today's the day i start work im so nervous lol

i hate the picture of my face on my card so much it makes me look like the single most masculine human who's ever lived

this is a christian place originally only intended for their elderly clergy btw, but they have a diversity equity inclusion statement that explicitly mentions gender identity, and despite how things are going, soooooooo

lmao one of my coworkers thought i was my sister but "turning into a guy"

okie dokie i think ive processed and decompressed enough from that first day on the job that i wanna YAP about it

first off NEW CHARACTERS JUST DROPPED IN THE ENARGEIAVERSE

MY TRAINER: some zoomer whiteboy whos studying economics and consumes way too much dbz and naruto and one piece and jjk. fucks with the mid 2000s sonic osts and ai voiceover parody videos

TRAIN GUY: only genuinely friendly one here, makes loud train noises whenever he passes through, wishes he were tearing trafficpoles up in philly after the eagles win. has some sort of beef with dessert lady

SALAD GUY: i hate [something about my job]. u feel me [deadname]?

DESSERT LADY: vaguely hispanic lady who seems significantly older than all us zoomers. keeps mistaking my sister for someone named emily. when i met her she mistook me for my sister, who she mistook for emily, and thought i was her but just starting transition to "turn into a guy" lmao

after watching lotsa training videos about dementia and shit like that, i spent most of the time following my trainer and watching him do things i won't remember how to do. i spent the next most time doing the only job i 100% understand so far, which is operating the check-in place to make sure no seniors get free meals

to do this i had to find each ones name on the resident list and deduct a meal from their plan, and to do that i had to listen to each one say their name as they came through. but they were seniors so there was a lot of slurring and me leaning over going "could you say that again" and a couple got through with free meals in the end whoops

and at one point the salad guy vanished for a reallllyyyyy long bathroom break and so i just took over and acted like i knew how to do the salads even though nobody had taught me let alone assigned me to the job, it somehow went alright even though i bonked a few salad containers against the glass barrier tryna get them through the slit to a senior. nelly furtado is my voice rn, i AM like a bird, i cant see that glass for shit

yall im resting after the second day and it was interesting, i met some new people who didn't work the last shift. first is a lady with lots of tattoos who worked the grill and second is a lady who has a cartoon network character i vaguely have imprinted somewhere in my subconsious as her phone wallpaper

this second lady taught me to scoop and serve the different types of slop from their heated up buckets, and to go complain to the chefs when i ran out. i like having her train me cause she seems like she knows her shit more than everybody else and seems really sweet when she isn't being loud and demanding for the job

also dessert lady called me the feminine version of my deadname today, after explained i wasnt my sister the other day and told her my deadname. i have no idea what she thinks about me, is she onto me being a closed trans girl through pure vibes only???

and so far my least favorite parts of this job are:

1. sweeping and mopping at the end, humans were meant to clean normal rooms like this not bigass line kitchens and cafes

2. how much food we throw out at the end of the day. if this is normal for fast food, it's a crime against humanity

@detondev It's incredibly normal for fast food and has been so for over 3 decades at least. Source: Me, a perpetually broke (on disability because brain) person who didn't ( and still wouldn't) have a problem sitting in the back of fast food places waiting for the end of night shift to toss out at least one huge bag of heated ready to eat food, often ready to go in meal boxes etc.

and im still salty about them throwing out the pizza before i could get to it (we're allowed to eat leftovers)

"gonna get more crackers, get more of my people" - my coworker

"you have a nice spring in your step" - random old lady

can i put quotes from irl people in my bio reviews section lol

@detondev yes you can

i went out of breath handling a big box of cantaloupe at work, clearly i am destined to write the next proletarian anthem

no but seriously there's material here. it's crazy how my coworkers and i all got our own distinct little drops of charm while our manager people are all the most aggressively uncool white men the labs've cooked up to date. and it's always a little sad when u get done talking with a nice old lady only to spot all the trump stickers and knicknacks on her purse and shit

the grill lady looks exactly like mama from death stranding but chubbier, and talks exactly like her but with more aave and 420 blaze it jokes and fangirling over marvel movies. i will always wipe the dishes cart when she tells me to

yooooo the one really good chef from slovakia has a "FREAKIN' AWESOME CULINARY BADASS" tshirt faintly visible under his cooking top, i kinda want one now lol

i post these stories out of a deep unshakeable love for humanity despite viscerally knowing better

weirdly enough im solidly the youngest person working the line. the manager told me he usually hired teenagers and most of these people seemed like they would be in high school (mind you ive obviously never been) but it turns out theyre all twentysomethings

one of the saddest things i observe here is that the closer a coworker is to my age, the more they're doing a bajilion different types of drugs just to keep functioning between work and school

@detondev still proud of how you are handling your first gig. I didn't get that kind of maturity until I was in my 20s in the Army in the 70s. Seriously.

I know my opinion aren't worth a fart in a high wind but there it is...

sooo the other day at work was a day we'd all been dreading: they finally finished adding the new touchscreen ordering system to replace the usual way. it really seems like there's no good reason for it. for starters, this is a retirement home so all the cafe customers have been used to ordering face to face their whole lives, and there's no apparent accessibility improvements. maybe there's a slight efficiency improvement??? idk, not even the manager guys are all that enthusiastic about this, i hear the order came from higher-level corporate mfs who haven't ever set foot in our kitchen so yeah

@detondev Lol. "It'll be more efficient this way."

"Wait, why is every order taking 15 minutes longer than before??"

WAIT YALL one of the managers, the one who's like a peter griffin type big guy from an animated adult comedy, has been wearing a fucking Celeste hoodie to work for multiple days. wtf does this mean

@detondev that he likes celeste?

