Food To Go

I am an employee of BYU FoodToGo. It's basically the highlight of my life. My average shift (when I even get the hours I'm supposed to) consists of boxing rolls and cookies, washing pans and hot chocolate thermoses, counting and bagging paper goods and plastic utencils, checking and double-checking orders to make sure everything is ready to go, wandering around to make it look like I'm being productive, meandering in and out of our walk-in refridgerators just for kicks, and when I'm lucky, taking deliveries in the van to various locations on campus.

You see, I was hired as a driver. Going into this job, I thought I'd just be in and out of the kitchen, loading up my ride with food and delivering the goods to grateful recipiants all over BYU. I was pretty excited to cruise around in the pimp green service van and have carts of cookies to deliver or lunch buffets to set up. Little did I know I'd be spending much of my time twittling my thumbs or playing with the Kung Fu Panda McDonalds toy that someone left on the end of the dry-foods production table.

Tuesday morning I got a call from Chris: "Don't even bother coming in today, we are already way ahead with production and have no deliveries during your shift."

Lame. This job wasn't turning out to be as cool as I'd hoped. But since I'm an optimist and know that there's always hope for a better tomorrow (or in my case a better day-after tomorrow, since it was Tuesday and I wasn't scheduled to work again until Thursday), I put that hope to the test and hoped my little heart out. I hoped that my shift wouldn't be taken away, I hoped there would be work, I hoped that there would be many deliveries, and I even went so far as to hope that there'd be extra food I could eat (as is sometimes the case when working in the kitchen of a food service business).

My hopes and dreams were realized this morning as I experienced the fastest 4-hour shift of my entire FoodToGo career. I was out the door on two deliveries before I even knew what was going on. I got back in time to get the next deliveries ready and loaded and had just enough time to eat a couple extra rolls that were left out on the corner of the counter, which every employee knows is the fair-game food corner.

But the fact that I had 6 deliveries (more than all my previous deliveries this month combined) and free food isn't what made my day. It was the fact that I got to do what I was hired to do: drive the big green van.

I get a lot of satisfaction out of driving around Provo simply because I don't have a car of my own. But my delight in taking deliveries goes beyond simply driving AROUND campus. Even if I did have a car of my own, I couldn't drive it ON campus with the BYU Employee authority I have on the job.

Remember high school, when a football jock could strut straight through the halls as the lesser peons parted to either side? No one wanted to get in his way. The brave few who held their path - even when it crossed his - were reminded by bruised shoulders to bail out the next time a collision course was eminent.

Now, that image in mind, did you ever wonder what it must feel like to be that big man on campus like Joe Schmoe the linebacker? If you answered Yes, consider this your invitation to come along on my next delivery. As I navigate the walkways of BYU, students part before me. When I'm at work, I'm the big man on campus.

But if you're thinking to yourself "I was that big shot Joe Schmoe on campus...nay, I am him still!", you better step aside now because I guarantee you're not bigger than my van.