I am Iron Man.

I’m nuts, I think. I was supposed to work 7 AM – 3 today. Until I agreed to close. *laughs* Definitely breaks my record of a 10 AM to close. (We close at 10 PM on most days, by the way.) I’m surprised it took until around 9 PM before I started flagging. It helped that around 4:30 I was sent on an errand to another Panera. Sitting in the van helped ease my back. After having two break meals, I declined taking anything from bakery at the end of the night.

I see why I was asked to stay. We had enough people out during dinner rush. But. One guy left at 8 PM. And there were two new girls on who left at 9 PM – both didn’t know register. Of those of us left, only Brandon and I knew register, which is a change of pace. All six of us knew line.

My clock-out slip had fifteen hours thirty-one minutes for the day. I was in early and out late – I had two of my infamous twenty minute breaks.

Jenny still talks about the time she openned and closed the same day. It’ll happen someday, with my luck.

I have the “flaw” of being responsible. I wasn’t even asked to help out on line during lunch. Mike said I’d probably be on register. But, I saw the imbalance. Six cashiers, three people on line. No, it’s not going down like that. ..Actually, now I remember. Rolando decided to take his break exactly at noon. Getting slow, old man! I guess I just decided to not leave when he came back. I must say, he’s actually not that fast. I may not make sandwiches at lightning speed yet, but I’m much more responsive to the screens.

I floated between helping Rolando on sandwiches and doing soups and paninis. Hell, I even helped Gladys finish salads. Somewhere after 2:30, I noticed Sonia decided to stop working. After she flipped soups, she disappeared. Somewhere in there, Gladys did line check. I just remember feeling like all my help had disappeared and I was on line by myself. Go figure. They all left and I saw Barbara come in. I paired with her until Rene came in and I was sent to Denville for random things.

Eh, whatever. I remember one order, a sandwich and a salad, I was able to get out in 1:48. Granted I was Bush Doctrine-ing the sandwich, but I didn’t know I could do salads that fast. Go me? I’ve actually taken to preferring line over register. At least during the day. Closing line is a bitch – but I’ll get the hang of it.

Brandon was training a new girl on register. Hence why it took so long for him to close bakery, because he spent most of his energy shadowing her. When he went on break, I watched her. She was so nervous. I didn’t want to push the buttons for her, but I also didn’t want her to spaz out because she didn’t know what she was doing. So I simply stood to her side, almost behind her, and told her the progression of buttons to hit. People kept asking for custom things, like no croutons on the french onion soup. Like she’ll know where that is. So I told her. Navigating the UP2 menu can be a bitch, so I just told her what to hit. Gotta be told sometime, can’t figure everything out for yourself.

Which gets me thinking as to how people should be trained in the first place. ..But like anyone would like to hear that.

Ha ha.

For everything we sell, there’s a button for it. Well, most things. Before you can piece together people’s orders, you have to recognize where things are. Remembering that asiago parm cheese is in the salad condiments. Remembering that sourdough is on the second screen of the bread choice. You need to know both those things before you can ring a person asking for french onion soup with no cheese, and sourdough instead of bagette.

I’m suddenly reminded of how I used to want to do a review of all our food. Months ago. Yet I don’t eat any of the sandwiches as they are, anymore. Every break meal is an adventure in my mouth. Today’s first sandwich was a pepperblue on rye with pesto aioli and asiago parm – and the gorgonzola red pepper sauce in the middle. It was pretty good, as are most things I make for myself.

I think part of the problem with learning the buttons is that you don’t know what you’re ringing. I think n00b cashiers should be brought over to line and shown what it is they’re ringing.

Something for me to play with when I’m a trainer myself.