I Survived Dairy Queen’s School of Hard Knocks – Just Barely…

Parents – - – listen up. If you ever want to scare the living crap out of your teenager who might want to, you know, travel the world a bit before heading to college, then have I got an idea for YOU. Drive over to your nearest Dairy Queen, go inside, ask to speak to the manager, get an application, fill it out, then slip the manager a twenty dollar bill to hire your kid for the job. Later, in a few weeks time, when your kid has crawled across broken glass to get home to you and away from the nearest place to Hell they’ve ever inhabited, then fill out their college applications at the speed of sound – -you’ll realize it was time and money well spent.

While it was not my parent’s plan to have me experience such a mind-altering, life-altering event at our local Dairy Queen, something very similar happened to me during my formative years when I took a job there, looking for a little extra cash from a summer job. Dad had thought it was a good idea for me to find something more full-time than what I’d been doing at the florist that I’d been working at on the weekends for quite some time – - a good learning experience for me, he thought. And boy was he right, but not for the reasons he’d intended.

I’d spent many mind-numbing days traveling from small business to small business, looking for a place that I thought I could stomach for 2.5 months during the summer, and also looking for a place that could possibly stomach a slightly moody 16 year old who chewed a lot of gum and whose only real responsibility thus far was to get to cheerleader practice on time and not fail any of my classes. Slim pickings, indeed.

So it was with many failed attempts at finding a job that fit this bill under my belt when I noticed a “Now Hiring” sign outside on the Dairy Queen billboard en route towards home one fateful day. Dad’s disappointed face loomed above my mind’s eye in a pristine thought-bubble, and I realized that if I came home yet again with no new job, then I would be facing yet another lecture about how I wasn’t “trying hard enough” to find a job.

I pulled into the parking lot and sat in the car for a moment, picturing myself greeting happy customers seeking ice cream sundaes and dipped cones with a smile – - wearing a cute sun visor that said “DQ” jauntily on the front. I pictured myself eating the leftover ice cream with the other employees my age, giggling over boys and fashion – - and I thought “yes…..yes….I think I can do this.” I felt so strongly in that moment that my job ship had come in and I need only go in and grab the wheel.

I confidently walked into the Dairy Queen and asked for an application, was handed just that and, once I’d filled it out, pointed in the direction of the manager’s office. I walked into a dank, dingy office the size of a shoe box with all sorts of papers strewn about the desk and more nondescript papers on the walls. It smelled of cleaning solution and hopelessness. This should have been a sign but I was too far gone down my mental path of pie-in-the-sky dreams of how fantastic my life was going to be in my cute little DQ apron to notice anything amiss in that little room.

A middle aged man in too-tight trousers, an untrimmed mustache with tired eyes perused my application. He clicked his ball-point pen repeatedly, creating a manic-like rhythm which punctuated the expectant silence in the room, somehow highlighting my nervousness in the process. He swooped his eyes from me to the application in front of him, then back at me again.

“When can you start?”

“Um, well….soon. Monday?”, I said.

He looked at me again and said “I’ll start you out front with the ice cream”.

I could barely contain my excitement at this news. Oh I would make the BEST banana splits in the history of all of Dairy Queen. I would win a PRIZE for my cone dipping abilities. Scenes from West Side Story exploded in my mind – - only we were all in red DQ aprons doing leaps and turns with large jazz hands in front of the ice cream machine, holding our aprons like flirtatious skirts and singing songs about fun, ice cream, and chocolate sprinkles to the tune of “America”.

Then he said the most hideous words I have ever heard uttered in my presence:

“Oh….yeah. You’ll need to wear a hairnet.”

Somewhere in the universe, a very large record player with a very large needle which had been playing my DQ version of the “West Side Story” soundtrack very noisily scratched off the record.

“Um……what?”, I said. Because surely I’d misunderstood him. Did he mean a VISOR or….maybe a ….hat?

“Yes, it’s against code for our workers to not wear a hairnet”, he continued.

Oh Dear Leroy, Jethro and Jimmy. He was serious. And then, worse – - he reached into one of the drawers of his creaky little wooden desk and pulled out a hairnet. And it was not a subtle hairnet. It was a jet black hairnet. It was like a shower cap for a prisoner with holes in it. It was like something a very old, very cantankerous woman would put on around her curlers right before she went out to yell at “Daddy” to turn down the TV so she could “hear herself think!”. I could not have been LESS subtle had the hairnet been neon purple – - – with psychedelic colors shooting out of the top like some sort of acid trip for lunchroom ladies who are looking for a good time with their hairnet.

