Disaster in the workplace

I want to tell you about one of the worst days I have ever had at work and how all I could at the end of the day was laugh. Let’s start off with a little background I work at the Naples Dunkin Donuts. I started there in November of 2018. Our Dunkin Donuts is super slow in the fall and winter so I was not prepared at all for what the summer had to bring. In the Naples Dunkin Donuts in the summer it is so crazy busy to the point where you have costumer after the costumer nonstop for 5 hours and you can’t have a break. It is so busy in the summer we get foreigners to come help for the summer (they also come here to experience what it is like to work in the united states.) I also have to put in here that when the foreigners get here they barely know how to speak English. So on a very busy weekend in June I had to work an 9 hour shift 8-5.

I got in a little early like I always do so I can finish getting my uniform on and so I don” have to be rushed. We will just say that this day I was extra rushed even though I was early. I got in the drive thru window which I normally do. Walking into Dunkin that morning that was already so busy I knew it was going to be a nightmare.

I got in the window and we were already so backed up at 8am in the morning. As the hours go on costumers were so mad because they were waiting a long time plus one of the foreigners was taking the drive thru orders and kept saying what because they don’t know English very well like I have stated before. UGHHHH. Anyways I finally after 3 hours got a break from the window and got to make drinks. Not only did we keep getting the most complicated drinks ever everyone seemed to be soooooo clumsy that day and kept spilling drinks and dropping them all over the ground or even on me. Also, people kept typing in the drinks wrong sooo it was just a hot mess.

It was about 5 hours into my shift, I finally got my first 15 minute break I was so relieved. I just wanted to relax but no I had people contoinusally asking me questions about the most random things. I get back from my break and I kept working at drive thru drinks and guess what in the middle of a rush we ran out of milk so I had to refill it obviously. Not only did I drop the milk everywhere it exploded all of the floor and I had to mop it up lovely right.

Finally, 4:30 comes around and my boss says can you just sweep and mop the floors and then you can go home. I was like hell yeah so I swept the floors. Then when I was almost done mopping the floors I spilled the whole mop bucket everywhere. I had to mop it all up and then my boss had the audacity to ask me if I wanted to stay until 5:30 because one of the foreigners was having a really bad day and really just needed to go home. Guess who said sure. At that point I just wanted to break down and cry, but I didn’t I just persevered through the last 45 minutes or so of my shift. At the end of my shift my boss comes out back to remind me I agreed to coming in 2 hours early the next day. So that same foreigner didn’t have to wake up so early and ride her bike to work in the dark ( a little FYI all the foreigners get a bike that they ride back and forth to work).

That’s when it hit me I have to come back tomorrow and do it all over again. In that moment all I could do was laugh and just hope for the best the next day. I swear if I didn’t start laughing in that moment I probably would have broken down and cried but luckily I just laughed it off. Laughing it off taught me that sometimes you have to just laugh it off and move on.

Photo by JeepersMedia on Foter.com / CC BY