When i was working at McDonalds, I was consistently given the "Walkers" shift. This amounts to accepting a delivery of stock, rotating the stock that's already stored in the freezers and other stock areas, organising it into a logical order, and putting it away neatly. I was given this shift often, because I was apparently quite good at it.
I suppose all that time playing Tetris paid off somehow.
Aside from the usual woes of the delivery, such as management ordering more stock than is physically possible to fit on the shelves while still following legal regulations as far as safe stack heights are concerned, one particular delivery sticks in my mind far more than the others. Though simultaneously, far less as well.
The delivery had been taken, and all the boxes counted up. It turns out that we were missing about four boxes of tatsoi lettuce - the "fancy" (read extra leafy so they can get away with putting less on a burger) lettuce used for the crispy chcken burgers (and the Angus burgers). The delivery driver, Tony, decided that we should check the other stores' orders on the truck. Sometimes the idiots who put the stock on the truck mix the orders up.
I went to assist him in taking a look. The back door on the truck was a strange kind of latch (which I'd seen before on my father's truck), where there was a lever in a holder. Raise the lever and pull it outwards to open the truck door. Unfortunately for me, the lever got stuck in the holder, so I started hitting it, to make it move upwards, and therefore open the door.
With my amazingly bad luck, the lever finally flew upwards. It also flew outwards, straight into my nose, knocking my backwards a few steps, and sending my glasses flying a few meters away. After retrieving my eyes, I realised that my nose was bleeding, quite heavily. I (somehow) calmly acquired some paper towel, and proceeded to sit in the crew room, plugging my nose with it to wait for it to stop.
Then I woke up, on the floor, with a co-worker's crotch in my face. When he realised I was awake, he hurriedly moved (I think... uh hope? that he was simply laying me down properly, but from an awkward angle) to reveal about 12 more faces standing around. My first question was "Why are you teabagging me?", which was quickly followed by "Where am I?"
About 15 minutes later, an ambulance arrived. The lady from the ambo woke me up (I had passed out again, by this point) and tried to move me. I then woke up again, to a lecture along the lines of "If you do that again, I will leave you here". Apparently, I had passed out again, and almost hit her in the face! Apparently, she took this matter personally... because I was totally in control of my actions at this point -.-
Eventually, they got me to the hospital, where I awaited a doctor. Five hours later, I saw a doctor, who determined that I had a mild concussion, and had somehow not broken any bones. If the lever had hit me a little to the right, I would have broken my nose. Left? Cheekbone. up would have been glasses/eyes, and any lower and I would have lost teeth. I was amazingly lucky.
A few days later, I was back on the job - the next shift being taking the delivery again.
A few weeks later, the regional manager took me aside, and blasted me for attempting to help the truck driver. Apparently its not my job to help people who are helping me do my job. Yet another reason why McDonald's is a trap!
And for the record, our lettuce wasn't on the truck.
Showing posts with label pain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pain. Show all posts
Monday, August 1, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Stories from McDonalds - SCIENCE!
Every workplace has a token idiot. Well, most workplaces do. My one doesn't... unless that idiot is me. Which I suppose is a perfectly reasonable conclusion to come to, though I sure hope not!
Anyway, my point is that my prior workplace - McDonalds, is utterly full of them. Full enough that I have quite a bunch of stories I find quite amusing from when I used to work there, so I thought I would share a few of them, beginning with today's post.
One of the shifts I was consistently subjected to while working there was known as "Walkers", which was taking the delivery off the truck and putting the stock away in a neat and orderly fashion. I quite enjoyed this shift, since it did not require me to be in uniform, and was a great way to get away from the bustle and heat of the kitchen, as well as other crew members that cause me no end of torture.
Well, except for one - since Walkers was a two person job (as well as the truck driver, but he really doesn't do much after throwing the boxes of stock at us). Quite often I had a rare good crew member with me to help. Of course, I occasionally had idiots too.
On this particular shift, all was going well enough. The freezer had been unloaded, but was woefully overstocked as per usual. The dry stock, which lives in a room temperature stockroom rather than a fridge or freezer, was also unloaded, and we were up to simply putting the stuff away and rotating it (so that food gets used before the use by dates - contrary to popular belief McDonalds actually does follow most food safety laws).
We were unpacking the bottles of flavouring for the coffees - for some reason we had fancy flavourings for the coffees in the McCafe of our store. As you would expect, these boxes contained bottles of the syrup. These bottles had lids on them, as one would also expect.
For some reason, my crew member took the bottle, turned it upside down, and was amazed when the lid prevented the syrup from pouring out. He was amazed enough that he called out to me (I was in the hallway getting another box) to get my attention, and when I appeared, he exclaimed "LOOK! Science!"