I held out a limp, dejected hand and took the hairnet from him like it was a dead skunk. He shook my hand and told me he would see me first thing Monday morning.

I drove home with the hairnet lying on the passenger seat of my car – - taunting me with it’s hideousness. But even the hairnet couldn’t dampen my spirits completely. I’d gotten a job today that I thought I might LIKE – - and I would also be making my parents happy in the process.

But when I got home to tell them the good news, Dad raised one eyebrow and said “The Dairy Queen, eh? You do know that will be hard work, don’t you?” I nodded my head slowly, suddenly unsure of myself – - then added “the manager said that I would be working out front with the ice cream.” Dad said, “Well….even still. That’s a tough job but….maybe it will be good for you.”

Between Dad’s little speech and my hairnet, I was starting to get a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. But as I got closer and closer to Monday morning, I pushed these bad feelings out of my mind and just concentrated on the free ice cream I was sure I would be getting all summer – - and the nice people I would maybe meet.

I walked into the Dairy Queen Monday morning and nervously went to the manager’s office for what I thought would be a brief DQ Orientation, but was greeted by an empty office. Unsure of what to do now, I peeked into the kitchen to see if anyone was in there – - it was empty so I went back toward the office again and saw one of the staff there looking at a clipboard. I said, “Um, excuse me – - my name is Amy and it’s my first day here. I was looking for the manager to find out where I need to start today…” The staffer was a very rotund, African American woman who slowly – - – very slowly – - – looked away from the clip board and eyed me like I was a fly in her morning Cheerios. Her lip curled into a slow smirk, then said “Manager’s not here.” She offered no other explanation or instruction so I stammered out, “U-u-mmm…well th-then – - should I start out up front today?”

This time her smile expanded into a wide-toothed grin and she said “I’m not so sure about that, honey – - nobody starts out up front on the first day”. She then nodded her head toward the clipboard and said, “You should find your name on this schedule”, and she shuffled away, humming a tune I’d never heard.

I looked on the schedule and found my name – - then followed the line out to the right of my name for my assignment. In big, bold, black letters, I read the most terrifying word I’d ever seen up until that point in my life: KITCHEN

I blinked. I blinked again. No. No no no no no. I was supposed to be up front. With the ice cream!!!! And the chocolate sprinkles!!!! I didn’t know how to cook anything other than a grilled cheese sandwich! I was completely dumbfounded and didn’t know what to do or think – - or where to start pleading my case.

I walked into the kitchen in search of an ally and ran into a woman by the name of Mary who apparently had been assigned as my mentor of sorts. Mary was a sturdy African-American woman with short, neat hair and a no-nonsense attitude. She was eating a chicken sandwich when I met her and told me that she would be working with me that day, but she didn’t appear to be in any hurry to show me the ropes. I stood there like a petrified tree watching her finish her sandwich in slow, methodical bites as she intermittently yelled comments and obscenities at the workers up front who were preparing for the day. The workers up front with the ice cream. The workers up front with the chocolate sprinkles. The workers up front who kept peering into the kitchen at me with my black hairnet and terrified look on my face. They appeared amused at the sight.

Mary finally finished her sandwich then started a long-winded, fast speech about what my duties would entail in the kitchen. And it became quickly apparent that my duties would entail things way beyond my spoiled, 16 year old capabilities. Things involving many, many frozen hamburger patties being placed onto a massive fryer — and making onion rings from scratch – - and hot buckets of foot long hot dogs that had to be taken out with scalding metal tongs in record time and placed into a steamed bun with condiments placed on top by more scalding hot utensils from other hot buckets. I swear I needed fire retardant gloves for that job but was given nothing but some flimsy, see-through plastic ones.

Mary rapidly explained to me the science of which things go on a burger first – - the lettuce, tomato, onion – - then the ketchup and mustard on the other side – - and the pickles on top. She explained that the mouth needs to taste certain items first for freshness. She seemed very passionate about the science of the burger. I tried writing it all down to keep myself straight but she was talking so fast that I barely had time to take it in mentally, much less in the written form.

She went on to explain how orders came in on the little metal wheel and how I needed to say “Order up!” when I was done with an order and it was ready to be given to the customer. At that moment, I couldn’t imagine being able to actually COMPLETE an order and I stared at the metal wheel like it was a Machine of Doom.

