“I was the weekend breakfast cook at a Friendly’s while in high school. I was completely unqualified for the job but they needed help and I needed a gig. It was a two-person job, but after my first week, the other breakfast cook quit.
I toughed it out for a few weekends without him and when I asked about another cook, ‘Donna’ the manager said we’d save some overhead just having me cook and she’d come help when it got busy. She never helped.
Fast-forward two weekends later and I was cooking with like 20 order tickets on the board. I had at least 20 eggs going along with 10 pancakes and 10 orders of French toast. I was struggling super hard to keep up, so I shouted for Donna multiple times and she just sat on her butt in the office. Finally, the waitresses start complaining as well, so Donna waddled out of the office to help.
I was in such a hurry that I was plating orders on the wrong plates just to get them out. Donna saw this and was enraged, taking one of the orders that was up under the heat lamp and throwing it against the wall, shattering the plate. Then she turned to me and screamed, ‘What is wrong with you?!’ and started to belittle me for how behind I was.
At that exact moment, I untied my apron, dropped it on the floor, and told her that I quit. She fell all over herself apologizing and asking me to stay and help her get orders out. I just walked right out of the kitchen into the dining area and headed for the door. She started screaming, ‘You can’t quit, you can’t freaking quit!’ in front of a packed house.
The entire place went quiet and as I kept walking she started yelling about me not leaving with my work shirt on so I took it off in the middle of the restaurant and dropped it on the floor. She kept shouting so I turned around and simply said, ‘I would never eat at this restaurant after working in the kitchen, it’s disgusting.’
Then I walked shirtless to my car and as I pulled out for the last time I saw a good stream of customers leaving. Three months later the restaurant burned down; I don’t remember why, but I heard it was Donna’s fault. Get stuffed, Donna.”
