Next, I decide to get a job. It's as though I've tried so hard forgetting about Nolan that I've come around full circle to trying to be just like him (although I have little interest in being a waiter). I settle for a fast food restaurant called Bacon Burgers. 

The fast food industry gets a bad rep for a reason, but that store became more my home than any place I'd ever been. I was slowly building my roller coaster back up, or so I thought.

My first few weeks there, I was completely useless. But there's something about learning a new skill that's enticing. And when you work at a place long enough, you become somewhat of an expert.

I had never been much of an expert at anything in my life, but at Bacon Burgers, I definitely was. I did well in many of my classes, but I wasn't challenged enough to excel. I had an exceptional memory, but I'd never really been inclined to use it.

My first day on the job, I met the night crew manager who I would be spending most of my shifts with.

She was very intense. There was a timer above the drive thru window that would beep any time the magnet, which detected cars at the menu board, determined that it had taken longer than 160 seconds to detect them leaving the second window. They had to be done ordering their food, done fishing out their change, done receiving their food, done double checking their order, and Regina would be damned if that timer beeped even once, because that would fuck up her average time. And she received bonuses based off of meeting her average time.

Regina yelled at me three times within the first hour of me showing up to my first shift. I wasn't even working drive thru, I was working front counter. But everyone helped get that drive thru time down when they weren't busy on her shift. No one sat with idle hands.

I didn't know how to do anything. I had grown up mostly being told what not to do. Never really knowing what was socially acceptable and when it was a bad idea to express my opinions because it might offend someone else. So I mostly kept my mouth shut. I didn't do anything unless forced to. And my first few days on the job, I was forced to do a lot of things.

Even the simple things I had to ask how to do. When asked to clean the condiment stand, I'd ask: "with what? Which cleaner should I use? What items should I pull out?" 

It drove my trainer insane. "A lack of common sense," I think she called it. "Hand holding," was another expression she used. But what I was taught to do, I remembered and I could do again.

So when Regina yells at me to fill her a small chili (it's more of a scream, really) I'm completely at a loss.

Filling chili is the coordinator's job. I just take orders and clean the lobby.

She storms over to the chili pot which I stare at dumbly.

"This is small. Fill to the line, you see. Never above the line! Then I run out of chili too fast!" she says loudly (yells, really) in choppy English, her second language.

But I listen, and next time when drive thru needs a chili, and I'm sitting with idle hands, I fill it.

Regina was like no woman I had ever met before. My mom was a strong woman, don't get me wrong, but Regina was something else. She demanded cooperation, and she did it because she expected you to excel. You either met her expectations or you quit.

No one questioned her authority. Even the tall male General Manager listened to her opinions, because she was good at her job.

And I loved it. You recall I mentioned my classes weren't as challenging for me as working a job. You wouldn't think working fast food would be a challenge, but it was a family--a social circle that I had become a member of not by making small talk or catching on to social cues. I learned skills and pitched in with those skills. I was useful here, and I wasn't sure if I really felt useful anywhere else. Not like I was here.

New people were surprised by how cutthroat the job really was, and we went through a lot of new people. One girl started crying during our first rush under the management of Regina. Which was why anyone with time-acquired-skills was valuable.

This also came with the demanding expectation (as with most low wage jobs) that you come in no matter what. I never took a sick day. If I didn't show up, they were short a person that they needed. If I didn't show up, they didn't have a fry person or a good sandwich maker, and that meant someone else had to do two jobs.

Customers weren't very understanding about not getting their food quickly, even if the person taking their order had a croaky throat due to a bad cold. As long as the person handling their food was healthy, they were happy.

All these expectations might make it seem as though Regina didn't care, but she did when it came to her good crew (those of us that stuck around). Everyone was valuable. Every piece was essential for the engine to run. And it got you respect. Not because of who you knew, but because of what you knew.

If I ever became a manager, I wanted to be just like that. It was something I was a long way off from.