Sometime in the middle of her make-shift DQ Kitchen Orientation, another worker showed up named “Jimmy” and meandered his way back to the drive-thru window. I never did know during my short time of employment there whether or not Jimmy was a teenager – - or a Little Person. I would spend quite a few hours pondering this question and would reach a different conclusion every time. He was very short, had long sideburns, cursed like an angry pirate – - and chain-smoked out the drive-thru window on a regular basis. Jimmy also showed me very little mercy when it came to a learning curve on completing orders.

The rest of the day was one that is only remembered in fits and starts because it was The Most Awfulest Day of All The Awful Days…I think the brain really does protect us from remembering too much trauma because there was only so much shock my body could take that day. I have a vague recollection of trying to simultaneously cook about 15 hamburger patties and prepare 10 hot dogs for a male high school sports team that came in that day – - I also remember praying with all my might that the hamburger patties were actually DONE when I finished the order. I remember frantically cutting onions the size of Good Year Tires and dipping them hap-hazzardly into batter and flour – - then burning them in the deep fryer. 3 times. Tears streamed down my face as I had to re-cut the onions repeatedly – - both from the onions themselves, and also from the fact that I was in the lowest pit of despair on the face of the planet at that point. I looked at my flour-covered watch to see how much time had passed – - it hadn’t even hit the 2 hour mark in my 8 hour day. I cried a little harder in the darkened corner of the kitchen, completely convinced that I was never going to see my family again – - that I was going to die here in this Dairy Queen kitchen while having orders barked at me by a very mean, chain-smoking Dwarf because I was losing all understanding of time and life going by outside of this sweltering Hell Hole.

I dropped hot dogs. I burned things. I got orders wrong. I had grease burns. My hairnet lay askew on my sweat-laden head. My shoes slid around on the greasy floor of their own volition. My back ached. My eyes watered. I was hot. I was exhausted.

And I smelled. Oh Dear God, I smelled.

When the 8th hour finally arrived, I resisted the urge to drop down on all fours and kiss the greasy floor on which I stood. But, instead, I dragged my sweaty, wreaking carcass to the car and sat there with my head resting on the steering wheel for a good 5 minutes. With one hand, I pulled off the hairnet and then raised back up into the sitting position to start the long ride home to face my parents.

Mom and Dad to this day talk about that night when I came home after my first night at Dairy Queen. Mom said that the door opened downstairs, then shut – - and she smelled me before she saw me. The putrid smell of grease and despair wafted up ahead of me as I Thump……..thump…..thumped up the stairs in a slow death march. They took one look at me and stifled unbridled laughter – - while I started crying and said immediately with the definitive shriek that can only be produced by a spoiled, desperate teenager: “I am NEVER going back there!!!!!!!”

I could tell my parents were wrestling with how to handle the situation. I mean – - on the one hand, they wanted me to live up to my obligation and commitments and stick with the job. But on the other hand, here was their greasy, sweaty, exhausted, tear-stained daughter obviously in A State and there seemed to be some genuine pity on their part when looking at me. When they weren’t laughing at me, that is.

I remember shrill negotiations with a very calm-voiced Dad well into the night – - initially he wanted me to commit to working there for a month, but that suggestion was greeted with such desperate, earth-shaking wails that he finally relented and we both agreed that I would work there for a week.

And so that was how I returned the next day – - and the next and the next – - until finally completing the Longest Week of My Life working in the Dairy Queen kitchen. My name never did waiver from it’s place beside the “KITCHEN” assignment – - and I have to say that by the end of the week, I was doing ok. Even won some praise from the workers up front who were still relishing their jobs up front with the ice cream – - as I continued to sweat and limp along in the back.

But it was with something close to ecstasy when I went in on that seventh day and informed the manager that I would not be returning to work the next week. He seemed non-plussed by the news – - and I can see how he was likely familiar with that sort of thing happening on a regular basis. So with little bravado, I picked up my check and walked into the hot, July night, free from the confines of my prison sentence.

While the experience gave me a lot of respect for the DQ Lifetime Employees out there – - it also gave me a new understanding of WHY HIGHER EDUCATION WAS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. Not too long after that, I started researching colleges with new gusto – - with the new goal being that I never wanted to step foot into a restaurant kitchen again as long as I lived.

And just in case I forgot – - I kept that hairnet for many years to come as a reminder. The smell of grease never would leave it completely.