side stand of doom

There are three concession stands at my theatre. There is the big one in the middle that has 12 registers. It's huge. It's like the size of the floral shop I work at (if you include the back portion). But then, on the weekends when we are busier, we open the small ones that each have four registers and are down each hallway. One of the registers on the main stand we never use for customers-it's used for employees because we get discounted food on our breaks. There is also the pretzel display right there on the counter space so it makes sense we don't open it.

So today we had all 11 of the main stand registers open. We always have all of them open and since I was coming in on a late shift because I work at the florist on Saturday, I figured I'd have a main stand register. I'd take a 12-8 when they left or they'd have me on food prep until 10 and stick me on one then.

BUT NO.

No, they had stuck me over on South stand. I was like WTF? Not only did they stick me over at South. They stuck me over there BY MYSELF. Which means, you can't leave if there are people walking around, the hall has to be empty or you have to be closed to do things like run to the bathroom or the water fountain. If you are by yourself it is a bitch if you run out of anything because you basically have to pray someone from main stand will come and check and see if you are stocked.

Someone came over like fifteen minutes into my shift, but didn't stock anything which pissed me off because I was half empty on water bottles. So I made up a list of everything I needed and luckily someone came over pretty soon and then started the process of getting me everything I needed.

I resigned myself to side stand, even though I HATE working side stand. I HATE IT. It's typically boring and you have less things than main stand. Today it was even worse. If I had one customer-I had twenty customers, a line that stretched all the way across the hallway to the opposite wall. At one point, I had this line and I could SEE the lines at main stand were shorter. When I mentioned it, did anyone move? No, of course not even though main stand has at least three registers open at any given moment (even if people are on break) and I was all by myself.

Then south stand has the demented cheese. Someone at some point broke the cheese dispenser and so you have to unscrew it and carefully pour the cheese instead of pressing a button. This means that the cheese attempts to spill everywhere. Including on you, and it's HOT. And people kept buying nachos and in my head I'm like fuck you alllllllll. I'm usually so happy to give people what they want, but not when I have broken equipment. And I keep having to run to main stand (through the giant line of people who are like what the fuck is she leaving for?) for one thing or another and I would use these runs to attempt to stock up but I have no idea what the fuck I need to be grabbing and dragging back because I can't anticipate what the people want.

My entire line is getting frustrated with me (even though I TOLD them to go to main stand where the lines were shorter) and I keep running out of this and that. NO ONE from main stand has been over to see if I need jack shit. Some lady yells at me because there is no butter (all our butter is self serve) so I say I'll get someone on that, but there is butter over on the other table she could use. She does one of those -roll eyes, why isn't this girl helping me- even though I'm in the middle of running and getting something for a customer in my line of doom. And some man comes up to the side of the counter to ask for a box.

OKAY, short tangent. IF YOU DO NOT GET A BOX WHEN YOU ARE BUYING YOUR FOOD, DON'T FUCKING INTERRUPT ME AND THE CUSTOMER I'M CURRENTLY HELPING BECAUSE YOU DECIDE NOW YOU NEED A BOX. I HATE YOU IDIOTS. I HATE EVERYONE WHO CUTS THE LINE FOR A BOX OR FOR A REFILL. YOU ARE TAKING MY TIME, THE TIME I'M SUPPOSED TO BE USING FOR THE PERSON WHO WAITED. I think we should have boxes on the ends of the counters, but every time they do they go really fast, but that is no excuse. Anticipate your needs better. If you have three people and you are planning on sharing and I ask you if you need a box and you say no, I am not going to drop everything to give you a box. It wouldn't be such a problem if we had the boxes that popped up or we had a stock of them. But they come flat, and we have to assemble them and while we can do it in thirty seconds or so, I hate ignoring the customer standing at my counter because idiothead came up the side and is now like EXCUSE ME, EXCUSE ME, CAN I HAVE A BOX.

No you may not, go get in the fucking line again. Too bad.

But anyhow, so it's like two hours of hell over at my stand and it's CLEAR main stand forgot about me and I'm wondering when the fuck I get to close and am I getting a break? Eventually I decide that it looks like they aren't going to give me a break. Which sucks because I had planned on one, but getting off at one is fine as well. But could someone please come and stock me over here? No, of course not.

Serves them right I had extra hot dogs. I HAD TO GRAB some and it's not my fault I inaccurately guessed how many I would sell. I had a line to the wall, and if I had been able to actually think about it, probably I wouldn't have grabbed four at that time.

And the General Manager didn't even speak condescendingly at me when he stopped by. I was impressed. Usually his tone is condescending. But maybe my eyes of doom told him that I was taking a moment of breathing instead of our always be cleaning shit. Which I don't mind, I like keeping my area clean, but after a line of doom, I need a minute or so to re-evaluate what needs to be done ASAP. Something GM doesn't think about I'm pretty sure. But he just mentioned how it would be pretty slow on my side and I responded that I expected them to close me out soon. (Not soon enough, I might mention.)

Anyways, so finally the manager comes over to close me out HALLELUJAH! At this point there is no way in hell that I'm going to tell them they forgot to send me on break. It's 11:15. I hate late breaks. If you don't send me on one so I'm back before 11, I'm going to purposefully not tell you about your mistake. The only time I've taken a break that late was when I took a second break at like 3am because we were allowed to be getting overtime since the regional manager was coming in to check our cleanliness or something so we were madly detailing. And that was sort of a special case because it involved overtime. But seriously, if I'm not out on break by 10:20, I "forget" to remind you.

I get to work closing the side stand, which means now when everyone comes up I get to be all "No, I'm closed, but main stand can help you." And they HAVE to go along with it. MUAHAHA. Even when the woman comes up and is all, you can't even give me my free popcorn (from the rewards card thingy) and I'm like no, no I can't. Sorry. -smile- When secretly I'm like HAHA LADY, GO WALK BACK TO MAIN STANDDDDD. I was feeling particularly vicious today after the nine thousandth customer who tried to talk to me when my back was turn (please learn, I can't fucking hear you, speak to my face, not my ponytail).

So the shift lead comes to help me out and finish the stand and I'm all...still not going to mention it, because there is still a chance they will send me on break and that would be suck. I finish side stand with him and I was going to mop it but then co-worker obviously needs help taking out the trash. We have four carts full so I help him and shift lead has gotten someone else to mop. And so I get started on the counters, and it's like 12:50 and I'm like...five more minutes and I tell the shift lead. So I pretend to see that he added me to mopping and was like...question, is it going to be a problem if I was never sent on break?

Moment of panic sets in, because if I had been called in at 6, they would be on serious break violation. But then he remembers I came in at 8. So he runs and goes to ask a manager. I know there is no way they will send me on break this late, because by the time I came back, they'd be done. So it would be stupid. He comes back, and yes, indeed I get sent home early. WHOOT. Apparently I was supposed to be sent on break at 10 and they forgot! Which is the only good thing that came out of working side stand.