Bagels

The Power and Possibility of a Slippery Slope
How one event in your day can possibly change and affect the rest of your life.

“The other day I showed up to the bagel place I work at with a happy and positive attitude.”

Even though I had to wake up at 5am and hardly got any sleep, I was determined to have a good attitude at work all morning.  It was already crazy at the bagel place and there were not even any customers inside.  I asked my ever so pleasant boss why everyone was running around sweating and screaming and she yelled, “Because we have a big order that needs to be done in an hour and a half! Clock in already!”  Even though I did not receive the friendliest greeting, I did not let that phase me.  Apparently one of the casinos ordered hundreds of bagels for a party that morning.  

My first action that morning was answering the phone and hearing my co-worker say she could not come in.  I wished her to feel better and hung up.  Even though I was sincere and polite, my boss flipped out on me yelling that we are already short an employee this morning.  I, the girl who usually takes orders and looks pretty, was now in charge of getting the bagels from the oven, cooling them down, slicing them in half, and putting them in boxes.  I was fine being overworked because I was saying positive and asking people how their days were.  My boss, pleasant as always, yelled at me to stop talking because my cheerful voice was annoying her.  Not letting that throw me, I kept running around cutting bagels until I noticed that there was a line to order breakfast.  I stopped and took one order to help the customer, but when I tried to get back to work all of the other customers kept ordering.  There was nothing I could do to stop them from talking.  I tried interrupting them and walking away, but old people at 6am really want their breakfast.  I hear my boss yelling at me to keep focusing on the Casino order, so I ran in the back to find sanctuary for a moment.  However, that sanctuary was short-lived as I heard a customer yelling at the top of his lungs for service.  I ran out there to tell him I will be right with him, but instead of listening he is already halfway through his order.  He wants 6 buckets of bagels.  That is 13 bagels a bucket, and he wants me to find each bagel he wants even though there are people behind him and I need to continue the casino order.  My boss, not knowing what the customer ordered, told me to handle him and then get back to work.  (As if I was not working already)  

Of course all of the customer’s choices of bagels were cooking in the oven so I told him that he had to wait three minutes for his flavors.  I said this with a smile, still trying to keep my positive attitude, but apparently I should have lied.  The man flipped out banging on the counter because he did not understand why he had to wait.  I ran to the oven when it went off, trying to appease the customer, and grabbed the bagels from the 600-degree oven with my bare hands.  I could feel third degree burns slowly ebbing into my fingers as I threw the bagels into their boxes, and tried not to swear every time I touched a new bagel.  Finally when the pain was over and I had all of his bagels in their boxes, I ran out to the front of the store and saw a line literally out the door.  I handed the boxes to the man with a smile and said, “Have a great day sir.”  He looked at me, and then at the boxes and replied, “These things are sliced right?”  My smile was becoming more forced as I let him know that bagels cannot be sliced when they are hot because they fall apart.  Apparently he could not understand this as he thew all of the boxes on the counter and yelled, “I need them sliced for work! I’m paying for them!”  These were not all the words I heard as my boss grabbed my shoulder and yelled, “Why are you not helping all these people? That is what you are paid to do. And you should be finished with that Casino order by now!”  Confused and slowly losing my optimistic attitude, I grabbed the angered customer’s bagels and sliced every one of them, which involved me touching the extremely hot bagels again. 

I could hear that the other customers waiting were not being patient as they were yelling at me for assistance.  I ignored everyone as I finished slicing the 6 boxes of bagels and handed them to the man, completely satisfied.  I made eye contact with him, my smile genuine, and said, “There you are sir, I hope you enjoy the bagels and your day.”  He opened one of the boxes and saw the deformed sliced bagels and lost it.  He screamed at me that they were all torn up and would not let me explain that I warned him that would happen.  He took one look at me and my happy face and said, “Well obviously I don’t want the, now.  You’re really fake and you need to stop smiling.  Let me talk to your manager.”

“I assumed showing up to work with a happy and positive attitude would be a good idea, but now I know that I will be reprimanded for doing so.”