My Work Ethic in Donuts
In the past few months, I have forgotten a lot of things. I had forgotten what it felt like to drive a car, what it felt like to be committed to a workplace, and I had forgotten what it physically felt like to work for long hours at a time. These are things your body and your mind get used to when you start making them a habit, just like I have developed the habits of walking quickly, navigating subway routes, and dodging homeless people.
In this past week, I got a wakeup call and the aforementioned routines had to be reacclamated to my body and my mind. Not only that, but they were reacclamated in hyper drive. When I got back in the driver's seat, I was driving in New York City, in which, without any needed explanation, is probably one of the more frustrating and difficult areas to drive in the United States. When I got back to going to work, it was at a Dunkin Donuts franchise, which is one of the fastest-paced, most rigorous working environments I've ever been a part of. I am driving again, which is a relief and a blessing. It means I don't have to get a bus pass and I don't have to ride with "those people" everyday on my way to nowhere. I still see all "those people" and more, however, because they all stop in Dunkin Donuts on their way to nowhere to obtain their precious brown, steamy brew.
The car I'm driving belongs to Monish, a friend of mine from India, whom I met at Beloit, and who coincidentally got me started in Dunkin Donuts when he hired me for two days last year when he was helping manage a franchise in Evanston, Illinois. I worked with him and lived with him for two days at the beginning of last school year to get a feel for Dunkin Donuts as an operation and see how much I could take and actually like. I guess it paid off because I don't seem to have lost my resolve just yet, and after one grueling week without him and in the company of strangers, I have done exceptionally well for myself and have managed to not lose my head.
Monish left for India at the beginning of this month and charged me with taking care of his 1999 BMW 323i. Needless to say, it was an offer I could not refuse. Fittingly, though, it seems he left at the moment when I could use his help the most, not only with his extensive knowledge of the Dunkin Donuts operations but of his helpful use of the language known as Hindi, which is something I, as the only white person behind the counter, have been surrounded by since thrown into the Indian army that is the Dunkin Donuts empire, at least at this particular franchise.
Dunkin Donuts has thus far been the most rigorous place I have worked. It is a place where everyone is running at the speed of coffee, which is pretty fast, considering the effects it has on the human body are what is, in fact, propelling this business forward. If there is ever a free moment in the workplace, there is always something to do, and it usually involves objects of very high temperature or some kind of chemical, and if it's not one of those two, then it is something unusual, which, of course, is inevitably too complex to solve quickly or with any ease.
All we do at Dunkin Donuts is churn out hordes of coffee: hot, iced, blended, bagged, mixed with ice cream, added to steamed milk, any kind of variation possible. All we do after that is prepare to churn out more: stocking coffee cups, filling the grinder with beans, filling the cabinets with bags of beans, throwing away used coffee filters, cleaning up spilled coffee, retrieving more milk, sugar, and supplies; it is never-ending because it is a proven and flourishing business. To complicate things, we also sell donuts, the namesake of the company, and a number of other breakfasty food items (I'm waiting for them to introduce the waffle sandwich; that will be my flagship in the company).
Since I've started working there only five days ago, I've done everything from empty waste bins to serve free samples of hot chocolate, from building ready-made slabs of bacon to answer questions on a computer asking me the proper steps of brewing iced coffee. Yes, it's complicated, it's not the easiest thing to learn, but it is a science, an art, and an economic philosophy. I hit the lowest of the low today when, as learning about the business from the bottom up, I was instructed to scrape the gum remnants from underneath the dining tables, a job that nobody wants to do because it is as lousy as it sounds. It was one of the jobs that teachers in grammar school threatened you with if you were caught sticking your gum underneath the desks, something I never did, because I followed the rules. And yet, here I was, taking the punishment for all those no-good children who never learned the basic ideas of holding doors for people, not talking on your cell phone when other people are around you, not littering, and NOT sticking your gum underneath the table when there is a trash can five feet from you!
While I was hunched over, scraping every last bit of gum and God-knows-whatever-else that was clinging to the undersides of those tables, prying the residue off with a screwdriver, and picking the last sticky dregs of the mess with my powdery-gloved hand, I couldn't help but wonder if nice guys really do finish last. It is something I've heard all my life, and being a nice guy, I am left to ponder if the life I'm leading for myself will actually prove fruitful; and if it does, will it have been satisfactory and worth the effort. But as the aroma of a freshly-pierced wad of A.B.C. cinnamon hits my nose, it brings me back to the reality of what I am doing, and whether I like it or not, it is what I have chosen to do.
When you work hard, you get what you get. And hopefully what you get is something you want. If the satisfaction of working hard is not what you wanted, the results better sure be. I'm still not sure what I want. I know that if I work hard, I'll at least be able to say that I got to where I am by working hard. At the very least, I hope that the next time the gum needs scraping, I'm no longer the low man on the totem pole.
