My Last Shift at McDonald's

This is a true story, and it’s disgusting. It was my last day of work at McDonald’s and I just wanted to get out of there. I had a lobby shift, which meant I had to keep the tables, floors, and the playplace (indoor playground) all nice and clean. Generally, lobby shifts are given to new hires as a form of initiation, so something told me this shift was given to me as a form of revenge for quitting. Ironically enough this one particular shift provided me with the most disgusting cleaning jobs ever. You see, the playplace is pretty much a kid infestation. There are literally 50 or 60 kids at all times yelling, screaming, fighting, and peeing. Yes, peeing. For some reason, the red slides, yellow tunnels, and loud noises, made kids want to pee.

So as you might have already guessed one kid decided to pee while I was working, and guess who had to clean it up. The proud mom broke out the bad news by saying “sorry, but my son peed in the tunnel.” At that point I was going to leave the job and just head home, but I really wanted the reference, so I decided to do my job and get it over with. So, armed with plastic gloves, a garbage bag (used as a protective suit), paper towels, and spray bottle of sanitizer, I headed over to the playplace looking like a hero about to save the world. I was greeted by a bunch of kids, who happily informed me of where my job needed to be done. Apparently the kid was afraid of heights, because he decided to take a leak in the highest tunnel in the playplace.

So I climbed up, and got my first glimpse of the crime scene, a small puddle of pee lying in the middle of the tunnel, 16 feet up in the air. So I cursed the day I applied for this damn job, and decided to take a different approach to cleaning the mess. I recalled a lesson in chemistry class where we learned about concentration, and how to dilute solutions. So, I put my education up to the test, and sprayed large of amounts of sanitizer to…how do I put it…neutralize the solution. I figured, the new mixture was less harmful now, and I finished the cleanup by placing large amounts of paper towels over the large puddle, to help soak up the mess. Thing is, I left the towels behind… on purpose. I thought the soaked up towels will serve as a reminder for the kids not to pee in the tunnel again. To hide my poor cleaning job, I told the parents to tell their kids not to go into the tunnel for “safety reasons.”

About half an hour later another mom comes up to me and says “my son puked on the floor.” I wanted to pass the mop over to her, but then I realized that she wanted me to clean it up. Unlike my response to the previous accident, my response to this matter was slow. You know, maybe if I waited long enough the problem would disappear. I guess the mom was displeased with my slow response and told my manager. The manager and I had a little talk, and I decided to clean the mess up, Omar style. So I filled a bucket with clean soap water and headed over to the playplace, where the puke was located. It’s interesting to note here that the puked hamburger, had a very close resemblance to a normal hamburger, which makes you think… Anyway, for this clean up job I used the classic “dispersion theory.” All of us have used dispersion theory before, it’s when you take any localized mess and spread it over a large area, making the mess appear…. Less messy. So I took the mop, and placed it over the puke, and went ahead moving the mess around in circular motion, almost tracing an infinity sign. So instead of having all the puke concentrated on one tile, it was now spread over 10 tiles. During the cleaning job, the mom was giving me the dirtiest look, almost saying “You won’t get away with this cleanup.” But I got away, after the cleanup I had ten minutes left in my shift, and I thought it was time to leave the place for good. That was 4 years ago, and I never stepped into that restaurant ever again.