At my school, the food tends to not be very good, and the company in charge of dining services does not treat their employees very well. However, the employees working in dining services here work extremely hard to do what they can with the food provided and turn it into something better, and are some of the nicest people you could meet.

We had a big snowstorm, during which the school closed all dining facilities except the dining hall. The school has some rooms in one of the residence halls for food workers to stay during situations like these. Of course, the workers were going all day, working extremely hard with what they had.

The next day when I went in, I gave my student ID to the person manning the register to pay for my meal as per usual, and he held it for a second, staring off into space, before he said, “I’m trying to smile, but it’s not coming”. I laughed and said that it was all right, they all had a long day the day before. I also added my thanks to them for working so hard, and that I was sure other students felt the same way, even if they didn’t show it. He just shrugged his shoulders and told me that the students had to eat.

(After tiredly slumping into a booth in the employee lunchroom, I end up accidentally eavesdropping on a group of exhausted workers in the booth behind me. One of them has decided to cheer himself up with the first thing he can think of, rhyming random phrases.)

Employee: “Bippity Boppity, women are property!” *his eyes bulge as he realizes what he has just said*

Female Coworker: *trying to hold back her laughter* “Generally, I say the opposite when trying to cheer myself up!”

(I’m in my college’s cafeteria and am listening to some conversations going around me as a project for one of my writing classes. I need to hear a few lines of conversation and then fill it in with the rest of the story. I wish I had heard more from this conversation so I could use this, but all I got was this single line:)

Student: “…and it was like Kim Jong-un with giant baby hands!”

(A student walks into the cafeteria. This student’s family owns numerous local pizza restaurants.)

Student: *to cafeteria worker* “I brought this pastry from home. Can you toast it in your toaster?”

Cafeteria Worker: “If I bring a frozen pizza from home into your uncle’s restaurant and ask him to heat it up in the oven, will he do that for me?”

Student: “Well, no.”

Cafeteria Worker: “Then I guess you’re out of luck.”

(I work at a college dining hall with a lot of self-serve areas. One such is the toaster for bread items. The toaster oven is on a rotating grill that flips the bread over when it gets to the end. I go over and see a student put in something that doesn’t look like bread.)

Me: “Excuse me, that doesn’t look like bread you just put in the toaster oven. What is it, please?”

Student: “Oh, no, it isn’t. It’s a hamburger!”

Me: “Really now? Why did you put a hamburger in the toaster oven?”

Student: “It was all wet so I wanted to dry it out! Great idea, right?”

Me: “Well, the burger is covered in grease and what does grease do when it’s introduced to intense heat?”

Student: “The grease melts? Duh!”

Me: “Yes, that does happen, but it also catches FIRE!”

(As I say this it little sparks of flames pop out of the oven.)

Student: “Oh, s***!” *tries to turn it off*

Me: “Yes, turn it off so it stays in a red hot oven and catches fire even more.”

Student: “Well, you should have told me not to do that or posted a sign saying not to do that!”

Me: *as I point to the very big sign saying ‘bread only’* “You mean that sign not a foot away from your face?”