@yujiri yes but a solid third of reasons ive heard people like it are trans related in some way shape or form soooo

@detondev don't ask me, it's not like we all know each other...hey my whole career management would hide me in back when "company" came. Otherwise they treated me like a necessary evil. Hated me, ridiculed my clothing style (early American pothead) but they loved and depended on the code I wrote.

What hurt management the most I think is that I knew all that and used it to my benefit.

kitchen guy with baseball cap: [deadname] lift this with the rag so you don't burn yourself

me: *mumbled response*

kitchen guy: cmon yell at me! i want that! that's what i like!

friendly frumpy short old lady coworker with the thick local accent: you fucking freak

going back to work today, have no idea how much ill remember about how to do shit 😭

yall celeste guy's got the music taste of me when i was twelve lol, bumping instrumental synthpop i found off youtube like magic sword and shit, takes me back 🎶

my job keeps me from getting home till after the library's closed, so i haven't been doing that nighttime walk shit i described before, where most my pictures came from. i miss it. guess it's time to savor the night for it's own sake, without the library to motivate me.

im starting to think i have a knack for meeting women who believe in astrology and psychics and all that type shit, all my women coworkers believe and all the women at my community college's psychology club believed back when i was involved in that

working both taking orders face to face and running around taking care of shit on the cafe line is starting to beat some social skills into my homeschooled autistic ass, as they said it would lol. i now have preprogrammed pleasantties i say really loudly to make sure people hear it!!!

omggg one of the nurses who works here is named ena omg hiiiiii

for some reason everyone here plays pokemon go. even celeste guy. how did this happen, how do social groups form offline and develop themselves over time, what are the lives of people who went to school as kids like

*i struggle finding places to put some cage menus*

random ass old retired lady: so this is how the other half lives huh

so today at work was wild yall, i was assigned taking orders again (they seem to lile me in the most ppl-facing positions?) and then the computer stopped being able to close tickets for some reason. so we all had to revert to the old way of doing things. and most people celebrated that lmao obviously

@detondev i take it, the computer sucks?

@yujiri well it's that new system that nobody wanted and seems extra inappropriate at a retirement home

also screamo guy had painted black nails, should complimented him on it

oughhhffff the reality of the time work takes from me starting to hit a lil ngl

kept a straight face overhearing an old lady proselytizing about the evils of transgenderism to her friends as i served her crawdad

screamo guy: hey bro want some milk?

slovakian baker, in thick slovakian accent, almost word for word: get that crap away from me, back when i was kid i drank milk right inside farm, here today all they have is this pasteurized and pasteurized carton, it smells like shit and is basically water

im tryna find his t shirt i mentioned before online btw, but turns out bitches r just pumping out tons of em with the same phrase just in different layouts and i cant find the one he had lol

and i was beginning to forget this was a christian place till about 75% of the building had ash crosses on their foreheads from one of the retired priests here

it's definitely one of the less bad christian traditions tbh more people should be drawing on their heads with ash as a reminder of their fragile mortal being

before i left i heard the lady who trained me on serving hot slop talk about her fucked history with how she lost her last job at a pharmacy, when she caught covid as it was first kicking off in the usa, and pissed off her bosses by tryna fight for better accommodation for that

one funny thing i never mentioned happened is that, when they were setting up the new system, my other zoomer coworkers started laughing when they first saw the ui, confusing our manager. i looked over and saw the different stations abbreviations were "KMS", "POS", and so on :)

goatee chef: all im good for is leaving

anime guy: just like my dad!

goatee chef: all part of the plan

half my coworkers are black, and u better believe i often hear em joking about finding their caucasian side whenever corpos come in

our cafe uses those dixie cups, and screamo guy wrote "normous" right by the brandname and started uncontrollably wheezing and giggling to himself for like 5 minutes

apparently he was in the managers office with a sixteen year old who works here when he told them about his handiwork and the manager said, almost word for word, "jesus christ there's a minor here" people who refer to teens as minors r among us irl u can't make this shit up

lost my voice a lil from hollering at seniors

"international women's day was shortest of the year, cause that's how important yall are" - celeste guy

grill lady was telling a wild ass story about how she worked all day sunday on only two hours of sleep, had like a dozen drugs and redbulls in her to make it, then went on a night trip into the city with a friend afterwards. she apparently wandered into a cookie store or some shit that had some other shit locked behind this mechanical wall, that lifted up into the ceiling with a password she wasn't supposed to have but talked her way into. when she watched it lift, that just completely destroyed her barely surviving tether to reality in the most lovecraftian sense possible lol, she couldnt believe what she was seeing was real. the friend had to fish her ass outta there

the password is "flowerpower" btw she totally snitched to us lol be sure to try it if ur in any tiny cookie stores nestled deep within a certain northeast us city, won't be more specific cause im not doxxing myself yet 🙃

also screamo guy showed us pictures of the screamo concert in a random dude's basement, they were terrifying cause there was like only an inch between the basement ceiling and everyones heads. there was some band i didn't get the name of coming up from west virginia that spent most of the time shit talking our football team

there's been this one old lady living here whos always uhh, sorta flirty with me ig? idk

"(deadname) u gotta get urself one of them COUGARS u feel me, they gonna take care of u, they not like these females nowadays, females nowadays a whole different BREED" - train guy, giving me unprompted dating advice

train guy came to work today with the bottom sides of his afro freshly updated, but i like it less than before. why? cause now his whole head looks like a penis tip lol. black men everywhere BE CAREFUL do this style right lest the same fate awaits, look like a mushroom not a pp okay

while im receiving much inspiration for when i create The Great American Game by working here now rather than hiding from the world, truth is too strange for fiction. if i wrote a 20-25 year old black dude who voted trump only cause he believed women were too emotional to lead, despite working under multiple woman head chefs at his latest job, and whos afro just happens to be perfectly shaped to make his head look like a dick, that would be too bullshit for people. but hes right here tryna get me to hook up with women old as my mom

also the reason screamo guy wasn't here the first few days i was despite being an employee since he was like 14 is apparently cause he just got out of prison??? bro is barely older than me wtf did he do

me every day at work

"im so sorry, i didnt know you were a boy. you have the long hair and you were skipping back and forth, so i thought you were a girl" - another random old lady

every dinner shift at our humble retirement community cafe, there's always one table for our token liberal friend group of seniors amidst all the centrist and maga boomers. i should tap them into masto they seem like they'd make great annoying liberals here lol

"i read they took down the picture of the enola gay because it had the word gay in it! why, next they'll get rid of everything to do with humanity because of the homo in homo sapiens!"
"oh they'd ABSOLUTELY do that betsy!"

