Welcome To The Family | Job Orientation Short Story

Good to see you! It’s your first day at Maccies, right? I’m Stefano, let me show you around. And please watch your step, the janitors only show up every other Friday. The floors can only start feeling sticky by that Wednesday to keep the customers from complaining.

You wouldn’t mind cleaning up for overtime? Oh, no, we couldn’t — I mean, we really couldn’t; without any training, we open ourselves to negligence if you slip. And then there’s the overtime debacle, but… Well, we’ll come to that when we meet Gary. And, before I forget, don’t mention cats around him — childhood trauma, but he isn’t ready to open up about it yet. One percent of the tip jar goes to his therapy every day. We’re all like family here.

Now, here’s the clock-in station. Time cards are in the bucket. If there aren’t any time cards, Susan in the morning shift probably nicked a couple. We tried to talk to her about it, but it’s either those or the lettuce.

Of course she still works here! We’re all family, remember? My grandmother once nicked a chair from this French place that her first husband ran. Trust me, until the pencils are going missing too, we have no problems with her deviance.

Now, back to your time cards, you sign your name on the top and feed them into the slot in this machine. See how smoothly it prints the time? She’s a beaut! I picked her myself a few years ago. Her installation actually got me my promotion at the time. A constant reminder of the power of initiative. If you stay dedicated, I’m sure you’ll rise up from assistant chef in no time. Even I had to start somewhere, you know.

Oh, no, I never flipped the burgers. I was referring to an internship I worked under a professor at the Galapagos — but I’ll save that story for the Friday Fireside. Suffice it to say, I know a thing or two more about grease fires and soggy hash browns as well.

Now, the last thing to remember for the time cards is that you must clock in at least five minutes before your shift starts. It’s not just to be punctual — we set the clock a few minutes fast and can’t figure out how to change it now. And keep that in mind when you clock out — your pay will be docked if you’re clocking out five minutes early.

Now, let’s take a look at the kitchen. It’s a little warm, but don’t worry about it. Gary did a cost-benefit analysis that showed we would save more per quarter if we removed the ventilation. No maintenance or upkeep costs on fans, and only a slightly bigger check to Health and Safety per month.

Now, we permit cooks to take up to six outdoor breaks per day, one of which it appears Dylan has taken. I hope he’s logged it — we had to dock him a couple hours of pay last week because he forgot to log his lunch break. Remember to log your break hours to the minute before you leave and as soon as you’re back.

Here’s Jerry, he’s our rare burger specialist. He started at the register, but some of the customers said he stared a little bit too long. Dylan swears he’s seen Jerry try to thaw the morning burgers with his eyes before, too, actually. But he’s a great conversationalist. He’ll talk your ear off about his medieval weapons collection if you let him — we’re not sure yet if that’s literal.

Before Jerry starts staring, let me introduce you to Jen. She has two children and was covering for the open shifts you’ll be taking. If you find she’s spilling things on you for a while, don’t take it personally — she would have hated anyone who took your position.

In her adjusted role, she’ll mainly be covering the deep-frying station. She used to be the queen of the soft-serve machine, but that will be your in-kitchen role now. You’ll have to learn how that one works on your own, though, I’m afraid. It’s out of service at the moment. Jen will gladly help you figure it out once it’s back up and running again. Remember, family helps each other.

Here’s Dylan now — please shut that door quickly, Dylan, we’re losing valuable heat. Did you log your break? With Gary? In pen? I’m proud of you, learning from your mistakes. Keep that up and you’ll be manager soon.

Wait, Dylan, have you been crying? Mr. Whiskers is missing? I’m so sorry to hear that, of course I’ll ask around. She was the uglier one, right — the one that looked like a rat with bat ears? I know how much you loved her, I’m sure she’ll turn up fine. Nothing would try to hurt her — most living creatures flee on sight, if I remember correctly.

Sorry, you want to know about the overtime? Yes, I’ll get to it, but not in front of the cooks. It gets them antsy. I think it’s the heat. We keep sending them informational packets about how to stay cool in the summer, but you know how people are with company emails, right? Always getting caught by the spam filters.

You’ll have to get a fuller explanation of the kitchen workings from the cooks on your first day. I’ve always been the hands-off sort of leader, so I pride myself in my ability to empower my team to lead each other. It’s a mark of a true leader, you know.

I will be able to give you a full explanation of the incentives, though — wait, let’s go back into the hallway first.

Ahh, much better. I always get lightheaded in there. All the smells, you know? You couldn’t pay me enough to spend a day in a room like that, just imagine it. So, for incentives, you get paid based on how many items you process at whatever station you’re handling. For you, that will be the soft-serve machine and the counter. There has been some sort of bug in the system that hasn’t been allocating payments when people need to take charge of other stations due to absences, but IT is working on it. They estimate it’ll only take another four months to work out now.

But let’s go to the last room you’ll need to know about — finance. Ah, and what perfect timing, here’s Gary now to let us in. Don’t worry about the big envelopes on his desk, he says it’s just his stash. I thought the office was a strange place to store money, too, but if you see how many people he trades with in here you’d understand.

Now, Gary, our friend here has been asking about overtime — I’m sorry, you’re right, it is two minutes after your lunch break. I should have been more considerate.

Well, as long as you know you can come to Gary for any emergency at all, that’s all you need. But please try to disturb him as little as possible, he has quite a few meetings every day. And not all the clients he sees are very comfortable sitting with their backs to a door to begin with. We nearly had an incident the other day, actually — but I’m sorry, Gary, I shouldn’t be taking your time like this.

Incidentally, before I go, I promised Dylan I would ask around about this. He’s lost his beloved cat — you know, the ugly one that would like it had a pageant makeover if a car ran over it? Gary, what’s wrong? You don’t look yourself, was it something I said?

Gary? Oh, dear. Pardon his emotions, let’s leave him to return to his senses. He’ll keep wailing for a while. The last time this happened, we were assuring customers we were running an eight-hour study on the correlation between whale cries and hunger. It was actually quite successful, until Gary staggered out with bloodshot eyes and wouldn’t stop screaming something about his uncle Lenny and Tiddles.

Before we head to the front, if you turn around, you’ll see my door back there. It’s the mahogany one with the embossed nameplate. You should never enter my office, but I will be there during regular hours. If a customer is causing a visible disturbance and requests to see the manager at least four times, you can knock on my door once. If I don’t respond within three minutes, knock again. If I don’t respond after that, you have my permission to tell the customer that you’re the ranking manager to handle their complaint.

No, you won’t actually have power. Just comfort them until they leave. If they throw something at you, call one of your coworkers to come outside as witness that you didn’t start the fight. If nobody is available to prove you didn’t start it, you may be liable in any court case the customer brings. Remember to take pictures of everything and handle any evidence with gloves.

Now, if those are all your questions, I think we can bring this orientation to a close. Welcome aboard. It feels like you’re already part of the family.