The Pizza That Almost Ended My Career

I knew something had gone very wrong the second I saw his mom move.

Fast.

This was my first day working for Pizza Hut, and I had just set a pan pizza down in the middle of the table.

Or at least I thought I had.

Instead, that pizza kept moving.

Straight across the table.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

This was OLD SCHOOL Pizza Hut.

Red everything. Hanging plants. Pan pizzas. Jukebox. Uniforms.

I called it the Dust Hut.

One of my first tables was a guy I went to school with and his family.

Of course it was.

They ordered a pan pizza.

I grabbed the hot pan with pliers (we were so high tech), set it on the cork board, and slid it toward the middle of the table like I knew what I was doing.

I did not.

The cork was wet.

There was grease on the bottom of the pan.

And that pizza took off.

His mom caught the HOT PAN with her blouse and shoved it back.

I wanted to disappear. I'm sure to this day her blouse was ruined by the piping hot, black pan. 

Somehow, everybody survived.

Even me.

And somehow, they let me keep working there.

Which is good, because the Dust Hut ended up teaching me a lot.

I washed pans, made pizzas, opened, closed, waited tables, you name it.

If somebody didn’t want their turn taking a table, I took it.

Not because I was trying to be employee of the month.

Another table meant another tip.

Simple math.

I even remember it cost around 13 cents to fill a pitcher of soda.

I don’t remember what we sold it for, but I remember thinking, “Well, that’s a heck of a profit.”

Apparently I was watching margins before I knew what margins were.

Then there were the plants.

Pizza Hut had hanging plants everywhere, and one day I decided I was going to be helpful and clean the dust off the leaves.

So I found a spray bottle and cleaned every single one.

I was very proud of myself.

Until they all died.

Turns out it wasn’t water.

I successfully killed every hanging plant in the Dust Hut.

Management lesson number one: read the bottle.

And because apparently I needed one more lesson from that parking lot, I also had my first fender bender there.

I was driving what may have been the longest Grand Marquis ever created.

A land yacht.

As I was turning that beast, I saw the silhouettes of two people in the car beside me suddenly jerk forward.

Yep.

That was me.

Thankfully, they were also driving a tank, so neither car was hurt.

Looking back, that Dust Hut holds a ridiculous amount of my history.

I learned how to work.

I learned to take opportunities when somebody else didn’t want them.

I learned to pay attention to the numbers.

I learned that mistakes usually aren’t the end of the world.

And I learned that houseplants, hot pizza pans, and Grand Marquis turning radiuses all deserve more respect than I gave them.

Somewhere between the 13-cent pitchers, flying pizza, dead plants, the jukebox, and that giant car, I was becoming the person I am now.

Not bad for the Dust Hut.