20 odd years ago, before the turn of the century, as a student I spent a summer working at a Friendly’s. Think of it as a Denny’s with a large ice cream bar. 2 tone pink uniforms. Food poisoning on the regular. The boss was a prototype Bill Lundberg with a dorky mustache named Dwayne. Always trying to get invited to parties with kids half his age.

As a waiter there I made ok money, about $100 daily. For about 150 tables over a ten hour shift. For that I would have food thrown at me. My ass pinched by creepy old men. I’m a six foot four inch tall guy and I would have someone want to fight me daily. As a cross section of the average public, it was a great argument to exterminate humanity. I would have half a dozen over the top horror stories nightly. My roommates grew numb to them. As did I.

After 3 months my growing hatred was obvious enough for even Dwayne to notice. He brought me into the large walk in freezer for a talk. He told me anytime the abuse I was putting up with got too bad, I could go in there and punch some of the hundred or so frozen 5 gallon ice cream containers. See, he figured I would break a knuckle or bruise a bone, he would get a good laugh and that would be it. What he didn’t know was as a kid, I did martial arts that had me smashing cinder blocks. So a few times a day, for a few weeks, I would ravage the hell out these thick paper drums wrapped around crystallized sugar and milk, then I would turn them around and put them back behind others on the shelf. I even let him spy on me pawing weakly at the ones up front. His assistant managers said this was a bad idea. Heard him giggling.

So eventually I got fed up. I believe it was after being told I would cover the bill, again, for some idiot who had a big public hissyfit because they wanted a soda we didn’t carry. I walked out, got a job at Domino’s and came back half an hour later to quit. Dwayne made a big show of saying I couldn’t quit because I was fired. I had a bit of fun with that back and forth, but the real enjoyment came days later. When Dwayne realized I had destroyed nearly the entire stock of ice cream. At his urging. I heard from a friend who still worked there that the next day they had to turn down thousands of requests and had signs up for weeks that there was no ice cream available. That was also the time frame for a mass exodus of all the smart and competent employees. After about a month I didn’t know anyone left who worked there.