⚡️⚡️⚡️ DRAMA THURSDAY ⚡️⚡️⚡️

BEEF has kicked off between SCREAMO GUY and TRAIN GUY. screamo guy and i were wiping down the plastic carts, business as usual, when screamo guy asked train guy to go fetch the clean dishes. train guy said "i aint doin allat" and left. screamo guy started quietly going off to me "u had one fucking job fucking pussy fucking lazy ass bitch fuck u imma get u fired imma beat ur ass" HOWEVER when i went to the main area i learned tired guy overheard, told train guy, and he was going "say it to my face pussy". screamo guy came in and they started shouting match back and forth till celeste guy came in, shut them up, and separated them

screamo guy has a pact with some 40-60 year old man he knows. this old man is a lifelong smoker, and screamo guy is young with lots of drugs in his system. when he found out screamo guy was starting to vape, he told him he'd start tryna stop cigarettes long as he kept from adding vapes to his inner cocktail

i have this bad habit, which ive been doing way more at work especially, where i'll swing my arms and wildly gesture and move my lips with a big grin like how these ingroup neurotypicals banter and react to jokes, without actually saying anything. cause i don't actually know how to respond to their joke.

the one manager, the one who's a jew who shit talked himself cause he forgot that it was passover (need to find a better anonymity nickname than "jewish guy"), called this out one time and my heartrate spiked, i had to go rest in the bathroom a bit.

at work i have this one coworker, who ill nickname singing guy, who, uh... sings a lot more than everybody else while working. ive noticed some recurring patterns in whats most common:

- going MUSTAAAAAAAARD whenever he wants mustard, u can hear that shit ringing out cross the cafe lol
- singing SWEET HOME ALABAMA whenever he's serving up specific types of meat
- singing DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD in a really high elmo type voice i dont fucking actually know

@detondev your workplace has so many characters

@yujiri the worlds got over 7 billion characters to pick from in it

woah turns out posting quickly is hard with the disposable vinyl gloves we gotta change every now n then at work

good news yall train guy's afro was a work in progress its even more trimmed down today crisis averted

train guy, doing a high pitched cartoon impression: TWODAY'S PIE ISSSS CHEEWWYY PIE!

singer guy, doing same impression: NOOOO IWTS A FWUIT OWF THWE FOWWEST!

train guy: ITS CHEEWWYY

singer guy: NO ITS FWUIT OWF THWE FOWWEST

train guy: TWY IT!

singer guy: NOW YEW TWY IT!

train guy: TWY IT TWY IT JUWST TWY IT!

singer guy: ITS FWUI-

train guy: AIWNT NAW FWUIT IWN DWA FOWWEST YUW DWUMB MOWVERFWUKEWR! FWUK YEW TWALKIN BOWT!

for work today i got covid vaxxed. i haven't done anything covid related once these 5 years cause of parents, this is first time.

@detondev did u ever have it?

@760ceb3b9c0ba4872cadf3ce35a7a4 no, i just said that? or r u referring 2 something else

@detondev sorry i totally wasnt clear did u catch covid?

@760ceb3b9c0ba4872cadf3ce35a7a4 don't know lol, maybe some of the worse fevers n shit during that time could've been it, my parents don't do things like checking with doctors abt that stuff

discourse moves fast at the annoying liberal seniors table, the other day at work the topic was different each time took a dirty dish. first it was whether the fbi killed jfk, then it was pod save america, then it was newt gingrich's role in how things ended up this way, then it was why hillary lost, then it was

listened to my coworkers tell stories of going to walmart and finding dudes shitting in the isles, bathrooms locked to stop kids from doing heroin, and GREAT PRICES!

today i met two new coworkers that started working my side of things recently: two identical twins who look like american zoomer reincarnations of the bogdanoff twins early era. it's uncanny

screamo guy told us last saturday at a party he took 3 xans 1 lemonade 1 choccy milk 1 bottle of some type alcohol i didn't catch then vomited it all out in a wawa's parking lot later that night

grill lady: "And he was always a kind normal guy! You'dve never guessed he'd get arrested for 2 gigs of child porn! He'd send me money and a nice card for my birthdays back in the d-"

screamo guy: "Cause he was tryna SLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE!"

@detondev

@demi https://social.linux.pizza/@detondev/114179595781145922

@detondev my hart hurts at choccy milk being vomited out :(

@yujiri is it even choccy milk atp, has it been ship of thesused

one thing with this new system is that many of the retirees here had been getting to interact with the people making their food face to face, had been forming relationships with them, and now it's mostly a machine to them. "I never get to see you guys anymore!" Nancy said to grill lady. "Is your sister back to healthy?"

celeste guy's got a new haircut and its a botched attempt at looking like a broccoli haired 14yo boy 💔

local accent lady cooked up some meat, proclaimed how amazing it tasted, then handed me some so i could try. i wanted to but just couldn't make myself do it, especially not infront of everybody where it was socially riskier. i escaped to the bathroom threw it away n sat around feelin like shit, fuck my shitty arfid life

@detondev I am confused; are you vegetarian?

