The Ketchup Nazis

It's always exciting when the head honchos from the Popeye's corporate offices down in Miami send out memos telling us to change random policies. Although we'll probably only follow what's in the memo for about two weeks before we go back to the old way of running things, our general manager always makes a big show out of reading the memo out loud, as if we can't manage to read the five sentences typed in 16 font ourselves, and making us all sign it.

Most of these memos are centered around anti-cell phone policies and need to be passed out pretty often since after a month of working with my general manager most people would rather risk homelessness than come to work one more day. I usually try to avoid signing these things (especially the anti-cellphone ones since I know good and well that I intend to use my cell phone every chance I get).

The most recent one however has by far been the funniest and most unnecessary one I have ever seen. The people in the corporate office have taken another step in their attempt to make working at Popeye's into rocket science. We are no longer allowed to offer customers condiments. However they are available upon request.

Now, if the memo would have stopped there this would have been no biggie -- but it didn't. According to this memo, we need to ask the customer how many of each condiment they need and in the event they ask for a "handful" of honey, give them one per biscuit. There will be no estimating! Then to make things that must more complicated, I decided to screw with my general manger and play a little game of what if.

"What if they ask for 12 packs of honey but only have 4 biscuits, is it ok to give them 12?"
"What if they order a small fry and ask for a handful of ketchup? How many fries do they have to have per pack of ketchup we give?"
"What if they ask for a handful of grape jelly and a handful of honey, but only ordered 2 biscuits? Should we give them 2 of each or just one of each?"
"What if they ask for a handful of hot sauce? How many packs do they get per piece of chicken they order?"

What made things funnier is that the GM took all these questions very seriously and considered them for a long time, asking others for their opinions and giving me seriously answering me. I was thoroughly entertained.

Going to work at Popeye's everyday feels like an episode of Seinfeld sometimes and now corporate is trying turn us all into the fast food equivalent of the soup nazi.. NO KETCHUP FOR YOU!! lol

-Desi

sn: don't sleep on Seinfeld.. Hilarious show. anyhoo, I think I'll go find something to drink because, "These pretzels are making me thirsty!"