Sunday, May 26, 2013

Life as a Worker

So, as many of you may and many of you may not know....(continues talking to empty room)...

Ahem, I started working at Wendy's recently. The job was absolutely traumatizing at first-I hated every moment I was there. I hated the color of the walls, the shape of the tiles, the way the screens worked. I think I'm like this every time I start something new-I reject it completely. Anyway, I slowly began to tolerate working at Wendy's-I actually began to like certain moments. That was until the evening that I was made to do the front register instead of take money at the back window. I came home and cried-honestly, I did. I was so exasperated with myself and my managers and my coworkers that I wasn't even angry at anyone-just hopeless.
Nevertheless, I finally can say with a great amount of confidence that I like my job. I don't enjoy dragging out of bed every morning, but once I'm there, I start feeling better. I like getting to see the 'regulars' who come through the drivethru, and I've slowly become better at manning the front register (but I'm still not working entire shifts up there). Finally, and most fascinatingly, I've started getting used to my coworkers. I will admit, even in the month I've been there, they've come and gone. Some faces I only see for a few weeks. Some faces, I see nearly every day I am scheduled to come in. I don't talk to them often, but when I do speak to them, they know my name and sometimes, they ask me questions. I try to ask questions in return, and I try to exchange smiles with them when we make eye-contact. They're very fascinating and the relationship between coworkers is different from that of friends or classmates. As an observer, it appears like some are closer than others-they group together by age, normally-but as a participant, it feels different from that. There is closeness between those who interract outside of work, and a closeness between those who have things in common, and a distance between those whom I've never spoken to. The 'never spoken to' group is mostly boys, not because I don't like speaking to boys (the closest co-worker I have at this moment is a boy who calls  me 'little buddy'-I don't know how he can say that since he's not much bigger than 5'6", but anyway...). It's because I honestly don't know their names, and I never need to call to them for anything. Instead, I watch them-I think I creep a lot of my coworkers out-while they grill or sandwich-make or goof off together. The highschoolers are particularly amusing because they get wrapped up in their silliness and forget that they have work to do. It's easy to gauge their personalities when they get talking-some are careful, some are thrill seekers, some are quiet wonderers, and some of them have their own ideas about how everything should be done. In this way I've come to mostly like work (besides that, it earns me money).



 In short, it's interesting.

-Argentia-

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