I transferred from the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh to the University of Wisconsin at Madison for the fall semester of 1989. I took a job as a short-order cook at Der Rathskeller, a self-service restaurant inside Memorial Union. I was initially hired as a cook for lunchtime, but I eventually also cooked for breakfast. It was the typical menu. At breakfast--omelets, egg sandwiches, hash browns, toast, muffins. At lunch--hamburgers/cheeseburgers, grilled-cheese sandwiches, reubens, fish sandwiches, French fries, onion rings.
     At lunchtime, I would have to put twelve to sixteen semifrozen hamburgers on at a time. It was very fast-paced, and we had a few workers working in a tight space, so it was cramped, hot, and busy. I don't like any of these things alone, but when they're combined, I can get irritated pretty quickly.
     The usual routine was that I would do the cooking, while the two women I worked with would put on the toppings, wrap the burgers, and slide them down a heated chute, so that customers could take what they wanted from the other side.
      But I began realizing this pattern of who did what was something that wasn't talked about, or at least no one had talked to me. I also began to realize that when I went to my German-language class right after cooking burgers, I smelled of sweat, smoke, and burgers.
     Embarrassed by the odor, I told a woman who I sat next to in German class that I worked before class, and I wondered if I smelled offensive.
     She said, politely, "No, not at all."

[Editorial fast-forward: about a year later, I saw this same classmate, and we were reminiscing. She finally came clean that I did stink.]

[Editorial rewind, to underlying reason for sudden concern of my hygiene: I was "interested," as they say, in my German classmate.]

One day I realized that I ended up sweating and smelling of grill smoke and grease because I never turned away from it, because I couldn't, the pace being so quick. The two women remained cool and happy adding fresh lettuce and tomatoes to the burgers I would pass them.
     I went to our schedule after one of these shifts and all it said was LUNCH. Meaning, we all worked lunchtime. Our positions were equal, yet I was the one who always cooked the burgers and other hot sandwiches.
     The next time we worked, I told our manager that I wanted us to take turns cooking. He understood it had been unfair, and he told them to do so. They each threw a fit as customers were picking up their sandwiches. My boss tried to calm them down. I must admit to being pretty happy that they were upset. It can be somewhat pleasing, though worthless, to see people lose something they didn't deserve in the first place.
     Schadenfreunde, the Germans say. Malicious delight.

*

People get ornery when hungry, when running behind on some schedule they keep, when tired, and of course when all the other emotional variabilities everyone has intensify, rigidify. When cooking breakfast, then, one gets to see all these things at once. Sometimes all in one person. These are the people that become the protagonists in the material for the pathetic conversations of injustice passed around among customer-service workers after the people leave. I say pathetic, having been there myself, and having started these conversations myself. Pathetic, too, because there is no real power in it, nothing comes of it. One might put a sign up in front of the menu asking customers to please think before they speak. But abusive customers would ignore it anyway, and the workers, if they care to keep their jobs, will continue to merely grit their teeth and smile.

*

One morning I was making egg-and-cheese sandwiches. Breakfast was much slower than lunch in terms of customers, so I believe I was working by myself. There may have been one other worker, but I don't remember it as such.
     The egg and cheese were placed inside a toasted and buttered English muffin, wrapped in the appropriate tinfoil, and kept warm in the heated chute. On this morning, however, after making a few sandwiches the regular way, we ran out of plain English muffins. I told my boss that this had happened, and he said "Well, I guess we'll have to use the raisin muffins in their place."
     I said, "What?"
     He reminded me that the egg sandwiches were the best sellers, and so I dutifully did as I was told. I also told every customer (there weren't many) reaching for one of the sandwiches that we were using raisin muffins because we were out of the plain English muffins. A few people didn't mind, and a few people pulled their hand back with various facial contortions indicating disapproval or exaggerated weariness.
     I was also making omelets and other items during this time. The various omelet ingredients, like onions, tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, were near the heated chutes. Behind the stainless-steel bins of ingredients was a cutting area, and above the bins was a stainless-steel counter, at about chest level. Others items not amenable to the heated chutes would be placed on this counter, and the customer would take the requested food from there. The raised counter had a rounded glass or Plexiglas covering that faced the customer; behind this glass, as mentioned, were the various omelet ingredients.
     I was cutting vegetables, with my head down, watching my slicing, when I suddenly felt something hit me in the chest. The next thing I saw was a half-wrapped egg-and-cheese and raisin muffin lying on top of the ingredient bins. I didn't understand immediately how it had got there, as I didn't realize this is what had hit me in the chest. I pulled away from the counter, and looked up, not understanding what was going on. In front of me was a woman with glasses, straight brown hair, about 5'2", holding a very angry facial feature. She demanded to know what did I think I was doing.
     I still had no idea what the problem was, but she quite quickly told me what she was upset about. She accused me of deliberately not telling her that the muffin was a raisin muffin. This is the point at which my understanding cohered, of 1). The sandwich on top of the ingredient bins, and 2). The object hitting me in the chest. These two being the result of 3). This woman accusing me of sandwich dishonesty.
     She was quite strident, and I was more than a little pissed about getting a sandwich thrown at me. I told her that I did in fact tell her it was a raisin muffin, just as I had been telling everyone for the last hour.
     She said I did not. I said I did too.

[Editorial: this was the first job I had with customer interaction, and so I still had not understood that the customer is always right, even when wrong.]

I was not backing down, and neither was she. It was at this point that I noticed my boss looking on from the cash registers, with a worried look on his face. I realized I had better end the conflict, and told her that maybe I hadn't told her, and wondered what she wanted to do about the sandwich purchase.
     She glared at me, and said she wanted her money back. My boss was already near her side, and heard what she said. He apologized for the raisins in the muffin, and led her to the cashiers, where he would refund her money.
     I threw out her once airborne, now landed, sandwich, and continued cutting omelet ingredients.
     About thirty minutes or so passed before my boss was around me again. But not because of the customer--that was over in no time; he just had a lot of work to do.
     I asked him, "What did she say to you on the way up to the cashier?"
     He grinned painfully, uneasily, and said, "She said you are a misogynist."
     I said, "What? For what?"
     "The raisins," he said. "Because you didn't tell her there were raisins in the muffin."
     I said, "I did too."
     He laughed, and walked out of the kitchen.

the raisins have landed

james wagner