How I got fired from Tim Hortons

In my hometown, if you want a job that’s not pure prostitution (I’m being serious here), you have two choices, and both have conditions similar to prostitution: working at McDonalds, or working at Tim Hortons. I chose the last one for one reason: McDonalds refused me.

Anyhow, I am afraid that my skills in English, although superbly developed and extremely powerful, cannot make due justice to how bad this job sucked ass. It was so terrible that even the manager used the sickness excuse to skip work. It was stressful, long, hard, difficult, painful (there was about one accident per day such as someone cutting himself making sandwiches (sandwich was still considered good if the blood was not visible on the bread),burning himself with the oven (we had oven gloves, but they had holes), falling on the ground(someone washed the floor everyday, but you never knew when), spilling coffee on his hands(you still had to pay it!) or even choking with the dinner we had to eat in our fifteen minutes break (pass this time, it was cut from your pay)).

As for our salary, it was not only minimal wages, but you had to pay some extras, such as forced (disgusting) dinner, all the items you spilled (and considering the cappuccino machine worked one time out of two, it actually costed you money to simply make an order ), all the items we broke (and things broke by themselves: the rumor was that the oven dated from World War II, it was so fucking old it still worked with coal) or general fees for “meetings”. Yes, we had topay to assist to boring, stupid three hours long meetings. The boss said it was to pay the fucking lunch, which consisted of donuts we were already sick of seeing.  Anyway, I am going to limit myself in my description of my old job since I am sure there are thousands of jobs worst, although I cannot even conceive them. In all cases, I needed the money, and didn’t really have the choice.

Over the fifty persons that were hired one year and a half ago, in 2004, including me, I was amongst the ten that lasted more than three months, thus proving Darwin’s theory on evolution and adaptation to even the worst conditions. Indeed, being an employee for almost a year, and one of the most productive, according to their production charts, I was expecting at least a small raise, like it was normal to do. I mean, after being there for one year, and being one of the best, you expect at least a small raise, no? Or should I content myself of minimum wages the rest of my life? For almost a month, my manager kept ordering and dismissing “productivity meetings”, as they call them, which is a poor excuse to blame you of all the possible mistakes you made, such as serving a coffee in 15 seconds and not 14.7. Anyway. As a matter of fact, I still never had that “meeting”. However, one day, I caught him off-guard in the boss’s room, and managed to talk to him about my raise. He started like this:

–Hmm… You are a very good employee. Never sick. Always on time. Very efficient. Very fast.
–Thank you, sir, I said. I only do my best.
–One year, right? Nice.

Nice indeed ,boss, nice indeed. Assuming X represents the normal time someone can last in such place, E[X]=0.1. You can ask if it’s in terms of years, months, days or hours. I would say all four.

–Alright, you do deserve a raise. Congratulations!
–Thank you ! I said, proudly. And how will it be?
–Let me calculate, hmm…. You are being raised by… five cents per hour.

Five cents per hour. Five, fucking, cents, per hour… WHAT? Is that some kind of sick joke? What the fuck am I supposed to do with five cents per hour, buy myself a car ? Wow. I was expecting maybe, twenty-five cents, or something like this! Five fucking cents, forty cents a day! What the hell am I supposed to do with forty cents? Even minimal wages raise faster than that! Worse yet, at the same time, the moron increased the meal’s cost by fifty cents (per work day), thus making me the only employee in the world actually losing money with a raise. Brilliant.

That’s how I got so pissed at them, for wasting my time and throwing bullshit. Five fucking cents. I still haven’t taken it. Anyway, back to the main story… It all happened on a normal evening of work, not so late. I was working, alone (because all other employee were dipshits anyway), doing my normal job, when one of our regular customers came. By regular, I mean that they literally can’t live without Tim Hortons. Trust me, two years ago, we closed for renovations, and some were so pissed and sad they actually cried. I really wonder what is in those people’s mind, sometimes, something like “Hmmm, the Tim Hortons is closed, I guess I will have to make coffee at home…”. Anyway. The customer that came this night was called Tony. “Tony” is a very well-known customer. Just a hint by the way: for all you morons that don’t give tips, we DO remember you. Trust me, we do. At least, I did. Anyway, Tony is what I would call a ” ’I-got-nothing-better-to-do!” man. Around fifty, bald, driving a crappy and ugly car, but very sympathetic, and always leaving good tips. Tony came every night, for as long I can remember, and at least two years. Every fucking night. He never missed one. There is a rumor that when the Tim Hortons closed for those renovations, he would drive fifty miles to another Tim Hortons so he could still get his fucking order. Incredible.

