A job at America's favorite drive-in

Summer, five years ago. I had applied for jobs everywhere: video stores, grocery stores, fast food restaurants. I'd had a few interviews but had not been offered anything. Then one day I saw the words "Now Hiring" on a marquee at a Sonic Drive-In. I walked into the store, and the manager, a short, overweight man with black hair and a mustache, said, Sure, I'll hire you. Easy as that, I had a job for the summer. It was the first job I got 100 percent on my own.

I took it as a good omen that the date I was officially hired was my birthday. My job was to make soft drinks during the afternoon--cherry limeades and ocean waters (Sprite with coconut flavor) and Diet Cokes with lemon. I also took orders, shoveled ice and mopped the floor. On the downside, my uniform consisted of a red Sonic polo shirt, black pants, tan Sonic visor that I felt ridiculous in the whole time I had to wear it. The place smelled like grease, and it was dirtier than it should have been in the back of the restaurant. But on the whole I liked my new job: the people I worked with were nice and making the drinks was fun. Each drink required a precision almost like you'd use in a chemistry experiment. Two squirts of this flavoring, fill to the top with this much soda, add one cherry and one lime, etc., etc. After a few weeks I learned how to create banana splits and cake sundaes.

I rate this job at number three in my list of the best jobs I've ever had. I think the orderliness and efficiency of the whole operation was the main thing. I had never worked in a fast-food restaurant before. Speed was key. Everything was very organized, set up for maximum efficiency. All the ingredients had their appointed places in white tubs: strawberry and pineapple toppings, chocolate fudge, whipped cream, cherries. It was paradoxical to be making all these delicious, aesthetically pleasing drinks and desserts in this mechanized environment. Noisy machines surrounded you: ice cream machine, soda machine, slush machine, shake blender. Even interaction with customers was mechanized, via speakers at the drive-in stalls and drive-thru. I remember one girl in particular who was practically robotic in the way she ran the drive-thru. She was a master of multi-tasking. To me it seemed like she was always doing ten things at once, making orders at the same time she was taking the next person's order. And I never saw her make a mistake. I wondered how many years of working there it would take to get to that point. Ultimately employees were just pieces in the machine, with everything done according to a processes they had no say in.

So maybe this wasn't the most creative job I've ever had, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. I didn't care that the job didn't require much as far as skills or education. Sometimes a job like that is just what you need--no ambiguity about your job description, the satisfaction of getting to work with your hands, pleasant-enough co-workers. A job where you can go home and not give a second thought to what happened at work that day. I liked it so much I ended up staying beyond the summer, into the fall. It was shortly after the winter holidays when I hung up my red shirt and brown visor for good.