@coeusprime ive been struggling with this type shit my whole life, been looking for medical help recently https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoidant/restrictive_food_intake_disorder

the cafe order computer stopped working along with receipt printer, so i had to take orders on the manager's ipad that had the software installed. while this was happening an in-house technician tried to fix it. she had the most butch lesbian haircut ever and her fair share of colored tattoos, one of which was on her neck and either a pride flag lighting bolt or a "my energy" lightning bolt, couldn't precisely pin down what the colors were

while she was fixing it (took most of the lunch shift) she dropped the most r-slur ive ever heard out someone's mouth in my life lol, once or twice a minute ig? even one the phone with another technician, he apparently commented on it and she said "oh that's not pc? well, nobody's perfect!"

she looked n sounded like she was on the verge of tears from stress whole time she was working, so when i was free i went over n helped her slide cords thru holes n shit. despite our effort, what fixed it was the manager unplugging something n plugging it back in again lol. as she walked away i gave her a corny lil salute and that made her laugh n cheered her up ^_^

@detondev wow! While I know it's not the same, I am struggling with something strikingly similar. In 2005 I had an RNY stomach surgery to get rid of my diabetes. It succeeded and suddenly, after eating a tiny bit of a meal my brain has been rewired to broadcast "I am full and if I force another bite I will puke" signals. Recently something got reset because now my brain broadcaststhat signal all the time. As a result, I weighed 105 today. And taste hallucinations? I could tell you tales..

also tried out fried onion rings for the first time in my life, courtesy of cafe leftovers. they were good! wasn't expecting em to be so weirdly sweet tasting

@detondev hey speaking of the eating thing. This has confounded me from the start and wondering if you had This too.
Goes like this. I have been the chef in this house for30 years. However I might think I can eat so I make something. If it takes more than about 10 mind, suddenly the food I am cooking smells like burning plastic or burning dogshit..any appetite is replaced with náusea so I just dumped the food into the trash. And lose more weight...this happens like clockwork nearly every meal

my coworkers n i were having discourse over if the man with the yellow hat from curious george had a real name, then train guy accidentally said "yellow man with the hat" and it turned RACIAL

@detondev do you cook? No evil intent or subterfuge, just fine-tuning my understanding of the eating disorder. You see, yesterday I noticed some overlap of symptoms so said what I said but after rereading today I felt both relieved and punched in the gut. I only have like 18 months to go so thought I could deal with it but now it or something like it is killing me. 105 this evening, a slow but inevitable loss. Started around 150 lbs..oddly I am already on one of the primary treatments..

missed yet another call from the manager, tryna keep myself from dooming

*a gigantic centipede appears on the cafe floor*

screamo guy: awwww it's a widdle bug!

sparkle lady: please don't kill it, it would break my heart

cartoon lady: *casually walks over it to go fetch cleaning equipment* sorry i dont got a heart

yall pls save me train guy's doing last of us 2 discourse in 2025 "nah abby was DEFINITELY a transgender when she lifted up her shirt i was soooo pissed" after i explained everybody assumed she was cuz she's buff and therefore Arnold Schwarzenegger with a ponytail in the eyes of the average gamer

oh shit istg i just saw a lil mouse run across the floor as i walked out the cafe after we closed

today at the cafe there's some event going on, some white lady is talking about the history of motown music, how she thinks it solved racism in the fifties, and then performing the hits over the bluetooth speaker backing track

anime guy: *rolls up paper and tosses it at screamo guy*

screamo guy: *dodges, paper hits grill lady*

grill lady: OW, my titty!

anime guy: sorry

grill lady: if i develop breast cancer its ur fault

anime guy: *tosses paper at screamo guy, actually hits this time*

screamo guy: if u do that again imma molest u

train guy: no diddy

this type shit is the average interaction at my workplace atp lol

the other day at work i ended up in an interaction with most of my middle aged dude coworkers that somehow led to them humming a vocal sample from Annie Lennox's Why, and then me tryna hit the falsetto end, then all of them laughing at me cause thats my singing weakness. I hadn't ever heard of Annie till they demonstrated what they wanted me to do, so now ive looked it up and im like wow this is a pretty good song. Old Guys SCHOOL Clueless Zoomer On What REAL MUSIC Is

*train guy going through and mocking everybody's ages* ha-hah, so [screamo guy], how old were you again?

screamo guy: 20

train guy: oooooh, how do i know i can trust you, what if you're 30? what if you're 16?

screamo guy: cuz i spent my 20th in the psych ward bed hopped up on a dozen meds with a little bracelet from the staff around my wrist, i got pictures if you wanna see#

today was one of the most hectic days ive had at work yet, and on top of that so much wild shit happened i don't think i can recall it all for this thread

me: *rushing into the kitchen to look for butter*

slovakian baker: *tosses crumpled paper at me with a big stupid grin*

me: oof

slovakian baker: *while laughing* come on bro u were suppose to CATCH

me: suprise attack

*a wildly dressed guy walks in with a weird black and white dog real low to the ground*

tired guy: yo what kind of dog is that?

screamo guy: i dont know... a corgi?

tired guy: man this place doesnt feel real

me: especially in the hallways

tired guy: bro EXACTLY, its like the matrix when i walk down one of them bitches

*a few moments later: someone in a full body easter bunny fursuit walks in to spread holiday cheer*

tired guy: BRUH im in a simulation wtf is happening

me *high fives the easter bunny*

tired guy: *staring, mouth agape, sense of reality shattered*

he's not wrong though, this place really is surreal to exist in. long hallways lined with resident doors, walls papered with patterns out of style by the 60s. fake plants all over the place

screamo guy's gonna go to warped tour soon eventually and he really wrote in big letters all over the request off form "Warped Tour" then went WARPED TOOOOUUUURRRR!!!!! right by the soda machine

@detondev

I put your account through multiple translations, and then back into English. I don't know why, perhaps it was my medication.