Each time, he would do the same thing: order a large tea, earl grey. He would then give me a two dollars piece, give me the change in tips (around forty-five cents, so around 33% of the price in tips) and leave. He would wait twenty-four hours, and come back. Forever. Like he was caught in time. However, this night, it would be different.

–One large tea, earl grey, please.

I made it, cashed the money and gave him his order. But just before he left, I told him this:

–Sir… can I talk to you one second?
–Huh… sure…
–You know, this tea you’re buying…
–Yeah ?
–You’re paying 1,55$ for it, you know. And… it’s just a pocket  worth two, maybe three cents.
–Yeah…
–I just add some hot water in it, you know 
–Yeah, why are you telling me this?

He wasn’t understanding and I really shouldn’t have pushed it further. However, if we always did what we should, life would be very boring, wouldn’t it? What’s a minimum wage job in comparison to the polemic I was about to start? I mean, I might be too harsh on the Tim Hortons. It after all had a few advantages, such as being incredibly easy to steal. Oh no, not the money. I remember the boss almost fired someone because a one dollar piece was missing (he accidentally put it in the tips, so he cut one dollar from everyone’s pay). Oh no, not one dollar! The boss then came with the following conclusion: If every employee stole me one dollar each day until the end of the times, I would lose 15,000$ dollars per year. Brilliant, asshole! Just brilliant! Anyway, they had cameras on every strategic point of the road a cashier can take, but surprisingly none near the storage room. I can’t believe the number of “bonuses” I took from them, really. To this date, I still have frozen bagels in my fridge from them. Crazy. I guess they didn’t care, or simply were idiots, or both. Anyway.

–Well you sir, that tea here, one is 1.55$. You can get a box of 12 for 3.99$.
–…
–You could just buy a box on twelve pockets, boil some water at home and… put it in. I mean, instead of coming here every night, drive here, spend gas… it’s the exact same thing.
—…

I wasn’t being mean with him. In fact, I was just trying to help him save. See, two dollars per day, forever, assuming three percents of interest per year (fairly easy to get) represents the present value of a perpetuity of two dollars, which is around 25 000$. Yes, the guy will have literally spent 25 000$ in overpriced tea in his life.

–You could save… I don’t know, ten dollars a week buying in bulk. Or better yet, you could buy it at the grocery. Much, much cheaper and much better, five, maybe ten cents pet pocket …
–YOU… GO FUCK YOURSELF! he yelled.

Oh fuck, he was pissed, so goddamn pissed. He didn’t drink his tea. He just threw it at me and yelled some random insults, quickly sped, and left.

That’s it. The next day, I was fired. I guess Mr.I-got-nothing-better-to-do didn’t appreciate my financial advices, and probably neither did my boss when he saw Tony rushing in the very next morning, yelling at everybody. I guess the boss wasn’t seeing the point of my economics theory, or finally found out who was stealing from the storage room. And since fifty persons were awaiting to take my post… the boss didn’t look any further.

What is funny, thought, is that some friends from Tim Hortons told me Mr.I-got-nothing-better-to-do never came back. Ever. If you are ever reading this article, sir, I want to tell you that I finally understood your logic. It has taken me almost a full year, but I can see right now that you are the kind of person that complains about high taxes, inflation, low wages, cost of life and almost everything that crosses your path, but still wastes his money on some dumb shit such as overpriced tea and stupid ugly cars. As a matter of fact, you probably have the newest video iPod, a portable DvD recorder, a MP3 player that takes pictures and other useless shit no one needs. And yes, I am still pissed at you.