Some Coworkers Just Get Your Oil Boiling

I work at a local family-owned fast food restaurant. The owners are all siblings, and quite a few of their children work there, as well. Usually, unless they’re the shift manager, the children of the owners don’t hold any authority over any of the other workers. 

This restaurant has a system where each area of the restaurant has a list that must be completed by the end of each shift. For example, if you’re on fryer, you not only have to cook all the fries and stuff, but you also have to complete a list of certain tasks by the time the shift is over. 

This particular night, I happen to be the one on fryer. Usually, there are two people on fryer: one person on one side who does only French fries, the other person does chicken strips, onion rings, etc., on the other side. It can get pretty stressful even with two people, but tonight, I’m the only person on fryer, which means I have to cover both sides. It’s really stressful, and I don’t even have a chance to start checking off my list until around 9:00. I usually try and start by 8:30 just to be safe, so I am running a little late.

I ask [Coworker #1], whose job for the shift is “help everywhere” — literally just to go around and help wherever help is needed — if she can watch my order screen for the rest of the shift while I do my list and to call me over if she needs help. She agrees and I start my list. 

A few minutes after I start, [Coworker #2], who also happens to be the son of the owner who is managing that night, comes to the back and yells — pretty sure all the other employees heard him — “(My Name), can you stop doing your list and actually watch your screen and do your job?” Doing the list is my job. “You have another two hours to do your list; you don’t have to start it right now!”

Some of the many items on this list: fill the small freezer by the fryers; fill the larger freezer that we fill the smaller freezer from; make sure all the stuff in the walk-in freezer is in place; fry about twenty tortillas — takes about thirty seconds each — into bowl shapes, which are then used to make taco salads; break down a ton of cardboard; and prepare shake toppings like cookie dough bits, brownies, raspberries, and strawberries.

The restaurant closes at 10:30, so if I were to actually take two hours, I would be there half an hour after everyone else had left. 

[Coworker #2], when he saw my screen fill up with orders, didn’t even bother calling [Coworker #1] over; fryers didn’t have any orders so she had gone to help somewhere else for a few minutes. Also, he was supposed to clean the fryers that night — we have six fryers, so it takes a while to clean them all — and he should have started at the same time I started my list, if not before. Most people who are assigned to clean fryers offer to keep an eye on the orders screen for the person on fryer so that person can go do their list, but he apparently didn’t think to offer that common courtesy. 

Anyway, I run over to start putting orders down — which he could have done in the time it took to yell at me — and just as I get there, [Coworker #1] comes back over and starts chewing out [Coworker #2], and a couple of other coworkers who had just been standing there, for not going and getting her when the screen fills up. She then tells me to screw the other guy and just keep working on my list. Remember, [Coworker #2] doesn’t actually have any authority over us, plus she has worked there longer than he has. 

Five minutes later, [Coworker #2]’s mom comes back and starts yelling at him for not starting to clean the fryers yet. Guess who left at 10:30, and guess who was still there when I left?