And all I could wish for was that he had GLADoS' vision of science imprinted upon him, and he go and scientifically discover the height that he could safely jump from without spilling the dust that was contained by his skull all over the concrete.
Anyway, my point is that my prior workplace - McDonalds, is utterly full of them. Full enough that I have quite a bunch of stories I find quite amusing from when I used to work there, so I thought I would share a few of them, beginning with today's post.
One of the shifts I was consistently subjected to while working there was known as "Walkers", which was taking the delivery off the truck and putting the stock away in a neat and orderly fashion. I quite enjoyed this shift, since it did not require me to be in uniform, and was a great way to get away from the bustle and heat of the kitchen, as well as other crew members that cause me no end of torture.
Well, except for one - since Walkers was a two person job (as well as the truck driver, but he really doesn't do much after throwing the boxes of stock at us). Quite often I had a rare good crew member with me to help. Of course, I occasionally had idiots too.
On this particular shift, all was going well enough. The freezer had been unloaded, but was woefully overstocked as per usual. The dry stock, which lives in a room temperature stockroom rather than a fridge or freezer, was also unloaded, and we were up to simply putting the stuff away and rotating it (so that food gets used before the use by dates - contrary to popular belief McDonalds actually does follow most food safety laws).
We were unpacking the bottles of flavouring for the coffees - for some reason we had fancy flavourings for the coffees in the McCafe of our store. As you would expect, these boxes contained bottles of the syrup. These bottles had lids on them, as one would also expect.
For some reason, my crew member took the bottle, turned it upside down, and was amazed when the lid prevented the syrup from pouring out. He was amazed enough that he called out to me (I was in the hallway getting another box) to get my attention, and when I appeared, he exclaimed "LOOK! Science!"
And all I could wish for was that he had GLADoS' vision of science imprinted upon him, and he go and scientifically discover the height that he could safely jump from without spilling the dust that was contained by his skull all over the concrete.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Why the 3D fad must be killed. Now.
There has been a small discussion of 3D technology on my Facebook page. I call it a small discussion, though that's embellishing it somewhat. It really boils down to me complaining about the 3DS hurting my eyes when I tested it the other day, and a few people commenting on said statement. I figure that my stance on 3D in general (as opposed to the 3DS on its own merits, or lack thereof) should be supported, and so today's topic came to be.
Well, the title of this post very succinctly sums up my feelings on the whole thing, but I suppose I should elaborate. I will be talking about 3D in the context of both games and film/TV, to be something resembling fair.
Let's start with the obvious. 3D has been done before now, obviously. Take a look at the Virtual Boy, for example. Actually, don't. Really, really, don't. It's screen had an amazing two colours - Red and Black. And it was in 3D. You could play for about 10 minutes before it broke your eyes.
But even before that, 3D has been achieved. For example, watching sports in 3D has been done for years. Centuries even. The Ancient Greeks even had 3D sports. This was usually achieved by leaving the home, and actually attending the event. There you go - an amazing full 3D event.
Snarkiness aside, there is something to be said for the concept of 3D movies and gaming. I reckon it would be great to be able to experience a game in full 3D surrounding you. However, the problems with 3D as it is now are:
A) It doesn't work
I haven't seen many movies in 3D, to be completely honest. Hell, I haven't seen Avatar in 3D or even in glorious 2D. The movies I *have* seen in 3D are Alice in Wonderland (the Johnny Depp one), and Tron Legacy. If there was ever going to be a movie where 3D would be amazing, Tron was it. However, the only real 3D effects I saw in that movie was a slight amount of depth perception on the house, near the start of the film. In Alice in Wonderland, there was a butterfly in one scene, and I'm not even sure it was part of the movie - it may have been the title screen or something. Admittedly my memory is hazy. The fact that I cannot recall anything about the 3D of these 3D movies is a bad sign, is it not?
B) The glasses suck
When I went to these 3D films, I had to wear 3D goggles, as they make you do all the time, obviously. The reason behind this is that (typically) there are two images being displayed, overlapped on each other. One is for your left eye, the other is for your right eye, but the images are slightly different. The lens on the glasses filter the images so your eye only sees the appropriate image, giving you this 3D effect. The one that doesn't work.
Am I the only one who has a problem with seemingly crossing your eyes for potentially hours on end? Am I the only one who thinks that this is a horrendous idea?
Anyway, this is why some people tend to get headaches and eye strains from this - your eyes feel like they are going funny because they ARE going funny. Intentionally. I don't know if there has been much research into this, but it sounds to me like a logical way to injure yourself.
