At 16, my second job was at a McDonald’s, near the main entrance to a huge and busy factory. Mondays-Fridays, a million hard-hats lined up to buy lunch.
You’re supposed to have four people working in the grill area when things are crazy busy like that, but our McD management “controlled costs” by usually having only three workers in the grill area. If someone called out sick or didn’t show up, there mi8ght be only two workers in the kitchen area, with the fry-man or shake-maker helping out when they could.
After three straight days of working with only three on the grill team, the tall guy who worked the bun station was short on patience. First thing he said that morning was, “Do we have four people today?”
The boss said no. At that, our hero — let’s call him Bun Man — grumbled, but took his assigned place by the toasters, and did the work. Twelve buns at a time go into one toaster, six buns go into a different toaster, ten into a third, and tray by tray he handed the buns over to be mustardized, ketchupated, and pickled.
After a while, though, when the line of customers out front had grown long and the work in the grill had grown sweaty and then sweatier, when the restaurant was really busy, peak of the lunch rush, Bun Man stopped toasting the buns and began throwing them — at the shift manager, mostly.
Two at a time, buns went flying across the grill, toward the boss. Some buns hit him in the face, the shirt, and one bun flew past him and hit me in the head. Buns bounced into the lobby, the fry vat, one lodged inside a worker’s paper hat.
I was working one of the cash registers, and getting bunned in the back of my head was my first clue that this wasn’t going to be an ordinary day. Regular buns, Big Mac buns, and Quarter Pounder buns hit the Coke machines, the shake machine, and the shift manager, or smacked customers waiting in line. Buns flew wherever buns might fly if buns could fly, and on that glorious day, buns could fly.
Meanwhile, the meatman’s meat was sizzling, but there were no buns dressed with condiments, so he piled cooked patties into meat skyscrapers at the back of the grill.
The shift manager was a little guy, but Bun Man was tall and big, and would’ve been hard to stop, so nobody tried and the volcano of buns continued.
By the time the cops came and invited the Bun Man for a ride, hundreds of buns were on the floor, and on the counters, on the seats in the eating area, in the light fixtures, and all around the Ronald McDonald statue’s feet.
Half an hour of the lunch rush had been ruined, with some customers laughing but most simply leaving. Another half hour was spent cleaning up. It cost the restaurant lots of money, and of course, it cost Bun Man his job, but magnificently.
The next day, a full staff of four employees, not three, were assigned to work in the grill area during lunch. After that and for as long as I worked there, there were usually enough employees for the lunch rush, and when there weren’t it was an accident, not planned that way.
As for Bun Man, I never saw him again, and I’m sorry to say that I don’t even remember his name — but he was not forgotten. Even years later, you could go to that McDonald’s and ask any kid wearing a paper hat, even the newest hires, and they’d all heard the legend of Bun Man.
Republished: 8/1/2023
Republished 1/20/2025
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