That Awkward Moment When.

It's never really a good thing when you get a message from your boss to your phone that says,

"So. Hi Julie. It's [insert name of boss].  I was just calling because, um, well, you see, I made a mistake. I kind of screwed up a lot. This is awkward. No, oh no, I mean, don't worry about it. It's nothing bad for you, it's good for you really! Just please give me a call whenever you get a chance...Oh..."

Fairly confident that was almost his message exactly. He's a gem.  I got this message, and I was a little bit concerned. What could this message possibly mean?

Seeing as I had no choice but to call him back, I called him back.
Then we faced the awkward moment and awkward phone conversation when he had to tell me he forgot that he hired me, and forgot that I had already worked hours, and so he hadn't put me on the pay roll.  And so therefore, I needed to come in and pick up my paycheck.

I didn't mind him calling me to tell me I was getting paid.  But it was a little beyond awkward knowing he had literally forgotten that I was working there even though I had been there every day for about a week.
Cool. Glad that happened.

Someday, Someone's Going to be Famous

I really do like the people I work with.  They make being there bearable and they are genuinely nice and wonderful people.  Especially when they put up with my never knowing how to do anything and training me to be a better worker and such.

There is one girl, though, and she's quite a character.  She has been the one mostly training me how to do things and I work pretty much every shift with her.  However, things that must be known.
1) I am kind of unsure how old she is.  I'm thinking she's early 20's, but I am absolutely awful at guessing how old people are.  But, she is extraordinarily knowledgeable in the ways of Dairy Queen, and I feel that she has worked there several years.
2)  She did not/is not planning on going to college.

And I suppose this is where she gets kind of interesting.  And no, I don't want people to think that I don't like her or think she's dumb because I do not think those things at all, but sometimes she says things and I just don't know what to do.  I'm not very excellent at dealing with people when they are not on the same or higher level of intelligence than me.  It's a skill that I am trying to work on.

But sometimes, she talks, and I correct her grammar in my head, and I feel like an ultimate snob.

Getting past that though, she told me that she thought about going to cosmetology school, but since they did not have the money for her to do that, she is doing the next best thing: she's going to become a bartender.  And trust me, she would definitely be the most endearing bartender.  So she was explaining to me all about how she's going to become a bartender and be making the big bucks because that's what bartenders do. They make big bucks.

Then I had that awkward moment when you know she's right that she's going to be making lots of money and you realize all of the potential jobs that you have lined up for your potential future are going to be high on the passion for you, and low on the moneys. But shhhh.

But, of all of the things that she said to me, and all of the things that she does, there is one thing that drives me kind of mental.  I know that some people just can't help it, but..she's tone-deaf.  And not the endearing tone-deaf where they know that they are but sing anyways.  She thinks that she is like, the token soloist of an epically competing choir.  She was serenading me to Pink's new single, "Perfect", when she stopped and looked at me and goes,
"Just so you know, someday, I'm either going to be a famous actress or a famous singer.  I'm not sure which one, but you'll be able to say you knew me back when we worked together at Dairy Queen." I didn't know how to respond.  I told her that, "sometimes, dreams do come true so I guess you should go big or go home."

Then, to myself, I could only think: "I really hope you shoot for the actress thing because..awkward for you if you shoot for the singing thing.."
For the most part, I really do love the people I work with. 
But I am very thankful for the fact that I have a filter.

The Cupcake

So, I decorated cupcakes.  When they don't know what to have me do, sometimes they just send me off to the other room to box some cakes or to clean some tables, or in this instance, to decorate some cupcakes.  Which, mind you, are not even cupcakes.  They're just ice cream frozen in layers..but that's besides the point.

Some of the people that I work with are truly gems.  But, they definitely proved it to me after I decorated these cupcakes.  The girl who sent me back told me that I could put on the cupcakes whatever I pleased.  Since they were up front serving customers and doing their typical shenanigans I decided to be artistic and take my time on the decorations.  Some of them had flowers on them, some were just plaid, some were covered in sprinkles, and when I decided to be particularly elaborate, one of them said Dairy Queen.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't it make sense to have your cupcakes from Dairy Queen say Dairy Queen on them?  I didn't think it was that far-fetched.

