Eating Breakfast, Go Away

I start work pretty early in the morning, usually around 5am. I never eat breakfast before I go to work, that's just too early for me. Instead, I eat a few hours later, at 7am. This is my routine every day, and it does not change.

I apparently have not yet learned to go stand and hide behind a big display or something when I'm eating.

We usually get the same customers everyday at the same time, when they're on their way to work.

These customers will stop in every morning at the same time I am eating; 7am.

These same customers will then make a comment to me about me eating every single day at 7am.

Usually it's:

"Eating again? Heh heh heh." or "Everytime I come in here you're eating."

Or they will look at me and make big chomping faces as if their face is stuffed with food.

How they expect me to find that funny is beyond me. It's 7am, I'm still tired and I'm eating my breakfast. You come in at the same time every day, maybe I seem to be 'eating all the time' because I eat my breakfast at the same time everyday too!

I've even done little experiments. One day I'll be eating something healthy like an apple, and the next day I'll make sure I eat something that is totally bad for me, like a ham and cheese breakfast sandwich dripping with grease and covered in syrup. No matter what I eat, I still get the same reactions.

In conclusion, if you make a comment to me when I'm eating that I eat all the time, then you will experience the little things I do to get my revenge.

Step Away From the Doughnuts

Lots of convenience stores sell fresh doughnuts every day. Usually these are delivered in the middle of the night to stores so that they can have fresh ones for the morning customers.

This is great, if you like doughnuts. However, there is only one good time to get those doughnuts. After that, you don't want to have anything to do with them.

My advice? Only buy those fresh doughnuts if you work early in the morning. I get to work at 6am. The doughnuts are usually delivered sometime around 4am. So I can't vouch what has happened to them by the time I get there 2 hours later, but I can tell you what I observe.

Usually around 6:30am we get our first morning rush. These people are usually okay, because they are often too tired to eat and just want their coffee. The doughnuts are not usually touched at this time.

Our 7am customers are a little more awake and are looking for some food before getting to the office.

They will then spot the doughnut case.

It is then that I see, during this morning rush, doughnuts picked up, inspected, then put back down.

I will see people pick up a doughnut, decide they don't want it and put it back down, then lick the frosting or glaze off their fingers and then go pick up another one. Usually they take that one, but I've seen people put that one back too and continue to pick up various doughnuts with their recently licked fingers.

I've seen people poke doughnuts to see how soft they are and then grab another one that they didn't just touch.

I've seen people cough and sneeze all over the doughnuts in the case.

I've even seen people drop a doughnut on the floor, pick it up and then put it back in the case. (That is when I step in, pull it out of the doughnut case and make them pay for it).

I am very observant. And 99% of the time I will never buy a fresh doughnut past 7am.

Conclusion: You only have a half hour window in which to get fresh, untouched, unsneezed, unlicked and undropped doughnuts: 6:30am - 7am. If it's after that time, you'd be better off eating from a garbage can.

Different Shifts

My favorite time of the day is usually the morning shift. Actually, it's the morning and evening shift. In the early morning, we get the customers that are just waking up in the morning and need their coffee. Most of the time, they are too out of it to be mean and they just want to get their stuff and go to work. That's what I like. The ones that are in and out.

It's pretty much the same way with the early evening customers too. They are usually the ones that are there in the morning too, and they are stopping in again on their way home from work. Those people just want to get their stuff and get home.

While I tend to like most of the morning crowd, it's usually the ones near the end of that shift that manage to piss me off. It's 11am and they should be at work by now, but instead they are getting their coffee and spilling it all over the place. Take today for instance. I had this guy come in with his kid. He barely spoke English, but you could tell he was the type to boss his wife around and drink alot. Anyways, he came in to get coffee, but I don't think that's what he wanted in the first place. It was just the fact that he happened to see me cleaning the coffee area that made him decide that he had to have coffee right then and there. So he kind of moves in front of me, apologizing while pushing me out of the way. So I stand off to the side and wait for him to finish. Soon after, I hear a cuss word and realize he is standing there holding his dripping cup of coffee half full, while the other half is on the floor.

Really?

So I get pissed and go get the mop. He is attempting to clean it up using over 1000 of our napkins bunched together. So I tell him that I got it and he proceeds to stand there refilling his cup while I'm trying to mop around him. At least wait til I'm done cleaning up YOUR MESS before you get your fucking coffee. Asshole. So yes, it's people like that that really make me mad.

The shift that I dislike the most is the afternoon shift. That shift is mostly full of old people playing lottery, and people that have no jobs so they have nothing else to do but walk around the store looking suspicious. Oh, and it's also full of kids that are getting off of school.

That shift is usually the slowest one of the day. The people that come in are lottery players. They have nothing better to do than play the lottery. And stand there. And scratch. Every. Single. Ticket. At. The. Counter. What they don't realize, is that there are other people that come in to the store needing to buy things. These ticket scratchers think they own the counter and not only are they taking up space, they are littering so that I have to clean it up.

I wish we had an area that people could play their stupid tickets at. Most of the lottery customers are the worst. In fact, I'm dedicating a whole chapter just to them.

Anyways, back to the different shifts. While the worst shift is the afternoon one, the creepiest shift is the night shift, also known as the graveyard shift. There are many types of freaks the frequent the convenience stores late at night, and I'm sure I've seen every one of them.

It's no wonder these people only come out at night, they are too fucked-up to be among the general population.

Usually the drunk crowd comes in for a few hours, but then after that, around 1am to 3am, that's when the weird shit happens. It's like a ghost town out there once beer sales close for the night. Then all the weirdos and druggies come out. There's nothing worse than being on a night shift by yourself, have it be all quiet, and then watch as someone stumbles in that looks like they are going to rob you.

There should be a rule for all freaks that come out at night. Don't constantly stare up at the cashier while looking for something to buy. It makes me suspicious and ready to call the cops.