Ever since I was a child I always loved McDonald's Happy Meals, Burger Kings ICEEs, Wendy's baked potatoes with cheese and bacon, Taco Bells...well...tacos, Arby's roast beef sandwiches, KFC's chicken, and so on and so forth. However, I never knew what it was like to be the person preparing the meal, the person who had to wait on us to make an order decision, the person who had to run back and forth to help tray up front register's order as well as bag drive thru's. I never imagined myself being on of those people.

When I started high school I knew I had to get a job by the time I hit 16.

So, I looked at many different jobs. I actually tried to cheat the system and get a job at 14 by being a babysitter, mow lawns, and other tasks that can be private jobs, and I did babysit for a while. However, I needed an actual job. One with more hours and more pay. I never imaged getting almost 40 hours a week for around $9 an hour.

My junior year of high school I started to apply for jobs so I can afford a trip to Florida with my sister, her husband, and my nephew. I applied for 20 plus jobs in the past couple of months. I tried to avoid applying for a fast food restaurant.

None of my friends were working in fast food, so why should I?

I applied for places such as Pat Catans, Movies 10, Kohl's, and so forth. But most of my searching led to applications for fast food. One of my friends worked at one in which was hiring... the same fast food restaurant I continue to work at today. After months and months of failure I emailed my application into Wendy's and not even two days later I got a call-back, an interview, and a job. I never imaged how much my life was going to change...change that is for the better.

Today I still hear people say they'll never work fast food.

I hear many people say fast food is the easiest job around, but at the same time you have to be "stupid" to work there. I've heard people say fast food restaurants are too slow, they screw up too much, they forget things, among other things. Sure, some of those things may be true at times, but there's a whole other side to the story that nobody seems to listen to.

Fast food is not an easy job, and you have to know what you're doing.

You can't just slap a sandwich together and say "order up." It's a piece of work and memorization of which condiment goes first with which toppings onto which bun with choice of burger or chicken. Salads and specially crafted with toppings in order with cheese left off for those who choose to order something such as the apple pecan chicken salad with no blue cheese. Those who run the grill must know the difference in each timer so they know when to turn the chicken, when to remove the chicken, when to add potatoes, when to remove bacon, when something in the frier is for this meal or if it's for someone else's.

The fry person needs to be able to know exactly how many baskets of fries to drop so they don't make too much or too little. They need to know when to make nuggets in case the grill person is unable to help them out. They need to know how much salt to apply or if they need to watch from burning themselves over the frier when making one's special no salt. Those who run register must try as hard as they can not to make a mistake. Order's must be precise to keep customer's happy, change must be returned to exact as well as making sure their drawer isn't short. Those who are on front must tray their orders after they take them. Those on drive thru have to get their drinks. Sometimes, drive thru is stuck with the fries, bagging, cash collecting, drinks, and orders non-stop.

So yeah, we're not "stupid." And no this job isn't "easy."

But we train the new employees to help everyone become more efficient. We have a timer on drive thru we try to keep down so that costumers get their meal, but we also make sure everything is made correctly. On front we help out the person taking orders so they don't have to stop 100 times to try something after every other order they get. We try our best to meet the wants and needs of each costumer with a smile on our face so they can get back to enjoying their day.

As for behind the counters, it's not all that bad. I've been working at Wendy's for two years going onto three and over the course of those two years I have met some amazing people and made some wonderful friends.

We laugh, we joke, we have fun, and we still do our job. And sure, there are times we get costumers who are rude or mean to us, but then we also have costumers who are as sweet as can be. We have regulars to which we remember their orders and they remember us. They ask us about how things are going and just have friendly conversations. Heck, some of my regulars will ask me how college has been going for me.

Sure, there's a lot of hard work that follows actually working in a fast food restaurant, but there are also some memories made, friends to help you out, and many laughs to be shared. Plus, you have a different appreciation for all fast food restaurants. I know I sure have. Once you work fast food, you never look at those types of restaurants the same ever again, and that will be one change in your life that you will never regret.