The Second Worst Pizza Hut in Canada

The Second Worst Pizza Hut in Canada
by Michael Isner

"Look Michael, we are all prisoners of who we are", growled my Dad. And in one swoop he cut down a half hour of arguing about why my bosses were stupid, and why they couldn't run a business if their life depended on it. And why I got fired.

It's true, we are all prisoners of who we are I mused as our car bombed down the QEW homeward. We're all trapped in a big jumble of each others little dreams and reactions to survive running into each other.

And even though I didn't want a job, it was easy to blame everyone else for being bad business people and making stupid decisions. It's their fault for having glass lying around I thought while I mentally replayed my accident of sending 12 large panes of glass tumbling to the floor. It's funny how vividly something like that happens. I could see it now, in painful slow motion.

But getting fired sucks.

It was the summer of grade 11 and now I needed a new job. Even though all I really wanted to do was hang out with my friends all night I needed money. And it really wasn't to hard to get a job at the second worst Pizza Hut in Canada. I saw a sign for work outside the store, saw a cute girl cutting onions as I walked in and was propped up to breeze through the interview with an unnatural amount of enthusiasm.

Pretty soon I was watching the crappy training videos that promised "a washer dryer and eternal life" if you solved the Pizza Hut quiz and responsible for refilling the salad bar and busing tables.

My first night on the job was a routine of running back and forth between the salad bar and the giant refrigerator room in the back. After an hour or two, that quickly turned into me huddled behind giant crates of fruit in the back nibbling away like a small rodent.

"BANG." The door smashed open and a tall mean looking 20 something year old looking guy with slicked back hair walked into the fridge. My surprised hands went behind my back and the food dropped to the floor.

"What the F***^$# is going on here!" He screamed at me. "Who the F@$@# are you?"

"I'm uhhh.... I'm uhghhh Michael... ughhh Isner... " I stammered. "I just started here today".

"Well let me tell you something" he aggressively raged. "I'm the manger here. And you better stop fu@$#5ing around back here and..."

And the he reached out and lunged at the pieces of watermelon and fruit at the top of the box.

"And !#@#$ do your 4% Muhhding iing job fdUUdfcCHunk chew chew before I uughhhm".... as he panted and screamed while eating enormous bites of fruit.

I winced and look up at him.

" and hatmmpphh h uhmm 1!#@$!ing stop this stupid sauhhhmm !#@$." He was looking right at me with dark beady eyes and chewing between screams with watermelon running down his chin and throat.

And mid sentence turned around, wiped his mouth and walked out and started screaming at someone else outside the door as he slammed it shut.

I peered back out around the door and walked over to Afsian the dish man and whispered "Who's that?"

"That's Craig the manager. Just watch your self around him."

"Ok. Thanks". I gave him the ok symbol and nodded my head and stepped slowly backwards glancing around for Craig and bumped into the wall behind me. As I peered around the corner I saw the cute girl who was cutting onions. Great. At least this part of the job was interesting.

As I walked up closer I saw a phone panel of 20 flashing lights (presumably people calling in to order pizzas) and onion girl with a green shirt was holding a phone in her hand and staring up in the air looking very exasperated. She looked right at me and rolled her eyes, I guess to communicate how difficult her job was.

Then her head fell down phoneward and her expression turned deliberate. One of her hands darted out and clicked the flashing light.

"Click." Then her other hand grabbed the phone and slammed it onto the receiver.

"Bang". She hung up. Some famished family patiently waiting on hold was not getting pizza.

"Click." The next light.
"Bang". The phone slammed and hung up again.

"Click."
"Bang"

"Click." "Bang." I gazed on in horror as the panel of pizza order lights shrunk like a glass being emptied. I guess they weren't getting pizza from us.

"Click. Bang. Click. Bang. Click. Bang. Click. Bang. Click. Bang. Click. Bang."

And the last one.

"Click. Bang. "

And the lights were gone. Her job was that easy.

She looked up at me and smiled. My expression of horror and surprise melted away.

"Hey I'm Michael" I held out my hand.

"Hi I'm Jenif....".

"CRASH". Something fell in the room beside us. "What the f@#$$k is going on here!" screamed Craig as he lumbered to the back of the Pizza Hut. We both scurried and ran out of the room.

Now about 20 minutes had passed without me being near the front host station at the Pizza Hut and there was a line going out the door waiting to be taken to table as I walked into the restaurant area. I got wrapped up getting them to their tables for a while and carrying dishes back to Afsian.

There we so many dishes to carry back the waiters and waitresses had to help. But they were really in a hurry and much to important for that kind of stuff so they cut corners. As they rushed by me I noticed them slam the drinking glasses onto the dish tray and throw everything else into the garbage. That included all the forks, knives and spoons. I looked down in the garbage. It was a mix of uneaten pizza, napkins and kitchen utensils.

Later I heard one of them rationalize it while they were on break.

"I mean we're much to busy to sort through all the silver wear when we're rushing around. I mean technically we should even be clearing tables anyways." I had to pause for a second. What kind of screwed up world of logic had I been signed up for?

The next day was Saturday but the entire staff had to come in at 10:00 AM for an emergency meeting.

That morning Craig marched around in front of a scrappy group of 40 kids in Pizza Hut uniforms in the parking lot. The assistant manager Kim was the first to speak.

"Ok we've called this emergency meeting this morning because something bad has happened." she started. "We've just got the paperwork from the head office and they are..." All of a second Craig interrupted in a scream.

