Working in Fast Food

"I've worked in fast food all my life."

Cindy has been working in the fast food industry for the majority of her life. Three years ago, she was working at a job that was causing her a lot of stress so when her best friend offered to help her get a job at Blimpie, she decided to go for it. She started out as a sub maker and since then has worked herself all the way up to the assistant manager position. To accomplish this, she said that she worked very hard, learning the store and bookwork quickly and coming in whenever she was needed. Although she really enjoys her job now, she explained to us that there was a lot less stress and responsibility involved when she worked as a sub maker. Now as the assistant manager, she is responsible for overseeing the other employees to make sure they are doing their jobs correctly as well as carrying out her own duties. "...now I have to make sure everybody is doing their job right... and try to satisfy the customers and my employees, which is really hard." The worst part of her job now, she says, is lecturing the other employees when something goes wrong.

"Sometimes I wish I never took the position, but there's times I'm really glad I did."

We also wanted to know some more general information about Cindy's experiences with working in fast food. When asked who makes up the majority of workers in the store, Cindy explained that it is mostly teenagers that work there. At that particular store, there are five full time adults and the rest are teenagers who work at night and during the weekends. We asked Cindy what her reactions were to the ideas that fast food service is geared more toward younger people as part time jobs and, if so, had this affected the design of the job so that adult employees are hurt with regard to wages, benefits and hours. She feels that, at least in her store, these ideas did not hold true. The teenagers get a fair amount of hours and they receive decent pay, yet the adult employees still work full time, receive health insurance, and get raises. She also really likes working with the younger kids and she thinks they are a lot of fun.

"We enjoy the teenagers, they keep us on our toes!"

Basically, Cindy really loves her job at Blimpie and she feels that the people she works with are "like a close family." The job does not come without a certain amount of stress though. For her, the most stressful aspect of her job is dealing with customers when they get angry or rude. Although it doesn't happen very often, Cindy does all that she can to satisfy the customers when they are not happy. To avoid becoming very angry, she will walk away from the situation and have someone else handle it. Cindy also added that it sometimes gets very stressful on the weekends when the store gets really busy. The group at Blimpie never has a problem working through the stress though. With the close relationships they have made, the are able to talk to each other and work out their problems.

Cindy thoroughly enjoys her job in fast food and she told us that it gives her a sense of security and satisfaction.

"The feeling of being in control over the whole place, making sure everything goes right, helping people when they need it, I really like it when the employees look up to me."

 
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