So I took the cupcakes out to the front when I finished them to put the lids on them, and two of the girls are goggling at them to see what different designs I put on them.  I move away to retrieve more lids, and I hear the one girl point to the written-on cupcake and say to the other one "What does that say?"

Now pause.  The workers at DQ do this thing frequently where they don't want to hurt my feelings, so they will talk to each other about things to see if they're okay, rather than just flat-out telling me that I'm doing something wrong.  This was kind of one of those moments.  They talk as if I'm not there.  And so, this girl asks the other girl what the cupcake says.  I thought this was a little odd, I mean, WHAT ELSE WOULD THE CUPCAKE SAY? But, I figured maybe she was just having trouble reading it, and so I didn't think much of it. Until..

The other one responded: "I think it says Dairy Queen.."
There is an awkward pause, and then..."Um. Dairy what?"

WHAT. ELSE. KIND OF DAIRY SOMETHING WOULD IT SAY?! I honestly just cannot understand how you could not know what it would say after someone says "Dairy.." We work at Dairy Queen!  It was just one of those moments where I honestly just had no idea what to respond or what to do.  I felt so incredibly intelligent and so confused about society.

I just continued to put lids on my cupcakes and moved on.

The Blizzard Machine [Of Death]

Blizzards are a very popular choice at Dairy Queen.  Probably one of the best options and most sold items, I would guess.  However, the blizzard machines, while most used, are kind of evil.  It's not that they're really all that dangerous or all that bad, but more possibly that I'm just inept.  Within my first two weeks at work, I managed to injure myself at least somewhat twice because of these blizzards.

The first was the fault of the large blizzard.  I apologize to anyone who can manage to eat an entire large blizzard and enjoy it, but I despise America and its general obesity where such a size seems normal because making large blizzards is possibly one of my least favorite things to do at work.  They are huge, and more often than not, while filling them, that is when the ice cream machine decides to start popping.  Also, when you are trying to mix them in the mixer, and they are just so..LARGE. I understand, yes, idiotic moment, they are supposed to be large, but it's pretty challenging to hold onto one of those things the way that you need to keep them mixing properly when they are of that size.

So, there I was.  I was mixing a peanut butter crunch LARGE blizzard, which by the way, looked delectable.  I had been running around like a crazy person, it was a busy rush, and I was trying to mix this large blizzard.  My hands were soaked because I had just been washing the blizzard collars so that we would have some to actually use while in our rush.  The largeness of the blizzard was making it challenging to try to get all of the peanut butter down into the blizzard, and the crunch pieces were spewing out the top periodically.

Then it was the moment where it all went wrong.  My slippery hands began sliding down the sides of the blizzard cup. The machine caught the wrong flow of the ice cream and the blizzard ricocheted out of my hands.  In a desperate attempt to catch it, I caught my finger on the blade spinning rapidly.  I managed to knock the blizzard in the general direction of the sink, getting blizzard only all over me, the machine, and the sink. 

But this was the smallest of my worries:  I had broken my fingernail.  Now, before you judge me for being a real life barbie doll, complaining about my broken nail, you must know that this was a SERIOUS break.  It ripped, and it was gross.  I still had a large blizzard hanging in the abyss of treats-to-be-made, and I did the best thing I could do.  I pulled the hanging, ripped nail off of its last connection in order to keep from the possibility of it ending up in this blizzard that needed made. 

Yet, my finger protested this action, and proceeded to bleed.  And not just the little kind of bleeding.  It was like that paper cut that won't stop bleeding no matter how long you put pressure on it.  But we were in a rush, and that large peanut butter crunch blizzard needed made.  So, I took one for the team.  I grabbed the large cup, I made that blizzard, carefully keeping my finger extended away from the cup.  I flipped the blizzard machine on, and I mixed that blizzard with all of my dairy queen worker passion.  I wiped the drip of blood off the side of that blizzard cup, took it to the counter and then...

I asked for a band-aid.

Since then, the blizzard machine and I have been a lot friendlier.  I have learned that sometimes it is important to turn it down some for blending a milkshake, and that I should always clean them more than the DQ people instruct me to.  However, I did have another blizzard mishap.  This one was much less eventful, and not related to equipment and mostly just related to my stupidity.

The blizzard collar gets stuck into the top of the blizzard cup, and some of them have rivets in them to help keep the metal collar in the cup.  Unfortunately, these rivets are too successful sometimes.  I was trying to pry this metal collar out of the cup.  I was pulling and pulling and yanking and yanking and then I finally got it off
...and punched myself in the face.

