Flashback Friday

It’s been too long since I’ve updated this thing.  I’d like to blame it on the fact that my MacBook died about a year ago and I no longer have the luxury of countless hours of free time during my graveyard shift, but the fact is that Amy worked her TEE (Technology & Engineering Education) magic a couple of months ago and resurrected my laptop .  So really, I have no excuse other than the dreadful downfall of us Hansen kids-laziness. :/

I feel like there is so much that has happened since my last blog post. I don’t know why, but I feel like my life is a lot more eventful than the typical 26 year old.  This could be due to the fact that I am VERY easily entertained (I mean you kind of have to be when you don’t get out much as a kid and you spend every weekend with your 5 sisters pulling pranks on neighbors or throwing water balloons at incoming cars) or the fact that I constantly put myself in interesting or unusual situations at times.  So, in thinking of where I could possibly start, I thought it would be a nice casual-Friday post to bring back a blast from the past.  A couple months ago, my friend, Aubrey (who for some reason is one of my bigger blog fans/followers; or at least she pretends to be haha) came in town from New York and one night we went out to eat along with some other mutual friends at the local Malt Shoppe.  While there, the smell of grease and the fear of having my clothes and myself smell like grease (which happens to be one of my biggest pet peeves) must have tailspinned me into a posttraumatic stress trance.  It so happens that 8 years previously I actually worked in a very similar atmosphere, at the Creamery on 9^th, while attending my freshman year at BYU.  I then began to relate my various “hood-rat” stories and my “3 strikes” associated with my near termination.  I was kind of hesitant to blog about these follies of my youth, but Aubrey has been bugging me to document the ordeal on here, if nothing else for my posterity’s sake. Haha. So, without further ado, I present this flashback Friday.

As a freshman at BYU, you couldn’t have picked a more happening place to work than the Creamery on 9^th.  I mean everyone and there mother (and grandmother) literally went there.  It was especially the place to go for all freshman with meal plan cards, because you were able to buy groceries, grab a bite to eat at the grille, and/or go on a date to get ice cream.   It just so happened that my dorm room door was no more than 50ft from the Creamery, so it was only natural that I would land a job there.  Before moving my way up to primetime working the grill, I first began my college working career as an early morning janitor there.  I worked Monday-Friday starting at 7 a.m.  My shift was 4 hours long and by 8:30 a.m. I almost always was done with my daily chores.  I often spent the remainder of my time taking a nap on the men’s restroom toilet and/or getting my daily workout in while doing sit-ups and pushups in a locked bathroom stall (I promise it wasn’t that gross because I had already mopped and cleaned the bathroom and the stall was nice and spacious because it was handicap friendly :) hahaha). 

Now, on to the good stuff! After one semester of waking up daily at the crack of dawn, I got upgraded to 1^st class (aka working the evening shifts at the grille).  Work could not get any better.  I worked with one of my roommates on a 4-man team while my other roommate worked register at the grocery in the same store.  Let’s just say we had a little too much fun.  Sometimes we would just throw the football across the store with my other roommate at the grocery register.  However, mostly time was spent just hooking up friends with extra fries and larger-than-normal scoops of ice cream or spending the night flirting with our freshman lady friends that would come in to see (use?) us. Haha.   In fact, I still remember one of my favorite pick-up lines.  We had an ice cream called “Bishop’s Bash” and whenever a cute girl would ask what was in the Bishop’s Bash I would reply, “Chocolate, pecans, caramel, a little consecrated oil…” Usually they laughed or chuckled.  One time, this backfired on me when giving this response to a mom when asked what was in the Bishop’s Bash.  For the record, I was not trying to “pick her up”. It got so trivial that I would tell anyone who would ask what the Bishop Bash “recipe” was.  Anyways, she demanded to speak to my supervisor, and she chewed me out for being sacrilegious and she let me know that she did not find it funny.  In return, my supervisor just gave me a “slap on the wrist” and basically said to make sure that it didn't happen again. 

Speaking of being disciplined, I am reminded of the “hamburger incident.” One day at work we accidently made an extra hamburger.  I asked my Team Lead what we should do with it and she said to just give it away to a customer.  We made an announcement on the store intercom that anyone who wanted the extra hamburger could come and get it at the grill.  After a few minutes of waiting, I realized that no one was coming.  “Sweet! Free food,” I thought. I then asked my Team Lead if we could eat it since no one wanted it and I was shocked when she told me I couldn’t and that we had to throw it away.  “Throw it away?!? Yeah right,” I thought to myself. I then told her I would go “throw it away” in the back.  After taking the plate to the back I realized that it was not a good place because it was out in the open and an easy place to be spotted.  I then had a genius idea to retreat to my “quiet place” from my previous semester’s janitorial home-the Men’s Restroom! hahaha.  So there I was: apron on, hamburger in hand, standing near the sink, making sure the coast was clear to enjoy my free meal.  As I was taking my first bite the store manager walks in and sees me! I was caught, red hamburger handed! Wait, me get caught? I’m too good for that.  I played it off like it was no big deal. I placed the plate on top of the paper towel dispenser, washed my hands, grabbed the plate and walked out like I knew what I was doing. I then took the hamburger to the next best place where I thought I could eat in peace--the walk-in freezer! Hahaha. I then proceeded to eat the burger in the freezing peace and quiet and then I returned to work.

All was good until two days later I heard over the intercom, “Freddie, to the back office.” I meandered my way through the grocery aisles to the back office where the manager told me to take a seat.  He then asked me, “Do you know why I called you in?”  Wow, talk about a million-dollar question.  I was thinking of all the possible things that it could possibly be.  My mind was racing and sifting through all of the possible reasons: “I eat the gummy bears from the ice cream topping display, I let the little kids play on the intercom microphone, I don’t have my food handler’s permit, I planned an employee party after close that consisted of playing Super Market Sweep, I hooked my friends up with food...

Finally, I determined it best that he tell me in case I confessed to something that he didn’t know about.  “I have no idea,” I said. He then reminded me of our encounter in the bathroom from a few days prior.  How could I have forgotten? I mean, I guess I thought I played it off quite well, but nonetheless there I sat getting chastised for violating who knows how many health codes and store policies.  Maybe he would have cut me some slack had I told him I didn’t even have my Food Handler’s Permit; so in reality I was innocent? Nah, probably not the best idea.  I then was informed that if I made one more mistake I would receive my third “strike” and be let go. Apparently, he had marked me up for my first “strike” the one time my roommates and I showed up one night on one of our days off and hopped the counter, scooped ourselves ice cream, and left. We didn’t want to wait in the super long line in front of us.  Whoops. 

The last month of the semester I was constantly on edge, paranoid that I was going to get rung up for my last mishap.  I even laid off the amount of times I would sneak gummy bears from the topping displays.  I couldn’t take the stress anymore, so a week later I put in my two weeks notice.  Sometime during this period my roommate and I thought it would be funny to ditch work on the same day to leave the two other girls, who at times underappreciated us, alone to man the grill, ice cream, and register.  That didn’t go over too well.  My supervisor then informed me that I would have received my third “strike” but since the semester was almost over and I had a few days left that he would just let it go. Looking back, I realize I was really immature, but again grant me amnesty; I was a young mischievous lad. 

p.s. Shout-out  to my sister/best friend Sarah.  Happy Birthday!!! Love ya!