Training Day

I arrived at WaHo this morning ten minutes early, at around 7:50AM EST. I get one free meal for each 4 hours I work. My boss, Steve Skinner, suggested I come in a half-hour early to eat breakfast the mornings I work, which suits me fine. Then, of course, that way there's no chance I'll be late to work. I was so tired from the Carrboro Poetry Festival and driving home yesterday, I think it was the first evening I'd been to bed before midnight in the last six months. By the same token, this morning I think was one of the first times I'd been awake before 10:00AM EST. There's so much daylight that I've simply been missing sleeping so late. Then again, I missed a lot of moonlight last night going to bed at 11 o'clock. Oh well.

Today was my first day of Waffle House training. Which normally means watching 6 or 7 15-30 minute training videos. But since I am "cross-training" as both a Grill Operator and a salesperson, I got to watch 11 15-30 minute training videos! These videos are designed to teach Waffle House Employees how to work safely and efficiently, and to recognize sexual harassment and racial discrimination in the work place. There were also some additional videos about the proper way to do things like wash dishes and broadcast subliminal messages by arranging eggs on the plate in certain ways. The video about dishwashing was called "Dirty Dishes" and the opening music was that song "Time of My Life." Plus, I kid you not, the guy in the video looked exactly like the young Patrick Swayze. That was one of the more entertaining training videos.

Today I also got a cool little Grill Operator crib sheet that has all the coded markings that WaHo uses in the preparation of the orders. My boss told me I couldn't post it on the internet or he'd send someone to my house to break my knees. I'm going to post it anyway though--in the name of journalism. It's a really interesting document. It's just a little pocket-sized piece of cardboard; but it contains all of the most precious secrets of the WaHo grill operators. I'll try to have that picture up shortly.