Courtney began to walk into the break room of her part-time job at Tim Hortons. Since she had started college, she had worked here for the past three years. She took her job extremely seriously, and eventually ended up becoming a shift leader. Originally she didn't intend to be at Tim Hortons for more than a few months, but she realized she really needed the money. She began to take her apron out from her locker when her co-shift leader came up to her.
"What do you want, Abraham?" She could tell Abraham needed something from her during her shift just by the way he walked. He wasn't confident in his ability to lead, which led to him asking questions of her and her co-workers instead of telling them. Abraham had short, brown hair and a burly figure. He wore a black shirt with blue jeans and had on a black apron with his name tag and a tag that said 'shift leader' underneath.
"You know me so well." He chuckled before getting to his point. "I have a new hire coming in today. I know when we're both here we usually do it together, but would you be willing to train him? I just have so much paperwork."
"Sure!"
"Great! He kind of scares me." He began to whisper to her. "I don't even know how he made it past the final interview." Courtney scrunched her nose and moved closer to him.
"What's wrong with him?" She asked.
"Nothing really, what's wrong with you, sweetcakes?" A figure came behind Courtney and spoke into her ear, and she jumped back in fear, glancing at the figure standing before her. He had a bright green mohawk spiked over his black, shaved hair. He wore the company standard uniform that they had requested of him, a black shirt with blue jeans, and had multiple piercings on his face. Abraham began to look at him.
"Oh, you can't have all of those piercings on your face. You'll need to take them off, health code standards." Courtney said. Without a word, Duncan began taking his piercings off, starting with his nose piercing, followed by the one over his right eyebrow, then the two piercings in each ear. He reached out to Abraham's hand and placed the piercings in his hand, and Abraham and Courtney looked over to each other in amazement at the audacity of this newcomer.
"I'll find a bag for this."
"And that green hair won't work. We'll need to find you a hat." Courtney said.
"I'll get you a hat as soon as I can." Abraham began to put the piercings down, and then motioned over to Courtney.
"Duncan, this is Courtney. She's going to be training you for the day. You're in great hands, Courtney was trained by the best. Me." He chuckled once more as he pointed to himself, then handed him an apron and nametag that he had sitting on a table next to him. "Now, I've got a stack of papers to file with my name on it. Call me if you need anything. Good luck!" Abraham began to walk away, leaving Courtney and Duncan alone.
"So, your name is Courtney, huh? Are you single?" Duncan asked. Courtney made a distasteful face at his question.
"It's none of your business." She told him. "Now, let's go before we're slammed with the lunch rush."
Courtney watched as the clock hit 3:30 pm. She only had thirty minutes of her shift before she had to head back to her dorm to study for her mid-terms, and after the day she's had training Duncan, she couldn't wait to get back. She knew she was a control freak, but she felt like she needed to micromanage him so he would do everything correctly. It was as if he had never picked up a coffee pot before, or even made himself something in an oven at home. He was completely helpless and it would be a complete miracle if he even made it past training let alone this day. She watched him as he looked at the different sizes of coffee in his hand, and after a few moments, he looked towards her.
"Which size is regular again?" She groaned into her hand as she walked to him, pointing to the third cup sleeve.
"This one, obviously." She said, her attitude getting in the way. She was slowly losing her patience and sanity and could not wait for her shift to finish. He began to walk over to the coffee machine and looked up and down to find the correct setting for the customer's order, but his lack of speed made Courtney frustrated. She walked over to him and pushed the buttons herself, placing the cup under the spout. She crossed her arms and faced her body towards him as they watched the coffee fill into the cup.
"Jeez, it's my first day, give me a break." He told her. "You could be a little nicer."
"A little nicer? You don't know what the hell you're doing! You can't give simple change even though the computer tells you how much you owe, you've burned almost every panini, which held us up in the afternoon rush, and now you can't make a simple cup of coffee! I don't even know how you survive." The coffee stopped pouring into the cup, so she grabbed a lid and handed the coffee to the customer, smiling over to her as she put her customer service voice on.
"Here you go, one coffee. Anything you need, creamer, sugar, stirrers, are going to be right behind you. Have a great day!" The customer nodded as she began to take a sip, then walked away to leave Courtney and Duncan be.
"Why do you take everything so seriously?" Duncan asked her.
"My job as a shift leader is to take this seriously. And I have the authority to tell our manager you're not fit for this job if you're going to be like this."
"No, please don't. I really need this job." Courtney looked over to Duncan, who looked a bit upset at her statement. She noticed his body language and told herself she needed to ease up.
"Okay, I won't say anything if she asks. But you have to put more of an effort. Okay?" He perked up and he held his fingers over to his forehead to give her a salute.
"Yes, ma'am!" Courtney pointed to the door and the two watched a customer walk into the door.
"I'll let you take this customer. Remember what I told you. You never know who's coming through the door, it could be a secret shopper." Duncan walked over to the register, with Courtney trailing behind him. He watched the woman in front of him peering over the menu above her head, then when she decided on what to order, she walked closer to Duncan. The woman seemed to be in her mid-30s, and she had poofy brown hair and held a cell phone in her hand, as she was mid-phone call.
"Welcome to Tim Horton's, what can I get for you?" Duncan said as if he was being forced to spit out a script. Before Courtney could tell him again, he gave the customer a forced smile.
"I will take a Chipotle cheddar chicken wrap with a loose-leaf steeped tea."
"Okay. That'll be-" Courtney began to bump him in the shoulder, trying to get him to remember the next part of working the register.
"What?" He asked, looking over to her.
"You have to ask her if she wants anything else."
"But she finished her sentence."
"I know, but-" She stopped herself mid-sentence. "We'll talk about it later. Just ask."