"We're the second worst Pizza Hut in Canada!" he raged as he repeated jabbed his finger towards us in an aggressive motion. Everyone just looked at him in a shocked and stunned silence.

"The Second Worst Pizza Hut in Canada!" he screamed even louder. By this time it had registered and about half the group was giggling.

"mmmpphhhh mphhhh" everyone murmured quietly as they held their hands to their mouth trying not to laugh.

"You think this is funny??!!!@!#$" Craig yelled. "Do you know how much s$%t I'm in!".

Silence. Face getting redder.

"Here look at this!" He grabbed the thick white report in Kim's stunned hands and started riffling through it in a blur of flipping paper nearly ripping out as he tore through the pages.

"We're running at a loss of $5,000 this month! There's only one Pizza Hut worse than us in the entire country in @#$5 Newfoundland!"

"And this. Why did we need to replace all the silverware seven times?!!" as some of the waiters looked down. "Seven times!!!!!" he screamed again. "What's going on here???".

The yelling went on for about half an hour as Craig flipped through the report and Kim tried to calm him down.

Afterwards Craig disappeared inside and we all broke into groups and started chatting about nothing. Pizza Hut didn't open for another 3 hours so other than the cooks we weren't really needed inside yet. After a while everyone split up to go home and I was one of the last stragglers to leave the parking lot.

As I turned to walk towards to the mall to hang out for a bit Kim ran out of the parking lot and chased after me.

"Michael right?" she said as she ran towards me.

"Yes...." I looked up. This was not good.

"Michael can you come and help us we have a bit of an emergency inside." I couldn't even imagine what was going on. If it was anything worse than being the second worst Pizza Hut in Canada I was very worried.

Inside, Craig was buzzing around like an angry ant inside throwing piles of tools on chairs around the main sink in the kitchen and mumbling to himself.

"Hey." he looked straight at me. I paused and looked up at him.

"Hey. Get over here".

I dragged my heels, head low and scuffled into the kitchen.

"I need you to help me while I fix the piping under the sink."

"Why?" I questioned. "Why don't you get a plumber?"

"Look" he calmed down for a second and explained to me in an exasperated manner. "This is the second worst Pizza Hut in Canada. If I don't take responsibility, if I don't start fixing stuff we are heading straight down the tube." his voice raised up and his finger starting pointing at me as he talked.

"Yah but this is plumbing. Why don't you make the waiters stop throwing out silver...."

"Just do what I tell you" he pointed right at my face.

"Alright" I shrugged.

"Hold this blow torch. I want you to pass me soder and tools while I repair the piping".

I paused. Blow torch? Craig? Arghh who cares...

"Ok but hey don't we need to turn run the water out of the sink for a while, to reduce the pressure", as I picked up the tools.

"No I just turned off the water main, everything's fine."

"But there's still pressure in the line."

"Look don't tell me what to do. I have a degree in Computer Engineering." he shot back.

"No but Craig".

He turned around and glared at me again and crawled under the sink as I watched on in fear.

"No ... but".

And his arms reached back and grabbed tools from me attacking the underside of the sink in deliberate aggressive motions, the back half of his body sticking out through the kitchen cabinet doors.

He shuffled around, throttling the pipes and shaking them as he wheezed and grunted. Kim and two of the cooks poked their heads into the room from around the corner.

"Crash". A loud banging sound. His motion froze.

All of a sudden water started spraying everywhere. Alot of water. Rushing out from all directions streaming from the cabinet.

Craig was lurching and clawing from side to side, like a caged animal fighting for its life wildly banging into the sides of the cabinet. His arms and body reach back flailing in all directions as the water rushed by. As he shook and crashed into whatever was below the sink, wild muffled extremely angry sounds could be heard as the water torrent sprayed by.

And then the water slowly eased off and died died down, coming to a slow pour and then dribbling down to nothing as Craig's motion froze crouched under the sink.

Horror and fear raced through my mind my and frozen body. Only one inescapable strong thought pulsed forward. I am in so much trouble.

There was complete silence except for the dying gurgle of water tricking down the sink.

I couldn't laugh. If I laughed I was a dead man. Don't laugh. Don't laugh. Don't laugh.

Again silence. Time was completely frozen as Craig crouched half under the sink, immobile. It was an unnatural pause, with Craig clenched and locked like an insect that doesn't know what to do. A car drove by in the distance.

Craig slowly back out of the sink. I could just see a corner of his face. Bright red in anger. Don't laugh. The corner of my mouth twitched.

And then he turned and looked at me in an expression I will never forget. Pure bright red anger, a grimace and two pure white eyes scanning 100mph for someone to blame. One second away from a horrible explosion.

I broke out of my freeze, opened my hands and the tools dropped to the floor in a crash. I turned and ran out of the Pizza Hut without a sound and ran 2 blocks down the street to a mall parking lot where I collapsed in a tired pile gasping for breath and finally laughing.

What a disaster.

As I came to, I sat on the ground in the corner of the parking lot for a long time trying to fit everything together. I knew I was fired, and I was sure going to wait a few days to let things cool before I returned the uniform.

I thought back to myself what my Dad said last time I was fired 3 days ago.

"We are all prisoners of who we are" I repeated to myself, squinting in the stark bright light pouring into the parking lot. What a mess.

But what was Craig a prisoner of? He was actually a pretty smart guy, what was his trap? I couldn't get it. I shook my head and stared at the red Pizza Hut roof off in the distance.

Next Story >>> Imposter!