A disguised man and a black and white dog fall to the ground nearby.

Tired people, oh my god, what kind of dog is this?

The man shouts, "I don't know. Are you a Welsh Corgi?"

Tired people, this is not a real place.

Me: Especially on the street.

Weak person: My friend. Exactly. That's the "basic" when walking a dog.

A few minutes later, a man dressed as the Easter Bunny walks in and wishes Christmas.

Tired friends. I'm on vacation. What's going on?

Say goodbye to the Easter Bunny.

Tired, eyes closed, mouth open, loss of reality.

#DadaistTranslation #Dadaist #DadaistParable

@JPK_elmediat hell yeah, ive got fond memories of doing that lol https://social.linux.pizza/@detondev/113103602327139063

during lunch break today there was this fire alarm technician guy sitting in the booth next to mine as i was eating leftover cafe pizza n bacon. we could both see each other thru a hole in the top, was awkward at first. he started striking up a convo with me, ive learned to take joy in the act itself so i feel like it went well, even asked him a question rather than just defensively answering his the whole time

during dinner shift today screamo guy started having an anxiety attack. id heard he had a buncha mental health issues and a therapist but nothing specific.

jewish guy walked by, screamo guy asked if he could cover his position so he could go take the meds in his car. he said no. train guy walked past, asked "u okay?", screamo guy said no, and train guy just made a joke reply and left.

atp he looked like he was boutta drop dead, leaning against the wall turning red. i got my soup and fruit orders done, saw his incomplete salad orders, and was like "bro ill cover u the line's small enough rn"

but during the 10 minutes he was gone, jewish guy came back to restock chips. im nervous that screamo guy and i didn't properly convey what happened after that, nervous he might get in trouble cause of me

jewish guy has the most monotone voice ive ever heard, and both my sister and i are autistic. it makes some convos really funny, like one time a lady was interrogating him about how environmentally friendly the cafe was, another time a lady found out he was jewish and started getting emotional over the josh shapiro situation, and both times he spoke like he was boutta fall asleep outta boredom. "oh that's terrible" "yeah" "uh huh" he did not GIVE A SHIT lol. most emotion ive heard from him is when he catches me fucking up

@MURRUMUR this thread is a modern day literary masterpiece touching on issues of capitalism and race and mental health which all working class people cam relate to 🙏 imma escape one day and publish this shit so much juice

*screamo guy checks his phone, a friend texted him a meme*

old lady: what are you looking at?

screamo guy: my friend sent me something funny

old lady: its not a porno is it?

today marks the beginning of "employee appreciation week." this means there are now a bunch of sad saggy papers with clipart of glossy smiley emojis partially stuck to various walls of the cafe

there's this one old lady who kept asking me shit like "are you christian?" "are you saved?" "do you go to church?". today, cleaning her table, i overheard her praising the confidence of someone she described as "this african-american trans woman, who looked 6 feet tall, with bright pink hair, and large stilletos, she was very formidable."

tall cook: yo [deadname]!

me: *twists around to look at him*

tall cook: why u turn like r kelly 💀

train guy: *jokingly whips screamo guy with towel after their back n forth*

jewish guy: hey, remember your ancestors history with hitting ok?

train guy: *visibly caught off guard* uhhh im not sure how i feel abt u saying that

screamo guy: yeah if i said it it'd be funny but from a manager it's just weird

train guy: NOT U EITHER [SCREAMO GUY]!

racial relations have been solved. tired guy, Ambassador of Black People, and anime guy, Ambassador of White People, have engaged in through discourse regarding what types of racism they find funny in what contexts. now im not completely sure what the takeaway is but one big point is when white people are genuinely offended by the word cracker. yea that is kinda funny

tired guy's the most existential of my coworkers. besides the matrix shit from before we also got into a long three way convo about what's wrong with gen z, he's gotten all all sentimental yet weirded out abt things like how he doesn't know anything abt us outside of work, how he'd have difficulty looking for a better job cause he'd miss the spice we all bring to life

screamo guy: *shouting cross the cafe* YO [JEWISH GUY] WHATS YOUR FAVORITE COLOR

jewish guy: blue! uhhhh i mean pink!

screamo guy: *quietly* femboy

last tuesday at work there was this group of it guys who came and made me take all their orders in one go, started talking like food critics when their meals were done, got into a convo abt gaming with that technician lady i mentioned before, and then did that thing where big games that r more popular with men are somehow more valid than big games more popular with women (making fun of her in that way for liking the sims)

dont usually work today, but i agreed to cover tired guy's shift cuz he was at prom or some shit. im glad i did! not only were we serving delicious rare muffins with chocolate on the inside, i met some old dudes who showed me old black and white pictures of them as twentysomethings loading shit onto chinook helicopters

one big problem with my job is that i smell like shit almost all the time now from running around getting sweaty carrying ppls half eaten plates and tossing giant trash bags into the compactor and so on

grill lady telling us stories of an old coworker who was from an amish family or something, who apparently asked singer guy for permission to say the n word and eventually got fired after many similar incidents

afro guy: why'd [jewish guy] say he'd be "here but not here"

me: his spirit's watching over us *cross motions*

afro guy: *little snort-laugh*

sparkle mom: wowww u talking like a priest on us

@detondev I love your workplace people

@superball they're quick witted

there are many coworkers i never mention cause we almost always just interact via friendly nods as we do our jobs without getting into entertaining Situations constantly

@detondev hey dude the, did you ever write anything about your time in e. Germany? What years was that again? With my background I would love to read.