But I mean, story of my life, I guess.

The First Day

DISCLAIMER: If you really like eating at Dairy Queen, like, on a regular basis, I'm going to tell you in advance some of the things I complain about might make you not want to eat there.  However, if you only go there maybe a few times every summer, don't worry about it, you won't die.  But some things might disenchant, so I'm just forewarning.

I was about to start my first day of work.  Jessica told me I was going to probably hate it, but that it would be alright.  I wasn't entirely sure what this meant, but my mother lectured me on the fact that I would only get out of it what I put into it so I tried to maintain the best possible attitude that I could.

I arrived at work the first day, clad in khakis and wondering what exactly I was getting myself into. I had to sit in a booth by myself for 10 minutes while my boss tried to get "organized." (Which, I've come to find, is no small feat.)  He then brings me back, gives me the classy DQ polos and visor, and I changed into my work clothes.  Not that I expected to start right away, but then I got the absolute JOY of watching "instructional videos."

Now, some people might not understand my sarcasm when I say that I watched instructional videos, because you'd THINK that videos with instructions would be helpful.  In theory, it is a great idea.  But only in theory.  I sat there for the first two hours of my work day, watching these videos in the front of the store by where the customers come in on how to make ice cream treats and keep track of things on log sheets, and make burgers.  These all would be helpful except:
1) Making ice cream treats is impossible to learn unless you are actually making them. 2) We don't even use log sheets. and 3) we don't even have burgers at our dairy queen location.

So, after watching these excess videos, my boss taught me how to use a mop, and how to use a vacuum cleaner.  Yes, I had to be taught, because apparently a lot of people don't know how to use a mop or a vacuum cleaner. How does this happen to our society?
I also really liked the moment where the one worker told me I didn't need to wash my hands before making anything because I wasn't going to touch anything the customers were actually eating.  Not to mention they don't even have soap at almost any of the sinks with which I could even wash my hands with anyways.

I only ended up actually working about 1.5 hours on my first shift, and I learned very little about anything, and very little happened.  I mostly felt like a burden to everyone.  It was the oddest sensation: I felt utterly stupid because I didn't know how to do all the random things that someone is supposed to magically know how to do once you become a worker at DQ.  Yet, in all of this stupidity that I was experiencing, I also felt intelligent.  Too intelligent to be employed at this establishment.

I left the building at the end of my shift and headed out to my car.  I removed my visor and sighed.
This was going to become my summer, and it was only day one.

Getting Hired

As many college students know, having a job during the summer is a necessary evil unless you want to either
a) literally do nothing for four months, or b) go broke and have to go to community college.

Immediately after I arrived home from the DYT, I applied to 15-20 places.  This was the second week of May. And then, pretty much, I just waited.  I called places, and I continued to apply to places, and I assumed it was pretty hopeless.  I was feeling pretty pathetic about money in general and that I was going to be such a burden to my parents, then the worst and best possible thing that could've happened, happened to me.

I got a call two weeks later...

...from Dairy Queen.  They called me in for the interview the next day.  I was ecstatic! I was going to have a job, for pretty much the first time in my life (nanny jobs aside), and more importantly, I was going to be making money. 
(As a quick aside, I hope you don't think that I am materialistic because I seem to think that money is so important here. It's more of a life necessity at this point, considering college is pretty much just spending lots of money.)
Anyways, I was so excited about this call, and figured the interview would be fairly simple.  I should have been clued in about what I was getting myself into when they called me back a half hour later to verify what time my interview was because they had already forgotten.  30 minutes later, and they had forgotten when they had set up an interview with me..even though THEY had scheduled the time.

Naive to what might be coming in my future, I still remained excited.  I went to the interview, which was approximately 5 minutes long, and all they needed was to verify that I was not a total creeper and was competent enough to give them my schedule and I was hired.

The forgotten time of the interview, the simplicity of the interview itself, the schedule handwritten on a ragged paper on the wall, the starting on the next day with little to no training, and the other people who worked there and gave me somewhat judging looks should have given me a clue-in to how my summer and the beginning of my job there at the DQ were going to be, but it was only the beginning of the summer that wouldn't kill me.