In this past week, I got a wakeup call and the aforementioned routines had to be reacclamated to my body and my mind. Not only that, but they were reacclamated in hyper drive. When I got back in the driver's seat, I was driving in New York City, in which, without any needed explanation, is probably one of the more frustrating and difficult areas to drive in the United States. When I got back to going to work, it was at a Dunkin Donuts franchise, which is one of the fastest-paced, most rigorous working environments I've ever been a part of. I am driving again, which is a relief and a blessing. It means I don't have to get a bus pass and I don't have to ride with "those people" everyday on my way to nowhere. I still see all "those people" and more, however, because they all stop in Dunkin Donuts on their way to nowhere to obtain their precious brown, steamy brew.
The car I'm driving belongs to Monish, a friend of mine from India, whom I met at Beloit, and who coincidentally got me started in Dunkin Donuts when he hired me for two days last year when he was helping manage a franchise in Evanston, Illinois. I worked with him and lived with him for two days at the beginning of last school year to get a feel for Dunkin Donuts as an operation and see how much I could take and actually like. I guess it paid off because I don't seem to have lost my resolve just yet, and after one grueling week without him and in the company of strangers, I have done exceptionally well for myself and have managed to not lose my head.
Monish left for India at the beginning of this month and charged me with taking care of his 1999 BMW 323i. Needless to say, it was an offer I could not refuse. Fittingly, though, it seems he left at the moment when I could use his help the most, not only with his extensive knowledge of the Dunkin Donuts operations but of his helpful use of the language known as Hindi, which is something I, as the only white person behind the counter, have been surrounded by since thrown into the Indian army that is the Dunkin Donuts empire, at least at this particular franchise.
Dunkin Donuts has thus far been the most rigorous place I have worked. It is a place where everyone is running at the speed of coffee, which is pretty fast, considering the effects it has on the human body are what is, in fact, propelling this business forward. If there is ever a free moment in the workplace, there is always something to do, and it usually involves objects of very high temperature or some kind of chemical, and if it's not one of those two, then it is something unusual, which, of course, is inevitably too complex to solve quickly or with any ease.
All we do at Dunkin Donuts is churn out hordes of coffee: hot, iced, blended, bagged, mixed with ice cream, added to steamed milk, any kind of variation possible. All we do after that is prepare to churn out more: stocking coffee cups, filling the grinder with beans, filling the cabinets with bags of beans, throwing away used coffee filters, cleaning up spilled coffee, retrieving more milk, sugar, and supplies; it is never-ending because it is a proven and flourishing business. To complicate things, we also sell donuts, the namesake of the company, and a number of other breakfasty food items (I'm waiting for them to introduce the waffle sandwich; that will be my flagship in the company).
Since I've started working there only five days ago, I've done everything from empty waste bins to serve free samples of hot chocolate, from building ready-made slabs of bacon to answer questions on a computer asking me the proper steps of brewing iced coffee. Yes, it's complicated, it's not the easiest thing to learn, but it is a science, an art, and an economic philosophy. I hit the lowest of the low today when, as learning about the business from the bottom up, I was instructed to scrape the gum remnants from underneath the dining tables, a job that nobody wants to do because it is as lousy as it sounds. It was one of the jobs that teachers in grammar school threatened you with if you were caught sticking your gum underneath the desks, something I never did, because I followed the rules. And yet, here I was, taking the punishment for all those no-good children who never learned the basic ideas of holding doors for people, not talking on your cell phone when other people are around you, not littering, and NOT sticking your gum underneath the table when there is a trash can five feet from you!
While I was hunched over, scraping every last bit of gum and God-knows-whatever-else that was clinging to the undersides of those tables, prying the residue off with a screwdriver, and picking the last sticky dregs of the mess with my powdery-gloved hand, I couldn't help but wonder if nice guys really do finish last. It is something I've heard all my life, and being a nice guy, I am left to ponder if the life I'm leading for myself will actually prove fruitful; and if it does, will it have been satisfactory and worth the effort. But as the aroma of a freshly-pierced wad of A.B.C. cinnamon hits my nose, it brings me back to the reality of what I am doing, and whether I like it or not, it is what I have chosen to do.
When you work hard, you get what you get. And hopefully what you get is something you want. If the satisfaction of working hard is not what you wanted, the results better sure be. I'm still not sure what I want. I know that if I work hard, I'll at least be able to say that I got to where I am by working hard. At the very least, I hope that the next time the gum needs scraping, I'm no longer the low man on the totem pole.
posted by Leland J. Fischer at 2:43 AM
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