Cheers!

afro guy: *tryna put a bag of italian dressing in its container by tossing, bouncing it off the ceiling*

*lands in ranch dressing container

afro guy: aw i missed *tries again*

*lands in salad bar broccoli*

afro guy: even worse, one more time one more time *tries again*

*lands on the ground*

afro guy: damn bro

@detondev dammit fucking autocorrect! . Sorry i didn't catch it...the 2nd time. I meant "dudette" (a term from my misspent youth) and it turned it into dude, I edited it back to dudette, it must have changed it back. I feel as though I spend an inordinate amount of my online time apologizing. I try so hard too....I hate autocorrect with the heat of a thousand suns

train guy, tired guy, and cartoon lady were having an extensive discussion about if each one is from the hood, then about saving money, then about dating after cartoon lady spoke on frustrations with her boyfriend having her do all the grocery shopping. train guy said some weird shit abt how this is why he "don't date black queens" and repeated all the dating advice he told me before. cartoon lady told him he couldn't find anyone to take care of him like he wanted cause he only dates outside girls instead of inside girls

tired guy: don't worry [train guy] it's not over for u since u don't got a girl yet, ur still pretty young u not like 30 or something

cartoon lady, who tired guy didn't realize was over 30:

train guy: SHOTS FIRED!!!

tired guy: whoops sorry even then i mean

train guy: yo [deadname]

me: whatchu say?

train guy: u ever eat grass as a kid?

me: at some point

train guy: flowers?

me: yeah a dandelion

train guy: *turns to tired guy* WHY YALL EATING DANDELIONS

@detondev

i broke a handle on the wall at work today, whoops. in my defense it was hanging on by one loose screw in the eroded busted concrete lol

@detondev I broke a door handle at the library. In my defense, they had the handle backwards to make it look like you were supposed pull instead of push. It made a pretty good popping noise too.

"this pizza so gas, im shittin my ass. DIDDY STYLE!" - screamo guy

screamo guy: yo watch this *sets up two towers of cups then pilots his fist into one while making plane noises*

whenever im in charge of labeling to-go trays, i like to doodle on the slips of paper we use when im bored. my coworkers all mess with it, the retirees love it (some tell me they collect them) and really nobody dislikes it except for jewish guy, who wants things more professional but doesn't stop me. today screamo guy told me he's itching for the day i "draw something outta pocket" and start some sorta big controversy lol

@detondev drawing too? Pretty please may I see some?

@coeusprime i don't have any pictures of what i draw on the papers at work but i have some other boredom sketches here https://detondev.com/boredom.html

just remembered in the locker room a few days ago i overheard one of the chefs gossiping abt how celeste guy left the sink running while he used the bathroom stall and ended up flooding the place, they had to shut it down for a bit to repair

screamo guy lifted up his work logo shirt to reveal a t-shirt with a picture of a raccoon that said "rizz 'em with the 'tism"

i usually doodle inoffensive things on the cafe tray slips, like trees and flowers, but today I was bored and did more my usual boredom sketch style.

fast forward to end of shift, screamo guy walks up and asks, sincerely, if i have schizophrenia. he apparently started worrying about me two days ago when i also made a few weirder ones, and compared my drawings to schizophrenia patient drawings he'd seen online.

@detondev what'd you say

@yujiri no. maybe im developing!

@detondev wow these are detail-dense, will take me a few days to go through them all. They are so...they are like a very rich and colorful tapestry.

More to come.
J.

*screamo guy and train guy inspect a small gap between two cafe counters. screamo guy slips in between and uses them to suspend himself in the air*

screamo guy: this my new chair!

train guy: hey hey lemme try!

*screamo guy gets out, but train guy's too wide to fit*

train guy: uuurrrrrrgh im almost therrre

screamo guy: too fat? ill help you! *prepares to push him in deeper by kicking his stomach*

train guy: NO imma pop my insides *gets out* yo [deadname] you try

me: *slides in easy*

screamo guy: of course he fits he's all bone

me: *starts running in place*

train guy: oh now u just flexin

butch technician lady: hey can i get a box?

me: just any box or something specif-

singer guy, interrupting: im a box. open me

butch technician lady: *puts hands on her hips, sassy voice* don't threaten me with a good time!

grill lady: *jaw drops*

not that employee appreciation week is long gone, but those sad saggy papers with public domain smiley face clipart are still up cause nobody gives enough of a shit to take them down

@detondev I don't have a word for this but how do you make black and white drawings that causes the observer to think in terms of color and hue?

@coeusprime isn't this just an aspect of when art provokes your imagination? like listening to a good album and making up a movie in your mind

singer guy: *sings*

me: *beatboxes along*

singer guy: WE FINALLY LOOSENING YOU UP! SLOWLY BUT SURELY!

celeste guy: *tells long story about how he's with us as a normal worker today cause he couldn't find any replacements for who called out*

screamo guy: (sarcastic voice) it's okay [celeste guy], you're the best possible replacement we could've gotten

celeste guy: *keeps doing his job*

screamo guy: *turns to me* he doesn't give a fuck

Today I found myself hunched over from a twisted foot in the grimy employees' restroom, reading a dog-eared Slaughterhouse Five paperback, barely sentient from 24+ hours sleepless, as the guy in the stall next to me binged WWE TikTok clips without headphones connected.

