Episode 52: Friendly? You bet we are!

As has been documented on this site, my employment history has not exactly been what the modern American male would consider 'ideal,' or really enjoyable in any way. My dreams of rock stardom, space travel and professional athleticism were dashed around the age of 13, when some solid family connections and a few sprouting lip hairs landed me a job hosing down dirty plates at Bonanza Steakhouse. Since then my life has been a series of restaurants, coffee shops, farm stands and one idiotic three-year period selling running shoes to yuppies for $9 an hour. There was the time I worked summers at the local Housing Authority, which was cool in the sense that all of the old burnouts use to let me under-aged drink and ride lawn mowers, and who could forget the three weeks I spent landscaping one summer? Nothing says 'I hate my life' quite like waking up at 6 a.m. to mulch some rich lady's front lawn. I still contend that I quit before I was fired from that job.

Sure, I legitimized myself a bit, using my communications degree to land a job at a few newspapers, but I was about 30 years too late in boarding that train and I quickly realized a life of pouring beer was exponentially more lucrative and, sadly and all too frequently, more interesting, too.

Ranking the jobs that I have had is kind of like ranking bodily excretions. The farm stand was shit, the shoe store was vomit, and the newspaper was blood- if you catch my drift. I tell you all of this only because I was reminded of one particularly bad employment venture late last week when, as I briefly described, I took the family to Friendly's to celebrate Av's first birthday.

Much like that fat clown from the TV show 'Man Vs. Food' I have held just about every job there is to hold in a restaurant. I have washed dishes, stocked salad bars, unloaded delivery trucks and served customers. At Friendly's I was a cook, and it remains hands down, no contest, the absolute worst of them all.

I am sure many of you have eaten at Friendly's more recently than I have, as I don't think I have been there for any reason other than to buy ice cream since I quit working there, but walking in to that place last Thursday sent two years of blocked-out memories rushing back, and I can't say they were happy ones.

While we waited for our table (yes, there was a 20 minute wait at 2 p.m. on a Thursday) I couldn't stop the memory flashes from creeping in to my head. I remembered stupid, random things like how long to cook mozzarella sticks (4 minutes in the fryer, or button number two for the cooks who couldn't read) or the name of the Portuguese dishwasher who used to eat Salisbury steak for dinner every night (Arthur).

The dynamic of that restaurant was strange. Employees ranged from grumpy, old, raspy waitresses who had worked there for 20-plus years to a group of kids from a local Christian college- a particularly entertaining bunch considering they were struggling with the whole 'I'm Christian but I am also 20-years-old and that waitress is really hot and wants to bang me' conflict. (The final score, if I remember correctly, was Sex 2- God 1).

*Just as an aside, the title of this post comes from the greeting we used to have to give when we answered the phone. 'Thank you for calling the Lee Friendly's. Friendly? You bet we are! This is Dan, how can I help you?' Yeah. It is also worth noting that I lived in Pittsfield, which is about a 25 minute drive from Lee, and I had to drive past four Friendly's just to get to the one that I worked at. This job ruled.

There are countless stories I could tell, but one sticks out in my mind more than any other. It involves one of our managers, some blood and a whole lot of ice cream.

Our head manager for a time that I worked there was a man by the name of John Owen. John was middle aged, single and about the grumpiest bastard I have ever met. He was ugly, he had a mustache and about 6-8 yellowed teeth. He lived in a trailer park and he always smelled like a combination of cat piss, coffee and weed. He was by all accounts mean, accusative and more often than not, down right evil to the customers. How the guy managed to hold down that job for more than three days, I have no idea. In addition to all of this he was also a diabetic, and could not have weighed more than 120 pounds. I tell you this last part for a reason.

One day I was starting up my shift when one of the Christian kids, Steve I think was his name, realized that John wasn't in yet. For the next hour or two, the GM tried getting a hold of him to see where he was to no avail. The shift continued for a few hours, another manager in to take his place, when the front door opened and in walked John. He was bleeding from the face, his shirt was torn in half, his jeans were covered in blood. He looked like he had been attacked by a bear. My hand to God, I shit you not, what happened next is true. Without saying a word to anyone, he walked in past the front counter and the kitchen, punched in, walked over to the ice cream stand and decided he was going to deliver a tray of ice cream to a table. He picked up the tray, took two steps and fell. Covering himself in a hodgepodge of Happy Endings, banana splits and Fribbles. It was hands down the most catastrophic fall I have ever seen take place in a restaurant. Legs up, ass down, tray of ice cream on the chest. Surreal.

Obviously, by this point someone had tipped off the the other manager who had rushed upstairs just in time to witness the accident. Steve and I did nothing. We couldn't do anything. All we could do was watch. It was too good.

Not knowing what the hell was happening, the other manager helped John up and brought him in to the back. A few moments later we heard yelling. It was John trying to use the phone and the other manager trying to stop him. As it turns out, John was not attacked by a bear. Rather, he had some sort of diabetic seizure and passed out while driving to work. He drove in to a tree and had to be cut from his car because the accident made it so the door wouldn't open. Supposedly he came to at the hospital, which was fairly close to the restaurant, pulled out his IV and walked to work. The phone call? He was trying to call the ambulance company to see if they were going to pay for the window they broke in extracting him from the car.

Friendly's has changed a bunch since I worked there. The menu is more diverse and the atmosphere is much more geared toward kids (aside from one or two sad, single diners, everyone in the restaurant last week was either with children or a retarded person) but walking in to that place brought it all back. I don't know what it all means, but I found myself not getting quite as irritated while I was at work this weekend. I suppose it could be a lot worse.