The Internet Is For Porn

I work at Dairy Queen. I make ice cream, I cook food, I do it all. I’ve been there for almost 3 years and that’s too long in most everyone’s mind. I have this love/hate relationship with my job. More times than not, I hate the customers, hate the people I work with, and hate the work in general. But there are those rare times where I adore the people working with me and the actual work doesn’t seem so much like work as opposed to getting paid to hang out with your friends. It’s not a real job, I can tell you that much. The management is lax on pretty much everything. We started with a three strikes policy when I was hired. It basically meant if you’re late three times, or if you get in trouble for doing something you shouldn’t three times, you’re fired. Yeah, the first person hit three, and they were still working there. We’ve had one person actually get fired in the three years I’ve been there. There should have been at least four others, but for some reason, it never happens. And let’s not even mention what would happen if any of us went into a “real” job pulling this crap that we do there. I’m pretty sure that every single one of us would be fired for sexual harassment within the day if we worked anywhere else. And SPEAKING of sex…

These events I am about to reveal to you occurred mid-July 2006. For the most part, it’s a DQ secret, but after this much time, I no longer have qualms about telling anyone who cares to listen.

As I said, this occurred in July. It was a hot summer day, so we were fairly busy as we should be. It was also a Sunday. I know this because the schedule comes out on Sunday and well, this all revolves around that. The schedule makes it to the store in a couple different ways. Either A) the manager doing the scheduling is working that day, so they bring it in and post it up themselves, or B) it is faxed into the office downstairs. This particular day it was being faxed in. Doug was doing the schedule as usual, so Andy and Mike were in the store. It was nearing the end of the morning shift and everyone working still did not know when they were supposed to come in next week. It’s always nice to know so you don’t have to make a stop back. We all try to avoid the store as much as possible unless we absolutely have to be there.

So, the way our shifts work, the morning people generally work open to 5, and the night people work 5 to close. It was probably about 4:30 or so that afternoon and Jenna had volunteered to go check if the schedule was in before they all left. She heads downstairs and after a moment come back up empty handed. We’re all curious as to why Doug was so late on the schedule, but when she was asked if it was there or not, she just replied that she didn’t know. That comment, of course, got puzzled looks from us all. After all, the fax machine is right there sitting on the desk. It’s hard to miss.

Jenna walks back towards the cake decorating area and a couple of the girls follow because of her odd behavior. We knew something was going on. We gather around and it takes a few minutes of coaxing to get her to tell us anything. Then, in barely over a whisper, she says “Mike was looking at porn.” Our reactions were that of shock and disbelief. First of all, Mike. Porn. Work. (To quote Sesame Street “One of these things is not like the other; one of these things does not belong.”)

“Wait a minute,” I say. “You mean Mike is downstairs, right now, looking at porn on the internet?” Jenna only nodded.

First, there’s something else you need to know. The office downstairs is supposedly reserved for managers only according to a plaque on the door. That’s disregarded after you’ve worked a shift or two. Secondly, If the door is closed, usually that means someone is getting changed for work in there, so you knock, yell, and do whatever you have to do to make sure you’re not walking in on someone half dressed. Believe me, most people we work with you wouldn’t want to see half dressed. Third, in this particular case, the door was WIDE OPEN. Yes, that’s right. Mike was looking at porn with the door completely open not even making an attempt to conceal his actions. Jenna says, and this is particularly humorous to picture, that when she walked in, Mike sort of jumped forward in the chair and instead of turning the monitor off or switching to a different website, he tries to cover the screen with his arms. Sure, that’s going to be very effective.

This whole situation, we could already tell, was going to be somewhat of an embarrassing one. Jenna asked us not to say anything to anyone, so, as is the way of DQ, everyone knew by the next day. We finally convinced her to go talk to Doug about it who co-owns the store with Mike. After a bit of resistance, partly due to Jenna’s mother berating her for saying anything to anyone based on, “You could lose your job for this! You shouldn’t have told anyone what you saw!” she finally spoke up about it to Doug. Doug told her that he would address the problem with Mike.

