2002-07-29 - 10:25 p.m.
#111: No Need for a Less Negative Summation
Note to self: Well, I'm feeling better than from over two plus weeks ago from the previous entry. It's hard to stay mad when you meet a really cute Subaru cosplayer (who was decidedly a girl) at a short seminar presented by the Auckland Anime Club at the Waitakere Libraries, which about the only GOOD thing that happened at the seminar, apart from a lot of publicity for the club. Everything else went horribly wrong which made me a wee bit on the teed off side; so much so Zeb convinced me to sit out my part of the speech I was supposed to present with her lest I physically attacked the audience of mainly very, very small children (which was part of the reason I was mad, apart from from the fact that everything else went horribly wrong, too). Zeb reccomends anger management courses. I think she may be right. Oh, and getting your finger bitten by a cute Canadian anime fan schoolgirl so hard that it leaves bite marks. You can't stay mad when those sort of things happen to you in the space of a week. Of course, the fact that the incidents that have cheered me up involve underaged teenage girls DOES worry me slightly. Oh dear. I hope I'm not developing some sort of strange desire for young unmarked flesh. That's just wrong. Besides, I might get caught.
Well. As I mentioned before, I'm feeling a lot better. Now. After successfully repressing my emotions deep down inside my subconscious with a grill spatula, I can honestly say I'm fit for decent human society once more! Oh sure there'll be occasional fits of pure maniacal aggression, but as long as I have my friends beside me, I'll be A-OK! Or at least behind me. In teflon body armour. And with riot prods and shields. But honestly, I think my anger storms aren't too bad just.... unexpected. Like being savaged by a smallchihuahua with no teeth. The results are often more unexpected than they are painful, or at least I would like to think so. My temper hasn't been doing so well under the different pressures I've been going through recently. Is this the price of my progress? Can happiness be acheived without sacrifice? Do you see? DO YOU SEE YOUR BEAUTIFUL NIGHT???
.... Hokay, no more Giant Robo references for me. Besides, these kind of little references aren't hip unless at least 75% of the worlds population knows them too, eheh.
So anyway, progress. As some of you may have guessed from the last entry, I have gotten myself a job. After a year of on and off job searching, the best place I managed to qualify for is MacDonalds. Oh how the mighty have fallen. Well, at least it wasn't very far. I mean, there's not a lot of grace to fall from when you're a university dropout who's never gotten a job in his entire life and still lives with his mommy. Actually, it might be even considered a step up. But for me, I feel a little bit letdown that after all the CVs I dropped off at some places that I would've liked to work (multiple times even, in the case of Dick Smith Electronics, whom I now curse on a regular basis whenever I pass one of their chain stores. You should do it, too! Just drive up to your nearest DSE store, lean out the window and curse, "DAMN YOU, DICK SMITH! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!" then tear off before the employees can come out to look for the blasphemer. The feeling is quite liberating. In a disestablismentarian sort of way.) the only people who picked me out was MacDonalds after I halfheartedly filled out one of their employment forms. From that, my only conclusion is that life wanted me to learn this lesson: No matter how hard you chase after a job you want, you'll end up with something you only considered a backup. Life is a harsh teacher. So is Fate, actually. One day I'm just gonna pull a Columbine on those two, oh yes I am.... And all those A grade students who got ahead in life, too. They will all suffer! Suffer like raw lobster flesh in freshly squeezed lemon juices!
But I'm going off track again. Back to MacDonalds and working there. So how IS working at a multimillion dollar fast food franchise? Surprisingly enough, it's not that hard. In fact, for the meagre paycheck that I receive a week, it's pretty easy work (easy in terms of "I go in to work, and I come out and I don't work". I don't have to carry anything in or out with me) and I've acclimatised myself quite nicely to the environment in the month and a bit I've been working there. I'd almost say this job fits me like a glove, except for the fact that it's not QUITE fashionable to stand tall and scream to the heavens, "I was BORN to work at a burger outlet!". People tend to look at you funny for that. Actually, they tend to look at you funny even if you just stand tall and scream. Society is like that, y'see. Where was I? Oh yes, MacDonalds and the working in. So it's pretty easygoing now, but when I started it was slightly on the difficult side and I didn't even know if I was going to last a day. Or even an hour. That's mainly due to the fact that I had no previous training whatsoever and on the very first day they wanted me to start off out back with the crew on food. On a Friday evening. During a busy rush period with huge lines that extended from the counter to the door.