"Okay, okay." He looked back over to the customer, who seemed confused by their side talk. "Sorry. Anything else?"
"No. That will be all." She said. She began to take her wallet out of her purse, then dug out her card from the wallet.
"That will be 8 dollars and 35 cents." He said. She handed him the card, and he began to swipe it on the machine. The card approved, so he gave it back to her. Courtney began to cough to get his attention.
"What now?" He asked.
"The receipt." She told him as she handed him a marker sitting next to them. He wasn't getting the hint, so she did it for him. She took the receipt from the register and circled the survey link on the bottom of the receipt. She looked up to the customer.
"You are number 24 and your order will be ready in just a few minutes at the counter next to us." She smiled at her as she walked over to Duncan.
"We'll let Valerie complete her order. It's almost time to clock out, anyway." Courtney looked over to the dining room. "Until Alexia comes over to take over my shift, we could start cleaning. Let's go." Courtney motioned over to Valerie, the girl at the ovens, that she and Duncan would be going to the dining room, then she grabbed a broom, dustpan, paper towels, and a cleaning bottle from near the door. She handed him the broom and dustpan.
"I'll wash the tables, you sweep the floors." The dining room had been empty except for the woman they just served together, so the two stayed close. As she washed the tables and took any trash into the garbage can, she watched him struggle to sweep the floor. He had been holding the broom unevenly, which resulted in him losing the balance of the broom. She walked over to him, grabbing the broom as it almost fell onto the floor. She held it at an angle, then pointed her finger out.
"You want to hold it with your finger and thumb out. You'll have a much easier time sweeping." She gave it back to him and adjusted his fingers, then watched him as he swept the floor without losing balancing his fingers. "Great!" She got back to cleaning the table, and Duncan began to speak to her.
"This is my first job." Duncan told her.
"Oh, really? I wouldn't have noticed." Courtney said sarcastically.
"I just really need this job. I have a daughter." She stopped what she was doing, noticing the shift of his tone change from joking to serious. She looked over at him, feeling bad considering he couldn't have been much older than her. In this moment, she could see he wasn't trying to be wise, he wasn't hitting on her - he was being vulnerable. He trusted her enough to reveal this.
"But you're-" Duncan began to cut her off.
"Young, I know. It all happened so quickly, we were drunk. Her mother and I tried to make it work, but we hardly know each other, so we separated. My parents and I don't have the best relationship, I got into trouble a lot as a teen. They said if I get a job they'd help and watch her while I work. But, I'm trying to shape up. For her." He took out his wallet, revealing a photo of his daughter. She was just a few months old and had his nose. She had black hair beginning to grow.
"I'm sorry about today. I know I'm not perfect, and can be a hothead. But I just really need this job, even if it takes me a while to get everything right." Courtney began to feel a twinge of sympathy for him, despite how much stress he gave her.
"Well, she's adorable. And I know I can be tough to work with, it's just in my nature. I care a lot about things being perfect, which is why I became a shift leader in the first place." The two began to share a smile between each other when suddenly, a girl in a Tim Hortons uniform tapped Courtney on the shoulder.
"Hey, Courtney. I'm ready to take over your shift." Courtney shook off her smile and got right back in business.
"Oh, perfect. Thanks! Hey, have you met our newest employee?" Courtney said. She motioned over to Duncan. "This is Duncan. Duncan, this is Alexia."
"Nice to meet you. Welcome to the circus." She chuckled as she shook his hand.
"Glad to be here." Courtney looked over to Duncan.
"Well, I'll show you where you can clock off. See you, Alexia." Courtney placed her cleaning supplies onto the table to Alexia to finish up, then the two of them began to walk to the back of the kitchen and to the break room. She took her apron and put it in the locker.
"Oh, you can take the apron home or leave it here. I only work a few days a week, so I keep it here and bring it home every other day to wash it. But you probably won't get a locker for a few days." She told him.
"I'll bring it home." Duncan told her. The two began to walk over to the clock-in system as Courtney took her purse from the locker and locked her locker.
"This is the clock-in, clock-out system. Soon you'll get your own employee ID." She began to type her eight-digit code, and pressed 'clock-out'. "And that's it. You completed your first shift."
"That I did. Man, this work stuff is tiring. How do you do it?"
"Try doing it as a pre-law student with five classes."
"Pre-law? That makes sense, you are uptight." Courtney gasped.
"I'm not uptight, I just like everything to be in order."
"Nah, you're uptight." Before Courtney could defend herself, Duncan spoke again. "Well, I have to go pick my daughter up. Uh, thanks. For training me and stuff." He cracked a slight smile at her.
"I'll see you again soon, I'm sure." She nodded at him as he walked out the door, then caught herself blushing over his change of tone. She shook it off as Abraham walked into the door, and looked over to him.
"Hey, sorry I wasn't on the floor much. How did he do?" Courtney knew this would be an opportunity to tell him everything - how incompetent he is, how he can't even make a cup of coffee without ruining it. However, something about her conversation with him made her want to stretch the truth out a little. She wanted to give him a good chance here.
"He was good. I think he'll make a great fit."
"A great fit?" Abraham echoed. "Someone's got the Courtney seal of approval early on." She began to walk to the door and looked over to him.
"Yep. I told you I'm capable of easing up."
A/N: Thanks so much for reading! This is part of Total Drama Writers Month, something I've put together with the members of the discord server I created, Total Drama Writers. This week's theme is dialogue prompts, and I chose the prompt: Jeez, it's my first day. Give me a break. If you would like to join the discord and participate, please PM me and I will give you a link! I will be dropping new themes and prompts every Monday for the rest of the month!
~Sami