Somehow, from my impression of the book so far, I feel like Vonnegut would be delighted to hear all this. Which is how you know I'm really enjoying it ^_^

idk much abt food and routinely embarrass myself working here not knowing shit like what certain french words mean

tired guy expressed the same sentiment to me, especially with regards to the snickerdoodle bar we served today. after work he grabbed one and ate it just to find out

sceamo guy has a buddy who works as a bank teller or some shit, apparently one guy who comes in there's a higher up who manages a bunch of mcdonalds in our state, and he just sends them bulk orders sometimes. anyway heyyyyyy rich ppl haha

tired guy: *fiddling with his long white shirt that makes up part of some employee uniforms* damn this is so hot this time of year, why do you get a t-shirt and not me

me: they just handed it to me when i got hired

tired guy: really? they told me i wouldn't get one till i was hired longer

me: maybe they changed the dress code before me?

tired guy: hey [celeste guy] can i have the t-shirt i've been here like a year now

celeste guy: i'll check with [jewish guy] for you, it'll probably be a while if so cause our stock's small

me: mind you [jewish guy] gave me a whole pile

tired guy: bro

whimsical elderly men are kings and deserve the world. working at this cafe i'm always tryna be the one to take their order when they're around. shoutout Fredrick in particular for making spaceship landing noises as i set his food down and laughing maniacally when i made a joke comparing all the silverware and plastic containers he had to a dragon's hoard

"im like a mushroom, cause im a fun guy." - screamo guy

me: *cleaning table* u done eating this?

whimsical old man: nope! i'll need the energy later when im popping pills

I think last week at work, I've been more socially adept than I ever have in my entire life. I was assigned to take orders most the time, so I got to work out "default courtesies" better. And I made screamo guy of all people genuinely laugh, I might be figuring out how to be funny offline? Bantered with tired guy a lot when I was helping him too.

starting to develop a superstition: if you yell at the workers cause the cafe's outta milk to sell or some shit, nitpick how there's the wrong amount of olives in your salad or how we don't have enough trashcans or whatever, then you'll continue to experience bad and worse things here in the future. we won't even be doing it intentionally, we'll be trying our best cause we're scared of your outbursts, but then the universe will give you what you deserve

cartoon lady apparently tried to run away from home when she was little. for some reason, she announced it to her mom first, and that convo went like this:

cartoon lady: im LEAVING this place

her mom: ur fatass is gon be HUNGRY

cartoon lady: i already packed snacks!

her mom: i got chicken cooking!

cartoon lady: yo chicken NASTY anyway

her mom: well, see u at 8!

cartoon lady: no u aint! *scampers out door*

she didnt make it past 8:10

why do so many of my coworkers have a story abt drunk dancing to country music at 2am

the company who makes the ice cream we serve in this cafe came out with a new cake-inspired flavor, so we're now serving it. my coworkers are all big fans

frumpy lady: this is amazing!

train guy: it's like crack!

frumpy lady: have you tried it yet?

me: no

frumpy lady: *straight up scrapes a ball of it from the bucket and shoves it in my mouth*

it's alright but it'd prolly kill me if I have more then that lol

that overly flirty old lady: ill order a grilled cheese!

me: okay *putting it in on the computer*

flirty old lady: you're cute

me: *awkward polite smile* anything else u want?

flirty old lady: i want youuu

@detondev your life seems so bizarre

@yujiri is it me or this county that's the vortex pulling weird shit in

@detondev well, my life doesn't have nearly as many bizarre experiences and ppl. at least it doesn't feel that way to me

@yujiri once again when people say this i always wonder if the weird shit around them got noticed, if id have an extra post in this series if id stopped what i was doing while working the cold line to go listen in on a convo over at the hotline, rather than most of my work posts being from what i notice during more relaxed moments

@detondev https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAe2Q_LhY8g

most tragic thing is that the most meltdown-prone hardest to work with patron of this cafe has the most drip. she came in wearing this skirt with a pattern of yellow louis wain type cats, yellow tinted glasses, a church bell necklace, a white blouse and a few other dashes of yellow and white and cats that really all just fit perfectly together

@detondev at least the view is nice then

me: alright, and what cheese would u like on that?

button eyed old guy: american! in his time of need i gotta support donald trump! *expectantly looking for my smile*

me: mhm

me: *collecting used silverware*

old guy: [deadname], i rate people from 1 to 10, and you're a 20!"

bro u only knew me for like a month and a half from when u first moved here, and ur only interactions with me are ordering shit and being delighted when u found out im being raised by ex-missionaries. chill

@detondev overly friendly NPC

whimsical old guy's wife: how many people are in your family?

me: *explains our deal*

wife: wow! so many siblings! in alabama i visited a nursing home... this older lady told me she had thirteen siblings! she looked off in the distance and said "mom never had enough time for me" she sounded so sad!

me: yeah it can get like that sometimes

learned new lore about past coworkers. aside from the audhd amish guy who wanted to say the n word, there's also a guy who saw grill lady wearing a lesbian themed joke tshit for a bit and started ranting at her about how she'd go to hell for ten minutes in front of another past coworker, a nonbinary fifteen year old who quit a week later. some of my coworkers eventually got the guy to become atheist, but the damage was already done.

also another guy is now apparently a viral tiktoker, which might be the reason he quit, and mightve met shane gilis from it? (of all people lol)

"my nephew's new haircut looks like it could take out a palestinian colony!" - local accent lady

botched haircuts seem to be a recurring theme working here lol

local accent lady told a story about how her niece got picked for a top level nursing position or something, but had to turn it down cause she couldn't afford a babysitter for all the hours she would've worked

screamo guy told us he drove to another state? for some waffle house at 2AM and wasn't back till 7:45. he describes it like some sort of transitory place where u can't remember anything after u set foot inside, and only start recording new experiences again after u leave.

apparently cartoon lady got fired? i heard some shit abt her constantly being on probation and having a new job lined up already

to replace her, jewish guy hired two new employees who genuinely look like 12 years old, child labor is back baybeeee

screamo guy's back from warped tour. he went around the cafe with a big grin showing us all 6 different videos of him crowdsurfing shirtless as bowling for soup and machine gun kelly played

the other day we served garlic bread. as i was throwing it out afterwards i stuck a piece in my mouth, then a bunch of girls who worked another part of this place showed up and were like NOOOOO DONT THROW OUT THE GARLIC BREAD CAN WE HAVE SOME PLEEEEEASE and i made MHM noises with my mouth stuffed and they went yippie and started taking selfies of themselves acting like me and shit

i got tipped for the first time the other day. a bunch of old ladies showed up and ordered with one lady's credit card. afterwards, when they decided to split the bill, i had to fish through the register transaction history to find all seven order prices, then ran to the back to grab pen and paper and copy it down for them, all after first checking the receipts, realizing they were gonna be useless, then problem solving it on my own. whole time the one old lady was effusively sorry for putting me through all the trouble, came up and slipped me the 10$ bill after they were done eating

@detondev I love catching one of these and then going back and catching up on the whole thread from where I left off. So fun! Are my barrages of faves okay?

