I Was Wrongfully Fired

When I was eighteen I worked at Baskin-Robbins. My required uniform was a brown visor, pink polo shirt, brown apron, and “woman’s” khaki shorts. I also had to wear a nametag that was made with one of those beautiful guns that embosses letters into tape. The big excitement was to make fake names for ourselves when the owners weren’t around. Sometimes, I went by Francesca, which my mother almost named me. The thrill came when the customer read my nametag and addressed me by my fake name.

“One scoop of Jamoca Almond Fudge, Francesca.”

Or, “Your long beautiful ponytail that’s filled with Aqua Net and cigarette smoke is dragging itself across the ice cream tub when you lean over, Francesca.”

Or, “Francesca, you could get an NBA star to marry you with those perfect tits.”

I would scoop the ice cream thinking, you don’t know me, which felt like power instead of an obvious truth. Of course they didn’t know me. But this is how a person made life thrilling in a pre-internet age.

It was not my dream to work at Baskin-Robbins. At the time I found work by looking in the newspaper, applying, and then taking the first minimun wage job given to me. I was older than my fellow coworkers, who were still in high school. This particular Southern Californian Baskin-Robbins was under new ownership. A very intense husband and wife team took it over and trained the new workers as if we were to become suicide bombers. There was zero room for error, which is exactly the vibe you want when you’re getting paid $4.25 an hour.