F&W I'm Thinking Arby's

>>Before entering the work force, I never thought that I could ever work in a restaurant. I thought being around the same food all the time would turn me away from that food and make me a picky eater all over again, like I was when I was a child. Not to mention I figured anywhere I worked would be nasty and turn me away from wanting to eat out altogether. In retrospect, I realize I was just silly and had no idea what was really going on.

>>As of sometime in September, I have officially been working at Arby’s for about a year and a half. Certain things on the menu—such as the Reuben, the French Dip and Swiss, the Philly Beef Sub, the Classic Italian, and probably more—always stick out to me when I go to other restaurants. At that other restaurant I think to myself, “Oh, I can eat that at work.” For a split second I feel rebellious and look for something else to eat, but that familiarity pulls me back to the common option between the two restaurants and I get it. It’s delightful because while I’m eating it, I’m not just enjoying it; I’m comparing it in my head to our version. Who is cheaper? Not just in how much I am spending, but how much the restaurant spends on making the sandwich, for instance the Classic Italian at Arby’s only has a few banana peppers on it but if you got it at Subway, you could get probably three times as more. Which tastes better? Which sauce is better? Which bread is softer? Is their sauerkraut edible? How is the meat’s texture? (At Arby’s we pride ourselves on getting the meat sliced as thin as possible, which affects the flavor immensely.)

>>Sometimes the people are so unbelievable I want to scream, sometimes the hours are so slow all I want to do is go home, sometimes the rushes are too much and my brain may as well be mush, and sometimes the works seems so monotonous that after this long I can’t believe I still work there, but in the end it’s worth it. There’s that small satisfaction in the paycheck (of course), in winning the glove-ball war among colleagues for a brief moment, in telling sly jokes through the headsets’ walky-talky feature, in seeing returning customers smile as you greet them by name, in seeing the small child sweetly ask for a spoon so they can eat their Value Vanilla Shake like it’s ice cream…it’s good mood food, after all.