Yes, I use to work at Pizza Hut circa 1978 A.D., and it was the worst job I've ever had in my life. Not because of the bad pay or the bad hours; but because... oh well, just read on:
First of all, they would illegally WITHHOLD your paycheck if you accidentally left your nametag at home. I did this a lot, because sometimes I would take my smock home with me and forget to bring back that Dymo-labeled icon. Why was Pizza Hut SOOO obsessed about this 25-cent piece of plastic? Because they needed something to pin up your paycheck with on the bulletin board! I guess thumbtacks were not in the budget. By the way, the paychecks were not inside envelopes but exposed for the whole world to see so that everyone knew exactly how much everyone else was making, which (by no surprise) was nothing more than MINIMUM WAGE. After a while, they started issuing paychecks in person and inside an envelope. This was after the BIG STINK that emerged when everyone found out I was promoted to a hefty 5-cent/hour raise. For some stupid reason, the "No Nametag / No Paycheck" tradition continued on.
Another thing they would do is ERASE hours off of your time card to save money. C'mon, Pizza Hut, did that extra 2 or 3 bucks you skimmed off of everyone everynight really make or break you?!?
And then there was the WEEKLY MEETING every Saturday morning at 7 AM. They were mandatory so it didn't matter if you were stuck there until 5 AM the late-night/early-morning before because someone else quit on Friday. The topic was usually, "Is there anything wrong with Pizza Hut?" No wonder those meetings lasted 4 hours (without pay, of course).
Finally, the food was disgusting. The dough was this sort-of-kind-of synthetic polymer that did not require any kneading or rising. All you had to do was THAW the putty-like substance and it was ready to go! The pepperoni was pre-sliced, the cheese was pre-diced, and both arrived FROZEN or freeze-dried inside individual plastic baggies that were cargoed inside a rather large cardboard box during shipment. The remaining chemically altered ingredients were either canned or frozen, even though the expiration date was probably somewhere around the year 2150. Every single item had to be finger counted, or carefully measured on every single pizza. For example; there are exactly 22 pepperonies on a small pizza, 44 on a medium and 66 on a large. Veggie items were weighed in EXACT increments of 1/2 of an ounce, regardless of how much finger picking was required to accomplish this quest. Anybody caught violating the "pepperoni law" was terminated immediately (unless of course, it was real busy that night in which case they would wait until closing time). Think of this the next time you go to Pizza Hut: every single slice of pepperoni has someone's thumbprint on it.
The last straw was the dreaded dish-washing detergent that was a single hydrogen atom away from the chemical formula of LYE ACID (they actually printed the molecular structure on the box cover!). This was excellent for the customer, as their plates and glasses were always guaranteed to be sterilized and sanitized; but extremely dangerous for the worker if he was washing the dishes with wet hands (as opposed to dry hands), as the detergent would strip the hydrogen off the water to complete the lye formula. Of course, since hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, it did not take much for the detergent to burrow a crater inside your hand ala "CHINA SYNDROME" style.
Eventually, I got a better job and quit Pizza Hut. I'm not going to tell you what my next job was, except that it was a better place to work (that should narrow it down to ... oh, about 89 million other jobs). The quitting process took longer than I thought. The manager wanted to know why I quit, what my next job was, where it was at, etc., etc., and recorded everything I said on a form that is still filed away at Pizza Hut Headquarters to this day. It's strange, you know; most places want to know where you USE to work at. Pizza Hut is the only company that cares about where you're working NEXT, and not just out of curiosity. They want an address, a telephone number, the works! So take my advice: if you ever decide to quit Pizza Hut, just stop showing up to work. Or better yet, violate that SACRED pepperoni law!
By the way, the official reason on why I quit was because they didn't have Hocus-Pocus on the jukebox. That's the truth! I do not lie, cheat or steal. And the next time I hear someone lecture the "He who is without sin..." speech, I'll be tempted to go to the nearest rock quarry, haul back a couple tons of boulders and buy a catapult.
CMcF
10/13/99