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xaaraThe best part of this zoo job? The walkie-talkies. I'm not kidding. I get this great sense of superiority when I switch on my walkie-talkie, press "Speak" and say something like, "Carmen at the Chill Cart to Warehouse, I need another hundred singles and two boxes of each chill flavor."
"This is Warehouse," James or Kevin will say. "We got you."
"Thanks," I'll say. Then I'll sell chills (which are these Italian Ice sort of things) for another twenty minutes. Finally, after they persistently haven't arrived, I'll call them again. "Carmen to Warehouse, did you get my last order?"
"Yeah. It's on the truck."
And then I'll get to say my absolutely favorite addendum ever: "Okay, well, put a rush on that." Sometimes I'll add an, "I'm swamped up here," but usually the "put a rush" is sufficient.
I'm such a geek. I'm sure they're all rolling their eyes at the new kid, but I love it to death.
Anyway, this was all leading up to a point: today, on my second day on the job, I made the most money anyone's made in a single day this summer.
They put me on the Chill Cart, as mentioned above. It's essentially an ice cream cart from which I sell four flavors of frozen water and sugar. The most popular is Lemon, but Lemon-Lime, Strawberry-Banana, and Watermelon all have their dedicated followings. I started at 9:30 this morning, when the zoo's just waking up, and then took my break at 11:00, before the business really heated up. When I came back at 11:30, however, there was a short line waiting to be served, so I took over from my temporary replacement and started Chills.
The next time I looked up--as in the next time I didn't have a customer right then--it was 1:00.
By that time, I had run out of singles once, fives once, and had called in a request for more Chills to Warehouse. The Chills arrived and promptly sold out, taking with them the rest of my ones. So Warehouse came back, this time with ten boxes of each flavor. As Kevin worked to stock my cart, I hopped around, replenished spoons and napkins, directed people to the bathrooms...oh, and sold Chills. A seemingly infinite number of Chills. It was insane.
At closing, I had called Warehouse a total of six times--twice for Chills, three times for change, and once for spoons and napkins. My manager and I finished closing up the station and set the cash register to ring up totals for the day.
The breakdown: 572 customers and 926 Chills sold for a grand total of $2,778. The two of us stared at the cash register for a minute or two. I did the mental math. 572 customers in eight-odd hours means that I was completing, on average, one order in slightly less than a minute. If I discarded the first two hours, when I sold only twenty or so Chills, it meant that I was helping people, nonstop, at the rate of about two customers per minute.
Of course, what the cash register counts as a customer could be one person who pays for a three-dollar purchase with three ones. Or it could be a family of eight Spanish-speakers who all change their minds about what they want, finally figure out which Chills they want after I've spent forever digging around in the freezer, and then pay for the purchase with a $100 bill.
I didn't realize how much work I did until it was over and I was coming down from the adrenaline. When I brought my bank into the office for the counters, they took one look at the wad of twenties, sighed, and resigned themselves to counting it. By the time they were done, however, everyone had crowded around to see the massive amount of money my cart had brought in.
Okay, I admit it, I preened a little. But I did also give a lot of credit to the Warehouse guys, who are definitely my best friends in this job. They're awesome, and they have a thankless job.
I'm exhausted, in a good, honest, I-worked-for-my-keep way.
"This is Warehouse," James or Kevin will say. "We got you."
"Thanks," I'll say. Then I'll sell chills (which are these Italian Ice sort of things) for another twenty minutes. Finally, after they persistently haven't arrived, I'll call them again. "Carmen to Warehouse, did you get my last order?"
"Yeah. It's on the truck."
And then I'll get to say my absolutely favorite addendum ever: "Okay, well, put a rush on that." Sometimes I'll add an, "I'm swamped up here," but usually the "put a rush" is sufficient.
I'm such a geek. I'm sure they're all rolling their eyes at the new kid, but I love it to death.
Anyway, this was all leading up to a point: today, on my second day on the job, I made the most money anyone's made in a single day this summer.
They put me on the Chill Cart, as mentioned above. It's essentially an ice cream cart from which I sell four flavors of frozen water and sugar. The most popular is Lemon, but Lemon-Lime, Strawberry-Banana, and Watermelon all have their dedicated followings. I started at 9:30 this morning, when the zoo's just waking up, and then took my break at 11:00, before the business really heated up. When I came back at 11:30, however, there was a short line waiting to be served, so I took over from my temporary replacement and started Chills.
The next time I looked up--as in the next time I didn't have a customer right then--it was 1:00.
By that time, I had run out of singles once, fives once, and had called in a request for more Chills to Warehouse. The Chills arrived and promptly sold out, taking with them the rest of my ones. So Warehouse came back, this time with ten boxes of each flavor. As Kevin worked to stock my cart, I hopped around, replenished spoons and napkins, directed people to the bathrooms...oh, and sold Chills. A seemingly infinite number of Chills. It was insane.
At closing, I had called Warehouse a total of six times--twice for Chills, three times for change, and once for spoons and napkins. My manager and I finished closing up the station and set the cash register to ring up totals for the day.
The breakdown: 572 customers and 926 Chills sold for a grand total of $2,778. The two of us stared at the cash register for a minute or two. I did the mental math. 572 customers in eight-odd hours means that I was completing, on average, one order in slightly less than a minute. If I discarded the first two hours, when I sold only twenty or so Chills, it meant that I was helping people, nonstop, at the rate of about two customers per minute.
Of course, what the cash register counts as a customer could be one person who pays for a three-dollar purchase with three ones. Or it could be a family of eight Spanish-speakers who all change their minds about what they want, finally figure out which Chills they want after I've spent forever digging around in the freezer, and then pay for the purchase with a $100 bill.
I didn't realize how much work I did until it was over and I was coming down from the adrenaline. When I brought my bank into the office for the counters, they took one look at the wad of twenties, sighed, and resigned themselves to counting it. By the time they were done, however, everyone had crowded around to see the massive amount of money my cart had brought in.
Okay, I admit it, I preened a little. But I did also give a lot of credit to the Warehouse guys, who are definitely my best friends in this job. They're awesome, and they have a thankless job.
I'm exhausted, in a good, honest, I-worked-for-my-keep way.
