Kid-hands

I'm not sure what Panera Bread was thinking when they installed the sneeze guard in the Bakery side. I mean, it works, guarding from sneezes and all that, but the main flaw is the four inch gap between the bottom of the glass and the counter. I'm sure it makes cleaning easier, but that gap is right on the eye level of a small child of the age where they don't seem to know better than to stick hands, toys, and anything else nearby into certain gaps in certain sneeze guards. And try to touch pretty pastries.

Official policy is that if you touch it, you buy it. However, I don't want to be the one explaining to some parent that because they did not watch their kid, they are now the proud owner of a bear claw, an orange scone, and a smeared cherry pastry.
Therefore, the cashiers try and keep an eye on kids who seem about the right age and discipline level to be a threat to the our pastries. Or parents who don't seem to care if their kids spread their little kid germs around in sanitary areas.

Today while I was taking care of a customer, another woman with her kid was walking along the bakery counter and she was pointing out all of the good stuff to eat, asking him what he wanted, the usual. That I don't mind. But the kid was shoving his hands under, going after our cobblestones.

"Please keep your hands out!"

You have to say it loud, or nobody hears/listens. Mom murmurs to the kid, but whatever she said didn't work.

"Don't touch that, please!"

Mom ends up snatching kid up and holding him to her and I catch words that give me the idea that they aren't going to buy anything after all and with the glare she directs at me, apparently it's my fault.

I finish with my customer and shout out with the normal, "Is there anything I can get for you?" Mom refuses, still glaring, muttering to her child about not going over there, she'll get mad at you.

Roar, that's me, the big scary Panera employee. Seriously, do you really want a cobblestone added to your bill?

In the end, she does order, but she makes sure it's from Jenny. I might bite her kid or something.

We deal with kids like that all the time and parent reactions usually range from swift removal and profuse apologizing to completely ignoring their kid. This one really ticked me off because instead of telling her kid not to touch stuff, she instead blames me for telling her kid not to touch stuff and comforts the poor frightened little boy. A kid coddled like that is going to go running to his mother for protection against everything and he's never going to learn.

And I'm still annoyed cause I hate it when customers get upset with me, but I'm still not going to let children fondle my pastries.

This could have been all avoided with sneeze guard that went down all the way, or even just enough to prevent kid-hands.

Musings of a bored employee

I feel like I've really only just begun life in general. I had to deal with school for the past seventeen or so years and thought that once I got out, I would be meeting life! The fulfillment of dreams! The start of adventure! The culmination of all the learning I did in childhood!

Ok, nowhere near that optimistic. Actually I've had a Peter Pan mentality pretty much since I was born. If he showed up and offered to take me to Neverland, I'm not even sure I would've had second thoughts. I NEVER wanted to grow up. It seemed like growing up always came with more responsibilities and less freedom and fun.

By the end of college, I was bored with college and ready to do something else, but I can't say my heart leaped at the idea of nine-to-fiving it at a desk job. The economy made sure I didn't have to worry about that and around six months after I graduated, I finally managed to get A job at Panera Bread.

Now when I was working hard in college and listening to idealistic professor talk about all the great things we would be doing in journalism, I wasn't exactly pumped to go into news. I wanted to do magazine with a more creative and fun aspect. And I actually read magazines, unlike newspapers, so that's a good sign right there. I was still worried about going into magazines, but even so, I didn't really want to go into sandwich-making and cashiering.

Which is where I am now. The culmination of my 17 years of schooling and thousands of dollars of tuition and I can now take your order and even, possibly, make it for you. Unless it includes a salad; I don't do salads.

Now I've mostly been able to repress my "I'm failing my own potential and expectations and everyone else's as well" because I'm doing this to get David through college and mostly I just stamp those instincts down. Shut up already, at least it's a job.

David graduates in December and we will probably move to Des Moines, which all of a sudden means that 1) We don't have to rely entirely on my income, 2)I will have to switch jobs anyway, and 3) there could actually be places where I could "use my degree" in Des Moines.

Now with the hope of actually being able to work at a place that is not Panera (and hopefully a step up from it... as in not Burger King either) is making me want to do something else. I am not fitted out for a career, I would get bored. If it were up to me, I'd probably switch jobs every year until I could find a job I wanted to stick with... for maybe three years.

All this to say, I am becoming discontent. I want to do something else. There's got to be more to life that just work.