This spellt certain disaster.
So anyway, the acting manager at the time placed me in front of the fries counter and basically said something along the lines of, "We're a little too busy to break you in properly right now, so you just stand here and make fries for us, okay?". What he DIDN'T say was, "We're a little too busy to break you in properly right now, so just stand here next to this tub of boiling oil and alternatively lower or raise baskets of deep fried potato fries from said tub. Careful not to slip up and thrust your limbs or extremities into the vat by accident, cause that thing could probably melt your face right off, it could! Crikey!". But I could tell he wanted too. Maybe my roving, wild eyed look of sheer terror put him off, lest he drove me to the panic point of postal proportions. It just wouldn't be good for the restaurants rep if word got out of a potential employee going off the deep end on his first day, now would it? Then again, maybe it'd have become a new public attraction. Yeah, I can see the promotional posters up there right now: "Come to McDs and order a whole lotta fries and drive the french fries guy absolutely NUTS!". Incidentally, if you have a hankering for doing that right after reading this entry, I have but one word of advice: Don't. Really (and that's two words, oh well). The fries guy probably has the worst job in the entire kitchen and he knows it; so it's not wise to push the ones that are already unhinged from hours of repetitive work: and are stationed directly in front of a (decidedly voltatile) tub of boiling oil and wielding two oil-fried hot baskets of potatoes. Those who heed not this warning will be rewarded aptly for their foolish beaviour. So don't say I didn't warn you.
And again, I am off track! So back to the fries and their frying of (hence the reason they are called "fries". Don't you just love the startling unoriginality of the English language?). I have to admit, when I look back on how I started off with working near hot surfaces and liquids, I was being a really big pansy-ass about it. I mean really: I held unto the handle of the basket of fries at the greatest distance possible from the basket section. With both hands. Then I slowly, gently, gingerly lowered it into the vat of boiling oil while my eyes were closed, and prayed to all the fastfood deities of heaven that when I removed my hands from the basket handle that all my fingers would still be intact and that my flesh not been seared or melted by the heated metal. Once I confirmed that my body was still in one piece, I did a little soft shoe shuffle dance then immediately started on the next basket of fries. It was a neverending cycle of "pick basket up, gently put basket into boiling oil, dance for my continued existence as a human being and not some monstrously deformed understudy for Phantom of the Opera" and I did that for a whole 2 HOURS.
2 whole hours just stuck doing the fries! At the end of those two hours I was thinking to myself, "Wow, I've been doing two hours of work that a monkey with a resistance to heat and a high pain threshold could have done!". I added the part about "heat" and "pain" cause I wasn't about to COMPLETELY discredit my work. In fact, I felt pretty confident about my ability to work around boiling vats of oil by the time I discovered two hours had passed (it always comes down to the vats of oil that are boiling, doesn't it?). Sure there were a couple of hiccups.... Like not understanding how to use the fries timer for consistent cooking times, or not working the scoop fast enough to fill all the orders, or not being able to differentiate between the "medium" and "large" fries packaging, or occasionally forgetting to season the fries, or making too much fries and having all of it wasted because they were out in the cold too long.... Well, ANYWAY after ALL that, it was pretty obvious (to me anyway) that my fear factor around the fries had decreased, and I even developed a cool little hand-twist-turn thing with the basket (held at minimum safe distance. with one hand now. and a basket in each hand) so that it looked like I was twirling it while spinning around with baskets of fries. Yeah, I was the god of cool. Better yet: The God of Fries! At that point, I felt that no one could have beaten my mastery at fry cooking! I was on top of the world!
