I’m a junk food connoisseur. More specifically, I’m an aficionado of fast food. I eat the stuff at least three times a week. If not at home then on my lunch break at work. I mean, how much easier can sustenance get? Until they invent the meal-in-a-pill, fast food is it for ease of consumption. Even though I can sometimes hear my arteries clogging as I’m chowing down a beef n’ potato burrito, I continue to be a fast food junkie.
Because of my affection for the infection of fat from corporate feeding houses, I’m always on the look out for a good deal at the drive-thru. A recurring spot for cheap, greasy goodness seems to be Burger King. The one down the street from my apartment always has something advertised on their marquee as a special of the week. Needless to say, I stop there frequently.
My Burger King is a typical fast food establishment: a drive through with a menu that beckons like a beacon of light in the darkness of hunger, a speaker/microphone system that almost always somehow translates what I say into alien-speak, and two windows… one to pay… the next to feed from.
For the past few months, I have noticed the same woman at the feeding window. She’s older… and by older, I mean late 60s or possibly even early 70s… maybe more. She reminds me of my grandma. She even has the same thick, long, white-painted fingernails that grandma seems to have had for as far back as I can remember. But the most striking characteristic about this woman isn’t her appearance or any similarities to my grandma. The most noticeable thing about her is the fact that she’s courteous and seems to care about what she’s doing.
In stark contrast, the kid who is usually operating the payment window is anything but courteous or caring. She’s uninterested, rude, and indifferent in her attitude. While I understand that the drive-thru at Burger King is not Neiman Marcus, it is none the less part of a business who’s primary function is the service of others. This girl could care less if she entered the order right or if she’s handling the money properly. And if either of these are wrong, her response leads me to believe that she thinks the error is somehow my fault and that she is being put out by my request for a correction. Customer service at it’s finest I tell you.
The Burger King Grandma is not like this at all. She obviously takes the extra effort to make sure everything is not only right, but that it’s properly bagged, tagged, and ready to devour. On my last visit with my brother, she actually apologized to us for putting the onion rings in the bag with the wrong sandwich. I mean… how many fast food employees even think about those things?
The point this example is hopefully illustrating is that a mere 8 feet of concrete separates our future from our past.
Moving from one window to the next is liking going backwards through time. As I pull forward into the past, I can almost sense the different vibe from Burger King Grandma. She’s probably there because she has to work, which is sad if you stop and think about it… an entire life lived and still she’s forced to work in greasy conditions surrounded by kids who no doubt remind her of the spoiled grandchildren her own kids raised (who knows… maybe she doesn’t have to work, but chooses to because she enjoys it… but I’m not betting my french fries on that one). Is she bitter about the fact that she has to work? Does she let the heat and the grease and the bitches she almost has to encounter at the drive-thru bother her? If she’s bitter, you can’t tell. If the heat and the grease and the bitches get to her, you can’t tell. For all intents and purposes, she is happy to be doing what she’s doing. I’m sure she’d give it up in a heartbeat if she could, but that doesn’t stop her from taking pride in being Burger King Grandma.
People used to be like that. They went to their jobs or worked in the fields or turned tricks at the honkey tonk and they at least pretended to be interested in it… to care about what they were doing. They gave a shit. They worked hard and they got things done. Not just done… complete. But people aren’t like that anymore for the most part. They don’t care about their work and most only do what is required to barely scrape by and receive a paycheck. Over time, standards have lowered to the point where it takes ten people to do the same job that two could have done 50 years ago. When I was younger, I remember complaining to my parents about all the work they made us do in the yard on Sundays. They would almost always look at each and laugh before telling me some story about working the fields for 12 hours a day 6 days a week… or churning butter for 10 hours straight (yes… both of my parents have actually churned butter by hand… wild, isn’t it? Haha). At the ripe old age of 12, I could have cared less about how hard they worked at my age… all I cared about was that Nintendo game waiting for me inside… if only I could get done with those damned chores!
As I drive forward to pick up my 99 cent Whopper, my parent’s remarks come flooding back to me. I know what they were trying to tell me… what they were trying to teach me. The windows at Burger King are not only representative of our past and future, they’re perfect contrasts of one another and how times have changed: two people doing the exact same job but doing it in two completely different ways. The fact that the future is scowling at me from the payment window worries me.
What is the future going to be like when our bitter, uninterested, scraping-by generation is in control? When angry Teen Burger Bitch isn’t looking at me through a drive-thru window, but instead, inspecting the seat belts in my car… or investing my money at the bank… or teaching the kids I’ll actually never have… what will become of these things? Will she cut corners and pass my seat belt inspection only to find out later that it failed in the real world? Will she handle my investments hastily because she’s got tickets for an N’Sync reunion concert? And will she teach my imaginary kids only enough to get them out of her class and into the next?
It makes me afraid for the future to think about such things. The world is going to be a much more unpleasant, impersonal, and generic place when the Teen Burger Bitches are running the show. As for me, I think I’ll just start paying and feeding from Burger King Grandma’s window… I’m sure she won’t mind.
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[...] But is it really a change in business or is it more a change in human nature? Generally speaking, a lot of people don’t care about their work as much as folks used to. They go to work to get a paycheck so they can have money to feed into the system. Employers don’t get rid of employees who don’t perform so substandard work becomes the norm. If people aren’t expected to care about their work, they won’t. It’s sad… but it’s also human nature. [...]