As a man stood in front of me with his botched hamburger, screaming obscenities in my face despite the fact I had not even taken his order, I suddenly realized that I didn’t deserve the disrespect I was receiving. This, among many others things, was an important life lesson I was taught while working at McDonald’s of Lake Zurich.

I started in the summer of 2018, in desperate need of cash and having never worked a paying job before. They hired me immediately, and from there I was given my orientation, my training and a fresh new uniform.

At first, the job was exhilarating. Mostly I was on cash register and cycled through hundreds of customers every day, each one ordering a totally different meal. The two items I punched in the most were a quarter-pounder with cheese and a McChicken.

It was at this station that I suffered the most harassment. Most customers were kind and smiled and said thank you. But there was also a generous crop of people I couldn’t stand; people who were rude. They would get angry if I gave them their receipt or got their drink size wrong. People shouted and called names and complained because they couldn’t use a coupon or get discounted food or had their order wrong. I learned a lot from these people, things that included common decency and the power one had over how another person felt.

Besides the people, the job itself was very fun, and I was always doing something. My favorite job was handing food out of the drive-thru window, because I could stare out at the lovely summer day and enjoy some fresh air. Sometimes, however, the drink machine would jam, let out a high-pitched shriek and clog up with cups, all symptoms which I had to remedy myself.

Occasionally I would have to scrub down the tables and bathrooms. I learned how astonishingly bad people were at throwing away garbage, and the lack of regard some customers had for my time and efforts.

Fry duty was a lot of fun because I was constantly shifting vats of frozen treats here and there, setting timers and dodging the ricochets of hot grease bouncing up from the baskets. Back there, it would get so overwhelmingly hot that I drew to the verge of passing out several times.

Every day on my lunch break I ate a southwest salad, and when I worked the breakfast shift I would eat a sausage egg biscuit with cheese. On days when I felt depressed I got a fudge sundae as well. Sometimes I would get so overworked that I would sneak into the walk-in freezer and close the door behind me, then just stand there and relish the cold air and silence.

I would see people I knew from school and would recommend the best and cheapest things on the menu to them. I also made many new friends, amidst my coworkers and the customers that came in. A woman who came in every day told me about her extramarital affair as much as she could. A woman once handed me her cellphone and I had to call her daughter and ask what she wanted from the menu. One time the McFlurry cup opened as I made it and sprayed ice cream all across my chest. I would order a Mocha Frappe after work every shift because they calmed me down.

At 5 pm every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I would leave the store and climb into my car, roaring hot from baking in the summer sun all day. I would roll down all of the windows, blast hardcore punk through the speakers and scream my lungs out as I drove home through the warm wind. These were some of my favorite memories of that long summer at McDonald’s.

I had a lot of strange experiences working in Lake Zurich, and the lessons I learned will probably stick with me for the rest of my life. I struggled, smiled, nodded, gritted my teeth and pushed through it all – and wouldn’t you know it – I never even grilled one hamburger.