And then they decided the rush hour(s) was over and it was time for me to work on burgers and hot grills. My confidence meter came crashing down to its zero nth point, once again. All my carefully built up illusions of grandeur and prestige.... Gone! In a flash!
So the process of breaking in I had with the fries was begun once again with the burgers.... Only this time, instead of "vats of boiling oil", it was "grills of sizzling heat" and there was a much more complicated process involved: Not only did one have to place the burgers on the grill and cook them, they also had to toast the buns and fill them with the appropriate ingredients along with the burger off the grill. Then there are the variety of burgers involved and the two different patties used depending upon the type of burger ordered. And this doesn't even go into the OTHER types of burgers available that don't use beef patties at all, such as the chicken or fish burgers. When this level of complexity was revealed to me, I realised that my position at the fries was but the beginning of my journey! The journey to become the burger boy of burger boys! The beginning of my journey to become: BURGERLORD!
.... Hokay, no more combined references to Otaku no Video and Invader Zim for me either. I gotta use pop culture stuff that people OUTSIDE of the AAC can understand.... Maybe I should make allegorical comments based upon the private lives of various popular modern entertainers? Nah, too much work. I'll just continue to keep the non-anime watching readers of my journal entries in the dark (and there are a few people out there who read my journal and aren't part of my regular circle of friends too.... Which is both strange and yet at the same time, quite cool. But mostly strange).
Anyway, like I mentioned before, in the passing weeks I've picked the many nuances to make working life in MacDonalds easier (as well as how to make many a different type of burger. They're surprisingly prosaic once you know what the ingredients are, actually.) and getting paid for said work is a nice little reward for all the work one puts in during the day (no matter how meagre it may be. especially with tax removed). I'm also learning what it means to actually having to go into work for ones life, though I'm only working part time at the moment. I've even gravitated to working in a certain section of the kitchen: the pie and fillet area: which generally deals with the burgers in the "other" category and not filled with beef patties, as well as frying up items like apple pies and chicken nuggets. It's like I found my little niche in MacDonalds! And that's just weird, finding something that you're pretty good at doing in a burger joint. I certainly hope I'm not "destined" for this sort of work in the future. It seems so.... utterly, utterly wrong. I mean, can it really be I spent all my life going to an expensively all boys high school (having to move to a different country to do so), then attending an expensive university course (having to move AGAIN), only to end up working in MacDonalds? Can it really be possible? Let's not continue that line of thought lest I go nutty.
So, all in all, the job isn't too bad.... It's just that I have to deal with being about the oldest member of kitchen crew; a large percentage of them are in their teens (mainly 17 or 18) and the age gap of five years, while it doesn't sound large, does tend to make conversation about "current events relative to age group" difficult. It's because of this that I have a tendency to keep to myself most of the time when the other members of the crew are chatting during the quiet hours (well, minutes). I crack the occasional joke and make the occasional funny, but I'm clearly the "new guy who's actually an old guy and is kinda creepy to be hanging around with the rest of us when you think about it". Unless I shave about five years off my age, I'm not going to be able to close that gap any time soon. This makes me depressed. Next thing you know I'll be offended by the music and movies of the "now" generation and saying how better things were "back in my day". Oh wait, I already do that. Drats. But in any case, I go to MacDonalds for the money and the chance to work (ir)regular hours so that I might be better prepared for the work force in the future! Mere conversation is nothing compared to the lure of sweet, sweet paychecks!
