This Is The New Way To Act Presidential

(I am meeting with the leader of a volunteer organization for my son’s school to interview for the treasurer position. As we are talking, conversation gets around to where I work, and I mention I work for [Fast Food Restaurant]. When I say this, the club president gets an annoyed look on his face.)

Club President: “You don’t work for [Fast Food Restaurant] in [Town #1], do you?”

Me: “No, I work for the one in [Town #2].”

(He looks relieved and goes on to tell me about his last visit to [Fast Food Restaurant] in [Town #1].)

Club President: “Oh, good. Those people who work there are useless. They are so stupid. I went there a few weeks ago at like two in the morning and they had their drive-thru all blocked off.”

(I used to work for this store, which is a 24-hour restaurant; however, they do have to close for about four hours every three months to have their exhaust hoods serviced. Since the hood cleaners need to have their truck close to the store and the roof access, the drive-thru is blocked off with large caution cones, and a brave employee will generally park their car at the entrance of the drive-thru to prevent someone running over the cones and entering the drive-thru, anyway. Signs are posted on the doors, the drive-thru window, and the drive-thru speaker, letting guests know about this. I am about to explain this when he continues.)

Club President: “Yeah, they had cones and a car right there so no one could get in, so I had to drive my truck over the curb.”

(I am pretty surprised at this. While he has a large truck that could easily do this, in all my years at that store I had never heard of someone seeing the cones AND a vehicle blocking the drive-thru and deciding to jump the curb, instead of trying to come inside to see what is wrong.)

Club President: “I get to the speaker and no one answers. I’m sitting there for ten minutes and no one is answering. I can’t leave because there is this truck just parked in the drive-thru, not moving, and there were a bunch of cars behind me that went over the curb when I did, so I can’t get out. I finally manage to get out, and I go to the door, and it’s locked. There is this little midget inside, and she won’t open the door for me.”

(I know the employee he’s talking about, and while dwarfism does run on one side of her family, it is considered very insulting to call a little person a midget. The club president is a VERY large man, and I could totally see a small young woman not wanting to open the door for a very angry man who is at least six times her size.)

Club President: “So I walk around to the drive-thru window, and finally the midget opens it for me, I ask her why the hell the drive-thru is blocked, and why the doors are locked. She gives me this annoyed look like I’m stupid and says, ‘Umm, because we are closed.’ I ask her if I could order now, since I am there, and she won’t even take my order! How useless is she? I’m glad you don’t work for those losers. I won’t go there ever again, if they don’t even know how to run a business!”

(He changed the subject after that, and I didn’t try to correct him. I didn’t want to cause a personality conflict when I was just trying to help my son’s school. He turned out not to be bad to work with, aside from trying to make me change my voicemail message on my personal cell phone, because it was inappropriate — it was an iconic character from a fast food chain saying I was his wing-man. The club president and his wife did a lot of wonderful things for my son’s school.)