Following his coworker into the back of the Corinth Square Subway, senior Jack Haulmark stared in shock at the mountain of sudsy bubbles rapidly growing towards the tiles on the ceiling, engulfing any dish that may be hiding underneath.
By the time he reached the kitchen, Haulmark realized his mistake — he’d forgotten to turn the water off after washing dishes.
Haulmark’s duties for the three months he worked at Subway were routine — clean, make sandwiches, wash dishes. While he washed the dishes, he waited for the bell to ring, signaling a new customer in need of a foot-long.
As Haulmark was assembling the customer’s sandwich, his coworker walked in and headed for the back to finish cleaning the dishes, before yelling for Haulmark.
“Neither me nor my co-worker could really do anything about it, because there was just so much,” Haulmark said. “So we just left it alone, and eventually my shift was up.”
His other coworkers found the situation amusing and “couldn’t believe he allowed that to happen,” according to Haulmark. He finished his shift assembling sandwiches and avoiding the back room, leaving the soapy mess untouched.
Haulmark only worked at Subway for three months — he quit once the job became too much to handle with his growing pile of homework. But in that time he never learned exactly what the aftermath of his mistake was.
“To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what happened after that,” Haulmark said. “I went back the next day and it was gone.”
On junior Max Wilson’s way to Shawnee Mission Park for his fourth lifeguarding shift of the summer, he got a call from his manager telling him not to come in.
He’d been exposed to a coworker with COVID-19 during his first shift — unaware that for his second and third shifts he’d had first-hand exposure, and a possibility of carrying the virus.
“It was kind of scary,” Wilson said. “In those couple of days, I’d seen my grandparents and my friends so I didn’t know if I had spread it.”
Wilson was required to quarantine for two weeks, putting his summer job on hold. After his quarantining was complete, Wilson was hesitant about returning to work, scared he might be exposed again.
“I didn’t really want to go back,” Wilson said. “I thought it might happen again and quarantining was not fun.”
Regardless of his worries, Wilson returned to his job once his two weeks of solitude were over. Although Shawnee Mission Park had COVID-19 precautions in place, the nature of the job made it hard to stay masked-up at work.
“Nothing really changed,” Wilson said. “We wore masks before and after but since we were lifeguarding we couldn’t wear masks when we were training in the water.”
Walking through the melted ice cream on the Sonic kitchen floor, Junior Sydney Beck tried to navigate her way through her brand new co-workers. She made her way to the humming drink machine, the smell of greasy food wafting through the air.
With a goal of making a diet cherry limeade, Beck didn’t know what syrups to use on the machine and was too scared to ask. She made a normal cherry limeade instead — the first and last of her Sonic career.
This was only one of the drinks Beck messed up during her first six hour shift, where Beck was constantly confused and surrounded by the smell of burgers.
After getting off at 6 p.m., Beck quit four hours later via email and shoved her uniform to the back of her closet due to the inflexible hours that Sonic gave her and her horrible first experience.
“I’m really sorry but due to conflicting issues I’m going to have to quit,” the email read.
The manager never responded or acknowledged her email — and never paid her. According to Beck, she could still be on the schedule but she would have no idea.
“I could just tell it was not the right fit for me,” Beck said. “The first hour, I was like ‘I don’t even know if I can finish today, I don’t even know if I can stay another hour.’ It was boring and stressful and I felt gross.”
Looking back now, she can laugh about the experience — her friends never let her forget it. They make fun of her for quitting so soon to this day, but Beck feels she has learned from the experience and hopes to find a job that fits her better.
“I can say I’ve had a real job and I can say I’ve worked at Sonic,” Beck said. “But when you hear the story that I only worked six hours, didn’t get paid and never talked to anyone at Sonic again, it’s just kind of a funny story.”
Most East students can say they’ve had at least one job during their high school career, if not zero — but senior Ashton Emley has tripled that.
Emley began working at Mclain’s Market on Roe Avenue as a sophomore and continued there for nine months. Her daily tasks consisted of taking people’s orders and bringing them food. When she began studying for the ACT and cheer practices increased, Emley quit due to the large number of hours that came with the job.
“I just didn’t really have time anymore,” Emley said. “I needed something with more flexible hours.”
When this summer came around, Emley decided to get a job again to save money for college. She began working at the McClain’s off of Johnson Drive — they needed workers and she knew how to do the job.
However, Emley ran into the opposite problem that time around — not enough hours.
When Emley found out two of her friends were working at Torchy’s Tacos, she applied there and worked there as a second job, overlapping jobs for over a month.
Emley ultimately quit McClain’s after three months, moving full time to Torchy’s. Although Emley enjoyed the job, Torchy’s allowed her to earn more money.
Emley is going into her second month working 8-12 hours a week at Torchy’s.
“It just needed to happen,” Emley said. “I don’t regret it, I think it was a good idea for me.”