sold newspaper subscriptions over the phone, the Los Angeles Times. The guys who didn’t remember had nothing to lose, and were merciless. Screaming rejections were water off a duck’s back. They stuck to the script; they created a sense of urgency; they made a call to action. They crushed objections. They hammered the Ben Franklin close. Lonely old ladies who couldn’t afford it suddenly couldn’t afford not to buy the L.A. Times for more years than they would live, even if it meant giving up their cats to the kill shelter. The guys were machines and they were fucking the poor for something they didn’t need, but they didn’t give a shit. 7 o’clock rolled around and it was like it never happened. Except the big numbers they racked up.
Still, he had felt it unnatural. He enjoyed talking to people. He would draw at his little cubicle as the robodialer tried 323-462-0001, 323-462-0002… if someone couldn’t afford the newspaper, he wouldn’t sell it to them. He fell behind. His manager took pity on him and had him transferred to another division. Saul Krauss of the Connecticut Krausses, owner of The Los Angeles Times, had purchased America Online and merged the two companies. He was transferred to America Online Customer Retention. Just as well because the manager started forgetting right after that. He became a superboss and cracked down like Mussolini on the team. They sold the L.A. Times to every household in the state and were now calling through to sell every household a second subscription.