On a related note, as a permanent glasses-wearer, wearing glasses over my glasses is impractical, and stupid.
C) It's a gimmick. An expensive gimmick
Nowadays, almost every big Hollywood film seems to be in 3D. A lot of them aren't designed initially for 3D, and just tack it on. This may be why my experiences mentioned under (A) were pathetic. It seems everyone is tacking pointless 3D onto their film in a bid to sell more movie tickets. At a higher price at that. Can't the filmmakers rely on good writing, and good acting to make money.
Well, it IS Hollywood we're talking about. I suppose they can't.
It's gimmickyness feels like the Nintendo Wii's motion controls to me - shoehorned into everything that is released to appeal to the idiots who go "ooh shiny" and then wonder why their heads hurt after watching the thing.
On a related note, I tried the Nintendo 3DS. It gave me a small headache, and made my eyes hurt a lot. Part of this is likely fatigue, I have been getting minor headaches a lot lately because I haven't been sleeping well. However, this was triggered almost instantly as I looked at the screen trying to play Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition.
To me, the 3Dness of the game looked like two distinctly different images slightly on top of each other, which was very disconcerting, and definitely the course of my headache. Somehow, I still managed to beat the CPU, but by that point, my mind had been made up - I am NOT buying this machine. I don't care that it would be my first opportunity to play more than 30 minutes of Ocarina of Time - if I can't get use of the main feature of a device, then I will not purchase that device.
And I will avoid 3D TVs, movies and gaming machines as well. I like to be able to see what I've paid to see, thankyou very much.
Well, the title of this post very succinctly sums up my feelings on the whole thing, but I suppose I should elaborate. I will be talking about 3D in the context of both games and film/TV, to be something resembling fair.
This is the Virtual Boy. It sucks. It's also 3D. Coincidence?
Let's start with the obvious. 3D has been done before now, obviously. Take a look at the Virtual Boy, for example. Actually, don't. Really, really, don't. It's screen had an amazing two colours - Red and Black. And it was in 3D. You could play for about 10 minutes before it broke your eyes.
But even before that, 3D has been achieved. For example, watching sports in 3D has been done for years. Centuries even. The Ancient Greeks even had 3D sports. This was usually achieved by leaving the home, and actually attending the event. There you go - an amazing full 3D event.
Snarkiness aside, there is something to be said for the concept of 3D movies and gaming. I reckon it would be great to be able to experience a game in full 3D surrounding you. However, the problems with 3D as it is now are:
A) It doesn't work
I haven't seen many movies in 3D, to be completely honest. Hell, I haven't seen Avatar in 3D or even in glorious 2D. The movies I *have* seen in 3D are Alice in Wonderland (the Johnny Depp one), and Tron Legacy. If there was ever going to be a movie where 3D would be amazing, Tron was it. However, the only real 3D effects I saw in that movie was a slight amount of depth perception on the house, near the start of the film. In Alice in Wonderland, there was a butterfly in one scene, and I'm not even sure it was part of the movie - it may have been the title screen or something. Admittedly my memory is hazy. The fact that I cannot recall anything about the 3D of these 3D movies is a bad sign, is it not?
ThinkGeek yet again tempts me, with the solution to 3D... these glasses make the 3D into 2D - and the film actually watchable
B) The glasses suck
When I went to these 3D films, I had to wear 3D goggles, as they make you do all the time, obviously. The reason behind this is that (typically) there are two images being displayed, overlapped on each other. One is for your left eye, the other is for your right eye, but the images are slightly different. The lens on the glasses filter the images so your eye only sees the appropriate image, giving you this 3D effect. The one that doesn't work.
Am I the only one who has a problem with seemingly crossing your eyes for potentially hours on end? Am I the only one who thinks that this is a horrendous idea?
Anyway, this is why some people tend to get headaches and eye strains from this - your eyes feel like they are going funny because they ARE going funny. Intentionally. I don't know if there has been much research into this, but it sounds to me like a logical way to injure yourself.
On a related note, as a permanent glasses-wearer, wearing glasses over my glasses is impractical, and stupid.
C) It's a gimmick. An expensive gimmick
Nowadays, almost every big Hollywood film seems to be in 3D. A lot of them aren't designed initially for 3D, and just tack it on. This may be why my experiences mentioned under (A) were pathetic. It seems everyone is tacking pointless 3D onto their film in a bid to sell more movie tickets. At a higher price at that. Can't the filmmakers rely on good writing, and good acting to make money.
Well, it IS Hollywood we're talking about. I suppose they can't.
It's gimmickyness feels like the Nintendo Wii's motion controls to me - shoehorned into everything that is released to appeal to the idiots who go "ooh shiny" and then wonder why their heads hurt after watching the thing.