@superball eh it's a slow night u good

work today started slow, i felt tired despite not having done anything. we were gonna serve a juneteenth themed dinner, i collected cornbread from the slovakian baker, my coworkers were mocking the dessert (never caught what it was) like "who came up with this?" "the whitest person ever".

we opened, i lethargically delivered food and whatnot. then grill lady's phone lit up with a tornado warning. she went "umm it says to shelter in the basement immediately" and he replied "itll be FIIIINNNEEE keep working". the lights started flickering, the whole order line paused. she went off to train guy and i about jewish guy like "wtf bro its literally a tornado i might just book it"

then the entire building's power got knocked out. everything was pitch black for a few minutes till emergency power came on, even then it was only enough for a few lights, doors, and shit. all our fridges, warmers, drink machines, and everything were dead save for the water lever, so at least ppl could drink.

cause the computers were down, every order was lost, so jewish guy reverted us to the old ways again. i served thawing salads and cooling soup n pizza to the line, then shifted to cleaning the eating area. out the giant high up windows, i could see the trees getting absolutely bullied by the torrential rain and wind and hail. a traffic pole or something was pulled across em but luckily didnt break em. someone said "nothing says juneteenth like a blackout!"

everybody was noticeably nicer, more helpful. its well documented that people get more altruistic in a disaster together. misanthropycels stay losing. dont remember much else, its been a blur. nurses were rushing to get everyone kept alive by downed machines emergency power, hope none of them died.

im in my grandparents apartment. my great-aunts are visiting, the one whos a minister told me stories of serving ppl coffee during hurricane ike. shed conveniently brought a box of ABIDE WITH CHRIST branded flashlights. im now in the blackened bathroom, remembering as one lights me.

@detondev ooh exciting! tbh if there was a tornado i'd probably behave like grill lady. i'm surprised the damage wasn't worse.

@yujiri idk what exactlys up with it did it ever touch ground did it fizzle into severe storms

@detondev @yujiri it hit down hard in my area. Took out our power and several trees that blocked off roads. It also ruined my mattress that was in the back of my pickup truck. I was about to move it when the storm dumped on it and blew it out of the truck.

recently at work I've been operating the register with those two new kids. i trained the first one, who looks like one of my little brothers back when he was 12. the other one already knew. ill be calling this one sonic kid cause within the first 5 minutes starting our shift i saw him open up his sonic wallpaper phone to like sonic fanart on twitter

today i got to work serving up hot entrees rather than just taking orders, carrying soup salad and pizza, and cleaning shit. for the first time since cartoon lady first trained me, and since the new system, so it's a bit more finicky than i remember due to the computers. this aspect i was taught by one of those twins i mentioned. went well, he seems competent. there was one interruption where he whipped out his phone and started sexting with "mommy muffin" but no biggie lmao

me: *walks up to whimsical old man with his food, then notices his american railroad building t-shirt with old-looking trains all over it* big fan of that train shirt by the way

whimsical old guy: thanks! it's a testament to chinese labor

me: *taking off my hairnet and flipping my hair loose after a fast-paced shift*

slovakian baker: *sudden wide grin* ayyy you listen to heavy metal?

me: some of it. some of everything!

slovakian baker: back in my day everyone with hair like dat listen to guns n roses, ac/dc, all dat crap

me: yeah my dad's told me

today the woker seniors set up a little table with pride flags and various desserts for this last day of pride month. they saw us workers waiting for opening time and were like hey everybody come eat. most i ever celebrated pride month in my life, with just a piece of chocolate cake and a rice krispy treat. screamo guy mysteriously mentions that he "can say it"

in the last minutes of the shift, sitting and watching the manager inspect everything, order people to take care of the last few bits before we all got to go home, and it was beautiful. i really admire when a movie is able to make a long shot with a static camera interesting, and this felt like it shoulda been one of those. just the silence of the cafe empty save for us, the way their bodies were arranged in relation to the counters and machines.

with a few of my coworkers i get the vibe id have a friend for life if i said the right thing. like his acting outta pocket aside screamo guy and i got a lot in common (prolly from the autism, bisexuality, suicidality) and sonic kid seems like the type of person who id be running into alot on fedi lol

there was a celebration for the workers by the residents of this place. they gave us bonus checks in addition to our usual paychecks. i left it sitting out and forgot it cause i was thinking about other shit, mainly songwriting. train guy got it, ran over to me, and gave me "life lessons from train guy" time along with it

speaking of train guy, he's gotten yet another haircut, buzzed off his afro. he looks like a whole nother person, especially from how it changes the way hats fit on his head

work recently's been a subtle hell.

just learned that that most volitaile patron of this cafe i mentioned before doesn't have enough income to keep affording living here, and is starting to try shit like sowing clothes and selling them. feel like this explains it

employee training day for me. it took me an hour to figure out how to log into the computer. the design of the sexual abuse information feels like some sort of old-web bit. i have to sit through the audio to access the next section even though i can't hear it and ive already read the text anyway. there's a badge hanging beside me that reads "I'm PROUD to be part of a zero deficiency TEAM!!" (the two exclamation points were actually there). everything is psychotic

@detondev lol

are you jus now getting trained even tho you've been working there a while?

@yujiri no I got doing my actual work training and a bit about how to recognize dementia when I was hired but now I gotta catch up on everything else