Althouse: "Iced to meet you."

July 4, 2008

"Iced to meet you."

Some great photos here. That one almost made me cry.

16 comments:

Zachary Sire said...: wow. i can't stop looking at her. thank you.; 7/4/08, 10:02 PM
1775OGG said...: Great pics! Mac & Dons is a great place to visit!; 7/4/08, 10:39 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: That family spends way too much time at Mcdonalds.

Are you thinking about picking up Photomatrix and doing a little HDR?; 7/5/08, 12:54 AM
john marzan said...: why did that almost make you cry?; 7/5/08, 1:49 AM
Maggie Goff said...: She has an aura of resignation and sadness about her at this moment. It makes me wonder why. Does she feel trapped, or is it just a temporary thing and she's just very, very tired. Great photo...; 7/5/08, 2:33 AM
William said...: Norman Rockwell colors. Edward Hopper expression. Diane Arbus face. There's that moment in youth when you realize that you are a bad actor in a bad play and there's no one in the audience.; 7/5/08, 2:51 AM
Ron said...: william: Excellent!

Same expression I see at McD's almost all the time...robots might make everyone happier. (except maybe for the work!); 7/5/08, 6:15 AM
George M. Spencer said...: Dang, I thought it would be an Abba reunion photo.

Those harmonizing Swedes! And that Anna-Frid! She melts the frost off my brow!

I can't get enough of Abba's hummable pop confections!; 7/5/08, 7:12 AM
chuckR said...: You all are the wrong audience for the linked photo, although your insights are great. It needs to be shown to kids who wonder why on earth they should finish high school.

Seriously, nothing wrong with McD's. A job is better than no job and everybody has to start somewhere. How is the counter work shown worse than assembly/packaging in an industrial setting?; 7/5/08, 10:34 AM
Anonymous said...: There was a guy about 50-55 years old. He sold me an icecream cone at MacDonalds. If I were more forward, I would have asked him out on a date. The guy was more attractive to me than any lawyer, doctor or PHD candidate in a suit, mostly cuz his face was honest and he had working hands. He messed up the change. Not because he didn't know how to make change, but because he was looking at me. I could have been a contender. Heck, I was a contender. You people critical of fast food workers are just bad customers in places like that.

(breaking my vow of never commenting at althouse again. But maybe that was a vow of never commenting as nausealinks); 7/5/08, 11:01 AM
Donna B. said...: chuckr is right. My first job as a "grown-up" was at a garment factory. By the 2nd week, I was driving home in tears every day.

The part I hated the most was having to get permission to go the bathroom.

I got smart real quick and went back to college.; 7/5/08, 11:47 AM
Spread Eagle said...: An Anglo working at Mickey D's? Where would that be?; 7/5/08, 2:41 PM
Anonymous said...: Donna,

My first job outside of babysitting was at a local burger joint called MacBurgers. I was 14, early 70s. In contrast to MacDonalds, new hires were placed at the window to take orders. I worked there about a year which afforded me many things. Our uniforms were red gingham shirts and any pair of jeans or a jean skirt. I still have my jean skirt because it still fits me though is quite snug in the waist.

What I leaned there:

1. I learned to take three orders at a time and serve them promptly and efficiently. This meant calling back the burger or tenderloin order, calling back the number of fries I needed, and fetching all the drinks salads, shakes, and microwaved items myself. I learned to wipe down tables and that I should never stand about looking idle at work.

2. I learned the meat was good. It was ordered from the local butcher which carried the best meat in town. I learned grease came in cubic boxes and grossed me out when I had to clean the fryers. I learned to tend the ice machine, but never learned to hook up the carbonated beerages to the soda machine.

3. The bosses were a married couple and the wife was the brains and business force. The husband had a wandering eye. I was taller than him so it didn't really matter to me. He liked looking at shorter girls.

4. The girl who was often my closing partner was a gal who was kinda a misfit at the local Catholic grade school. She went across the river to the Catholic high school when she worked at the buger place with me. There she, from our lily white town, dated a very athletic black male from the boy's Catholic school. It was interesting. Sometime he would visit when we closed. I listened to her tell me tales about sexual endeavors and learned some things. I saw my first used rubber in the men's john. Together, she and I would travel across town on Friday nights to deliver the cash either to the owner's home or to the bank deposit. Two girls carrying a thousand dollars in her car and I was never really afraid. Other times I would close with her brother who never ever spoke but two words to me.

5. I learned that the old folks at the nursing home across the street would at three in the afternoon get a break and could venture out on their own. There was an older red hair eccentric women (i'm sure she was just covering her grey also eccentrically) who wore bright red lipstick. She came in on the afternoons for a ice cream sundae with nickels, pennies and dimes. We all knew her by heart, but not by mane. Later she got a boyfriend and they came together and ate ice cream in the afternoon on Saturdays. I thought her a bit abnormal then, now I savor her vitality with living in the sterile place we in our town called "the ol' folky home".

5. I learned to save every penny I had so I could buy a sewing machine of the best brand and design. An elna lotus, wit which I would become famous designer. It never happened. I still have the machine and many of the clothes I tailored on that machine. The machine (not mine, but a sample) is in the moma as an example of industrial design. I had efficient and exquisite taste even at 14.

5. I learned to make shakes, hot beef sandwiches, decorare salads to look presentable, and met my first egg roll. A long sausage thing that was a dozen reformed hard boiled egg in one.

6. I learned a little bit more than I had already known since kindergarten. It was never a waste of my time. It was the beginning of my education in the real world outside of domestic childcare. (babysitting); 7/5/08, 3:16 PM
gefillmore said...: thank you, ann, for linking to my website-

re too much time at mcd: yes; I am in there daily for a large coffee and two apple pies; sometimes twice a day; I am over 55 and am becoming more eccentric and curmudgeonly as the days go by, if that's any explanation-

re anglo at mcd: that be in east tennessee-

photomatix and hdr: anyone interested in photography might want to check into hdr photos www.hdrsoft.com

working at mcd's: a great way for a kid to see why they need to stay in school and go as far as they can-

an honest living (although I'm not sure how one can live on what you would make at mcd)-

I have the highest regard for anyone who works in a fast food restaurant; it surely is hard and thankless work; it is not any kind of job that I would want-

most of the workers I come across at mcd are efficient and friendly, and I try to be courteous and respectful to them-; 7/5/08, 3:47 PM
Anonymous said...: Jay Leno makes some funny comments about the young McDonald's employees here on the Letterman show back in 1984 when the crazy suicide bombers were Shiites in Lebanon and not Sunni in Iraq.; 7/5/08, 5:58 PM
blake said...: Maybe it's the level of the pun bringing Ann to tears.

I don't see resignation, sadness or despair; I see a certain boredom backed by what might be a willingness to engage with a person.

There's the fast-food dichotomy: People want fast, they don't (necessarily) wanna chit chat. That probably reflects in some occasionally soul-crushing ways.

Then there's the roulette factor: Is this person going to make my life hard, somehow?

I saw my friends getting fast food jobs and went clerical. It paid twice as much, was air-conditioned, and required knowing the alphabet....

Every so often I see someone extraordinary at a fast food place. Around here, they don't stay there long.; 7/5/08, 7:25 PM