Scariest Puppet Show Ever

April 18th, 2010

 pig with no outsides

I really, really like being a TA. I’m coming back next year, for pay hopefully. It’ll be very convenient because I can reuse all my mutilated pig jokes. Rugg was right, being a teacher does have its perks.

Another thing I’m coming back to: Boiler Blast. You can see for yourself how much fun it was in the Facebook album. Incidentally, there’s a member that is the spitting image of young Mr. Rugg (from high school, which means that no one in the eastern time zone will get this). But not only that, I get to bring my obsessive bureaucracy to the group. This year, I mostly helped design the logo. See below for the part I made from scratch in GIMP. The rest of the picture may seem a bit… derivative. Ahem.

It\

Soooo… I sort of left everybody hanging with my pharmacy interview, huh? Well, I was sort of inconsolable and frustrated for a good couple of weeks. Spent an entire Spring Break venting my spleen (< - figure of speech; all of my students should know that the spleen is a secondary lymphatic organ and has no exocrine capacities) with pixelated violence. Because... well, it didn't go that well. So, yeah... Life goes on. Exams, returning from break with 8 lbs of granola/tube socks. Yada, yada. I fight zombies, blog about it, work, which pretty much brings us up to today. I get the committee's letter, the Saturday after break. The diagnosis is: Wait-list. #19/80 Which is slightly better than expected. Considering how my interview went. Tough crowd that day.

The Harrison Grille Jargon File

April 7th, 2010

Okay, in case you haven’t noticed by now, I tend to overdramatize things at the Gr1llé. Even going so far as to tell the tan-shirts, “A Eruchin, ú-dano i faelas a hyn, an uben tanatha le faelas.” during any lulls we may have. My own perfectionism and obsessive compulsiveness have blossomed into loyalty and dedication. Huh. Who saw that coming?

So imagine my surprise when I see that all but one of the freshmen enlistees who trained alongside me three semesters ago have ditched for other operations or off-campus co-ops. Apparently they failed to see the Gr1llé as I have: more than a place, but an idea. And the idea is to make money.

So I propose my idea for retaining more workers: jargon. Jargon foments acceptance. By speaking our “language”, you are informally initiated into the Gr1llé family. Jargon is catalyst for loyalty and invites one to all manner of even more inclusive inside jokes. 懂了吗? Everyone still with me? Shiny.

Examples:

“bunker” The dock freezer, so called because it is sound-proof and explosion resistant with plenty of shrapnel protection.
“Code Red” The entire screen is red, meaning we have a crap ton of orders.
“Slammed” A line out the door (~40 ft), meaning we are priobably about to have a Code Red.
“sitrep” situation report
“Black Cauldron” the large soup kettle in the front wherein we hold tomato soup.
Earl The freezer across from the office where we keep bacon and ham and turkey that has few other distinguishing characteristics.
“in the trenches” back in the kitchen behind the serving window.
“Drilling teeth” making shakes aggressively/efficiently causing the mixer head to grind the sides of the cup
“Slimed” If you worked the shakes station and got slammed. Originates in that if you make shakes too rapidly, or contour the ice cream scoops just right, the half&half will be propelled up into your face.
“The Hammer” Sunday night mid shift
“Defcon 4” running out of nachos
“SOP” Standard Operating Protocol
“Big Bertha” The large 40-qt bins of chopped chicken
“Front lines” Wraps and expediting along with register/cleaning tables.

Nicknames, too. Nicknames foment camaraderie. e.g. “The Reverend”, which is taken by Doug who, despite the name, is ironically neither a clergyman nor a professional wrestler. Audrey is “Coolie”. “Hightower”, “Ro-Ro” and “Luke Skywalker” have been retired. As has “Tank”, whoever the hell he was. The following are open.

The Kid
Flounder
Skipper
Captain
Domino
Trigger
Rabbit
Ice Cream Man
Goose
Badger
Bubbles
Murderface
Quizno
Gandalf
Dino
Dizzy
Meathead
Zippo
Frosty
Sarge
Sideshow
Ender
Wheeler
Fish
Soap
Quailman
Pinky
Twofer
Boomer

This is important now more than ever. It has also come to my attention that many blackshirts are leaving for either graduation or jobs elsewhere. Which leaves the Grille to very few supervisors and supervisors in training. Well. We’re boned.