Worst job was at Dunkin Donuts. Only stayed one day, orientation. I quit. I don't think I got paid for even going to that. It was a brand-new Dunkin Donuts and they were training us. We packed in grease into the fryers. That was disgusting. I didn't eat donuts or dough-fried pastries for over 6 years after that, literally. It grossed me out.
Then, they trained us on how to fry donuts. We move these steel racks from a table to the fryer and back to the table using there metal hooks. The racks are heavier with donuts on them and are even heavier after they are fried. So, we are training with empty racks and no grease in the fryers. You hold the hooks with your hands, let the bottom of the hook go under the rack, you pick it up, move it to the fryer, and then move the hooks outward to release the rack.This old dude was practicing and he dropped one side of the rack into the fryer. No donuts or grease so it was safe. When I saw that, I was like forget this job. I signed up for summer college courses.
I worked at Ponderosa Steakhouse as my first job. It wasn't bad. I worked as the fry cook. Except, once, I burned my fingers almost. Sometimes, people would order the baked fish, only old geezers would. But, I put the fish onto a metal plate and that goes into the oven with the baked potatoes. When the fish is done, I use tongs and pull out the metal place. One day, I had a baked fish order. I do the usual and put it into the oven. I work on other orders. Minutes later, I look up and see the order for the baked fish and I'm like, it's done. I open the oven, grab the metal plate with my hand, pulled it out, then I realized it was super hot, I yelled and I immediately dropped it. The manager came over and asked if I was okay. Oddly enough, I wasn't burned that bad. I guess it was like the walking on hot coals thing, if you aren't thinking it's hot, then it's not. I don't believe I was touching that plate for about a half second. The Ponderosa job wasn't the worst. It was pretty fun except for the fish plate incident. When they switched to having a huge buffet, that was nuts. People would be yelling at me, the fry cook, because there weren't chicken wings. I don't control the menu. The manager does! I think half the town became obese after they created the huge all-you-can-eat buffet.