Of course, speculation started immediately. Mike was going to quit. Doug was going to buy Mike out. Jenna could sue. Mike would have to tell his wife, because it wasn’t just any porn he was looking at, but it also included ads for call girls we later found out. Very expensive call girls. But, as expected, Doug forced Mike to take the rest of the week off. It was a nice break for us all and it provided time to (hopefully) relieve some of the awkwardness that was bound to be there.

In the few days after the incident before Jenna said anything to Doug, the cooks, including myself, made it a habit to check the history of IE whenever we were on break or after work to see if he was still looking at the porn. You see, it never occurred to him that he could erase the history, and if it did, maybe he just wanted to get caught. One night after work we were looking through the history, and all of the page views were on Craigslist.com. They were all ads for female call girls except one. It was an ad placed by a man. The title, “40 Year Old Athletic Male Looking for an 18-20 Year Old Plaything.” It seemed slightly suspicious seeing as how the ONLY male ad viewed was this one and Mike was 40, but I don’t know about athletic. And what was even worse, the majority of girls working at DQ are between 18-20. So every single one of us at that point were conscious of every look he threw our way. People started to ask to not be scheduled with him and if they were, they would switch shifts with one of the guys. And to top things off, I was down on break one day with T-Bro who is one of our cooks. He told me to lift up a couple pairs of shorts over on some racks we have off to the side of the room. I did, and discovered that there were about 4 or 5 Playboy magazines addressed to Mike at the DQ address. Word has it that this part has been going on for years.

So Mike took a week off. The day before he was scheduled to come back, Doug called me asking my opinion on the whole thing. I told him that I don’t care if he’s looking at porn, but at work, it’s a bit inappropriate, and if that ad actually is his, that makes me quite uncomfortable. Doug then proceeds to tell me that Mike is going to apologize to everyone involved with the situation. Now, as I said before, everyone who works at DQ knows about this, so I’m expecting an employee meeting to be announced the following day or something. But no, Doug says he will apologize at work that night. So I get to work, chain smoking the whole way there because there is no way in hell I’m ready to face this whole situation. I catch the cooks up on what’s going on and most are in disbelief when I tell them that he’s apologizing. I go downstairs and change, then come up and clock in. Mike then approaches me and asks if I’ll step out back for a minute. I notice two other girls, Sarah and Emily, are with him as well. I’m still confused as to why he’s only talking to us, but that soon becomes clear. He starts up with some bullshit about how everyone makes mistakes and asks us to forgive him and what not. I really don’t care at this point. Then, he closes with something that surprised the hell out of me and the other two girls. He says, “I would really like it if you could keep this incident between yourselves. It’s quite embarrassing for me, and I don’t want everyone to know.” At this point, I’m sure my jaw dropped. It never registered with me that he did not realize everyone knew. I talked to Doug about it a couple days ago, and Doug tells me that he didn’t have the heart to tell him, which is understandable. Let the man keep a bit of dignity.

So that ended there. We still checked the computer for signs of porn viewing, and never saw anything. Until a couple days ago. The history of both internet explorer and Firefox is set to clear itself every nine days. The past two days Mike worked, the history was cleared by the time he left the store. Either he’s back up to his old tricks, or else he’s onto something else he doesn’t want anyone finding out. No one really knows at this point. One of the cooks and I are intent on discovering what’s going on this time. Neither of us are too fond of him, and if Doug bought him out, not many people would shed any tears about it.

So, Dairy Queen has just started hiring again. Any of you interested in working for us, especially after hearing that story? And believe me, it’s not the only one of its kind. If nothing else can be said about my job, at least it’s interesting and provides interesting conversation material that is inappropriate for most places. And really, I’ll get you an application. All you have to do is ask.