Want to enter the food truck industry? Pt IV

Three months have passed since I began working with Lucas. Mike and I are in the truck during a very slow day. Mike and I are becoming friendlier with each other although there's still some, what I thought was, malice on his part. We begin talking about the job, Lucas, and their relationship. Lucas thinks of Mike as almost a son and Mike does not think of Lucas as a father figure at all. Mike is only nineteen and Lucas is thirty eight but Lucas has known Mike's mother for years and that's his only parent. Mike resents Lucas because he does everything for Lucas' business besides whatever I do but still doesn't get anything past his hourly and tips. Mike tells me how he takes advantage of Lucas  all the time to spite him such as lying about hours, taking money from the tilt, taking food home, a few other things. If I didn't know Lucas, I would've told him right away but Lucas is a jackass and deserves it. We continue our day until Lucas comes to drive the truck away (Mike nor I have a CDL).

All three of us arrive at our parking lot and Lucas asks me to do prep and tells me it can be done within the next three days because its going to be a light week and meanwhile Mike is just looking at me with his robotic blank expression the entire time.  I'm asked which day I can do it and I tell him I can do it the next day. Mike still staring at me. We all leave the parking lot and I walk home while they drive back in Lucas' car. Took me a little while to realize but Lucas is drunk so I decide to walk the three miles to get home. He's hands down the most lucid drunk I've ever seen until he takes one sip too many which usually happens when he's driving.

I arrive home and my roommate decides to cook for us and he is not a cook at all. He just recently moved in so he's trying to become my friend and try to relate to me so he figures cooking would do the trick. He couldn't play some fucking video game with me instead, he had to fucking cook. He cooks some pork chops with instant mash potatoes, it wasn't bad tasting just bland. We eat and hang out for a while and I start getting terrible stomach pains. I quickly realized this idiot gave me food poisoning. I walk over to the trashcan and scurry through it to find the pork chop packaging and realized its been in the fridge for a week and pork chops go bad in 2 days. I just go into my room and try to sleep it off.

I wake up with the word stomach pain in my life. I try to throw up but can't do it. I'm in the bathroom until two hours before I'm suppose to show up and do prep. I text Lucas telling him I'm sick and can't make it today but will do it the next day. Five hours have passed since the text and I'm still sick as a dog. I cursed out my roommate during that time and needless to say, we didn't get along very well after that and he moved out at the end of the month. Lucas replies to my text after about five hours and it reads "You gave me your word you would do it today. I do not like it when people flake out on me. This is about trust and you seriously just broke mine." This is no exaggeration, he really took it that personal. My reply just states that he said it didn't have to be today so its not urgent and I'm sick so I should not be around food. I finally throw it all up a couple hours later and feel a whole lot better but its too late to go do prep so I just stay home. 

Morning comes and I'm up and out for work. Didn't get a text from Lucas saying don't come in or a reply from last night so I just assume he didn't want to admit he was wrong like he usually doesn't. I go to the commissary and begin working quickly. Two people who also rent the kitchen are there and they're actually in the process of moving out. We begin talking and they explain how Lucas came in last night and cursed out their dishwasher who has nothing to do with my truck at all. He cursed the dishwasher out because he locked the front door the previous night which Lucas has the keys to. The keys worked and Lucas had them but the problem was Lucas was piss drunk apparently and couldn't figure it out. When the dishwasher let him in, he immediately starts berating him I'm told. This wasn't the only problem they've had with Lucas but clearly the final straw. I tell them I'm not surprised, I've been on the receiving end of his drunken rants over nothing before and it happens regularly. The owners of the kitchen who I'm very friendly with come by later and tell me they want to kick Lucas out but he's now the only renter so they can't afford to. Lucas never found out about that conversation.

They finish moving out a few hours later and I'm almost done with my work. Lucas walks in and surprisingly sober which is awful because he's a bigger asshole when sober. He asks me how much I have left then sits down and watches me without saying a word. Mike walks in ten minutes later and I know something is up because I know he has no work to do. Mike sits on the other side of the kitchen and stares at me with his robot expression as usual. I get done with my work and just mentally prepare for whatever is coming next.

Lucas sees that I'm completely done with everything from cooking, cleaning the kitchen, and washing all the dishes. He asks me if I want to stay another hour to wash out the truck. I don't have a choice so we drive to the parking lot and I begin washing out the truck while Lucas and Mike just stare at me not lifting a finger to help. The truck is spotless from top to bottom all because of me. Lucas hands me the cash he owes me for the week and finally says something to me after an hour of silence. "I'm gonna have to demote you. After yesterday I have to question your commitment to this job. We will call you only for very busy events when we need a third person. I wish you good luck." 

I don't even try to defend myself, nothing I say will change his mind and I know it. I just tell him "Alright, you're firing me because I was sick. Fine. Call me when you need me." He replies with "You're not being fired, you're being demoted." I just quickly burst out with "Demoted to what? You only have two employees!" He won't admit he fired me which is a very corporate way of letting of people go. Mike just shakes his head staring at both of us. 

I'm offered a ride home and he's actually sober but this time I had to refuse and the irony pisses me off to this day. I start walking home and I get a text from Mike explaining how he didn't want this to happen and how he tried to defend me. I reply with "Thanks, Robot." I only referred to him as Robot for the last month cause we figured out he's an emotionless sociopath and it's funny to me.  The Robot tells me this may blow over and I may get my job back, explaining how this has happened to him three times already. 

Later that night Lucas texts me asking if we could meet for a drink tomorrow. Thinking about what Robot said, I guess Lucas got over it. I don't reply that night because I'm still furious at the situation and wait in the morning to respond because I never make decisions when angry. The next morning comes and I wake up to three more texts from him. First one revoking the drink offer, second one cursing me out, third one apologizing for the first two texts. I just ignore them and tell him yes for the drink. That night, we meet at a bar and he's already there with a drink in hand. I sit down beside him and he immediately says "You can still work with us but you're also going to be working for another truck because I can't afford you full time. So you're going to be scheduled between both of us each week. You already know the truck so this shouldn't be too hard for you." He got me a job with the worst food truck around in terms of food, time, cleanliness, and pay. This truck was an inside joke between all of the other trucks. Lucas just royally screwed me.

I will continue this story in another post. I got work in the morning.