Sweet, sweet paychecks that rapidly disappear under the combined might that is a credit card and online shopping that is. That's the other bit of "progress" I've made in the months since I wrote last: I got myself a spanking new VISA card with a NZ$500 limit care of my authorised bank. Actually, it wasn't a decision I had completelymade for myself.... I never had the intention of marching into a bank and, defying all established rules of decorum and of polite society, march up to the counter and demand that I, as an adult, MUST have a credit card. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that I got it completely out of impulse. It would be even more accurate to say that the bank practically threw the card and the forms I had to sign at me while screaming "Take it! TAKE IIIIIIIIIIIT!". So I did. I was just there to make a sizeable deposit by my mother into my account (she was going away on holiday back then and I had no job, so she left me cash "in case of an emergency". you can probably guess that I used that dosh for anything other THAN an emergency) when the teller suddenly asked me, "Hey, you a tertiary student?". I replied that I was, though it wasn't completely accurate. He then asked if I wanted a credit card. Seeing that I had no parental authority to turn to for advice (apart from Zeb and Kunfei who were there at the time, for reasons that are too long to explain and certainly did not involve gerbil. Nor were there 253 of them.) I decided to rely on my best judgement. My brain came to two conclusions: Either I got that credit card and have access to a whole lot of shopping potential I would only have DREAMED about before, or don't and remain the non-consumer whore that I was then. So: CONSUMER WHORISM IS A-GO!
People who have gotten credit cards in the past can describe how utterly evil they can be. How they can ruin lives in a single blink of eye due to overindulgence in money that one does not have, and in items one would not necessarily want to have bought if one never had a credit card. But then again, there are stories about people who live happily with their credit cards and always manage to live within their limit, paying debts back on time and never resorting to the rather dubious tactic of paying off credit cards with other credit cards. I am here to tell you now, officially, that the people with stories in the latter category don't exist, and the former is all too familiar for a part time minimum wage earner such as I. Despite the fact that I'm EARNING more money, I find that I have even less money in my chequeing account than I did back when I wasn't working. Of course, I didn't have a credit card back then, either. I firmly believe that credit cards and online shopping are a pairing machinated by the hands of the Devil himself. When I go to sleep at night, that credit card probably slips itself out of my wallet and arises into the air, all pale and a-glowing green, and draws a circle and a pentagram in the carpet with green flames that burn brightly and yet gives no heat. And then it'd call up the devil and go, "What is thy bidding my master?" and then things would degenerate into an Empire Strikes Back parody from there.
Despite the fact that I know online shopping and credit cards are a match made in hell, I can't help but make use of them. Most of my purchases come mainly from Animaxis and in the time that I have possessed a credit card, I have made about three purchases and have teetered just THAT close to having to pay the bank interest. My first two purchases were in the range of 100 each and my third purchase (whose package came today and has me in slightly mixed reactions. Some of the items just aren't quite as big as I had hoped, looking at the site) is probably going to be upwards of 200 or more. I am a consumer whore, indeed. Fortunately however, I've decided to stay away from a large majority of other online stores for now, focussing on my obsession with anime and its various paraphenalia; and surprising even myself, I realised that there wasn't a whole lot I really wanted to buy. It's strangely anticlimatic. After years of waiting for a chance to break loose on a credit card, I make a couple of big impulse purchases and end up feeling.... well, silly. It's like I waited all that time for nothing and that there isn't anything I REALLY want to get. Oh sure, the male mind is such that it operates much on impulse purchases that they'll have no real sense of attachment to opnce possessed.... But whatabout the deep, almost unholy need for consumerism? To buy that thing you've always wanted to before but never could.... until now! It's all so disappointing. So I think that after I've paid off this third purchase from Animaxis, I'll just keep my credit card in my wallet (complaining at its lack of use and complete disservice to the Devil) and leave it there.
.... Yeah, I didn't believe that either when I wrote that. The temptation is just too large and there are just so many other places I haven't even LOOKED at yet for online shopping. I can feel my will crumbling away as we speak....
So anyway, major developments: I got myself a job, I got myself a credit card and.... I'm getting driving lessons! Yes, after 5 years of procrastination I've decided to take the plunge and drive a motor vehicle! I've only had one lesson so far (in which I learnt that while I can do complex maneuvers like a three point turn and reverse into someones driveway, I can't steer, maintain a straight line or negotiate corners properly. THIS IS NOT NORMAL) and having the next one tomorrow, so wish me luck! And on that note, I'm going to end the first real entry in this journal in three months. Catchya later sometime sooner, hopefully.