On a related note, I tried the Nintendo 3DS. It gave me a small headache, and made my eyes hurt a lot. Part of this is likely fatigue, I have been getting minor headaches a lot lately because I haven't been sleeping well. However, this was triggered almost instantly as I looked at the screen trying to play Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition.
To me, the 3Dness of the game looked like two distinctly different images slightly on top of each other, which was very disconcerting, and definitely the course of my headache. Somehow, I still managed to beat the CPU, but by that point, my mind had been made up - I am NOT buying this machine. I don't care that it would be my first opportunity to play more than 30 minutes of Ocarina of Time - if I can't get use of the main feature of a device, then I will not purchase that device.
And I will avoid 3D TVs, movies and gaming machines as well. I like to be able to see what I've paid to see, thankyou very much.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
My Back Hurts.
Well, it did, anyway.
Last Friday was my girlfriend's birthday, and so we spent the weekend together doing random-but-already-somewhat-planned-by-her-mother stuff. Friday consisted of work, followed by giving her presents, then getting takeaway pasta from a nearby place. Luckily they were good on the gluten-free thing, so weren't killing me via foodiness.
She was given a new car stereo for her birthday - with a huge (read scary) subwoofer in the boot. Hilariously enough, the subwoofer unclips and can be removed if we want to use the boot for, you know, holding things.
I gave her a trinket box with a dragon on top, and a large dragon figure. I forgot to take a photo of it, but that wouldn't do it justice anyway. Its a large red dragon, wrapped around a castle tower, wings spread out. The entire figure is taller than my head - it surprised me when it came out of its box!
On Saturday morning, we went and had a massage. This is why my back hurt - it was my first time having a massage, and the dude probably figured out quite quickly what my occupation is, considering the amount of time he spent doing ouchy related things to my back and neck. Eventually I caved in and got the guy to put less pressure on me - as good as it would have done, it was simply hurting too much.
The massage did wonders for my fingers though, which I've annihilated with years of gaming.
After that, we spent some time gaming, then went out to a French restaurant for dinner. It was alright.
Sunday was a lazy day, spent mostly on videogames, and in the pool, though we did spend some time beginning the cosplay outfits. Now I have cut material for my cape. Kinda scary really, now that its started. We also went to the Starlight Cinema that evening, to watch Tomorrow When the War Began. The film was average (admittedly not as horrible as I expected the book to movie conversion to be), though the cinema people megafailed us.
Mainly due to the fact that, somehow, they had managed to have the focus of the projector completely wrong. The ads were crystal clear, but the movie was blurry as all hell - it was almost like I'd taken my glasses off for the duration of the film, without the comfort of actually not wearing my glasses! Annoying!
Anyways, Happy Birthday Sarah!
Last Friday was my girlfriend's birthday, and so we spent the weekend together doing random-but-already-somewhat-planned-by-her-mother stuff. Friday consisted of work, followed by giving her presents, then getting takeaway pasta from a nearby place. Luckily they were good on the gluten-free thing, so weren't killing me via foodiness.
She was given a new car stereo for her birthday - with a huge (read scary) subwoofer in the boot. Hilariously enough, the subwoofer unclips and can be removed if we want to use the boot for, you know, holding things.
I gave her a trinket box with a dragon on top, and a large dragon figure. I forgot to take a photo of it, but that wouldn't do it justice anyway. Its a large red dragon, wrapped around a castle tower, wings spread out. The entire figure is taller than my head - it surprised me when it came out of its box!
On Saturday morning, we went and had a massage. This is why my back hurt - it was my first time having a massage, and the dude probably figured out quite quickly what my occupation is, considering the amount of time he spent doing ouchy related things to my back and neck. Eventually I caved in and got the guy to put less pressure on me - as good as it would have done, it was simply hurting too much.
The massage did wonders for my fingers though, which I've annihilated with years of gaming.
After that, we spent some time gaming, then went out to a French restaurant for dinner. It was alright.
Sunday was a lazy day, spent mostly on videogames, and in the pool, though we did spend some time beginning the cosplay outfits. Now I have cut material for my cape. Kinda scary really, now that its started. We also went to the Starlight Cinema that evening, to watch Tomorrow When the War Began. The film was average (admittedly not as horrible as I expected the book to movie conversion to be), though the cinema people megafailed us.
Mainly due to the fact that, somehow, they had managed to have the focus of the projector completely wrong. The ads were crystal clear, but the movie was blurry as all hell - it was almost like I'd taken my glasses off for the duration of the film, without the comfort of actually not wearing my glasses! Annoying!
Anyways, Happy Birthday Sarah!
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