Dick Dorkly worked at a taco restaurant. That was misleading, sorry, they served burritos and other similar cuisine as well. Anyway, people would come up to the window of the restaurant building and scream until Dick (and his crew, for he was a Taco Lieutenant) gave them what they wanted.
But Dick didn't care much for making tacos. He got too good at making tacos. That is this story. Or part of it.
I get ahead of myself. Dick was making tacos one day.
"Hey", said Stevey, one of the only people On Dick's Side, "hey man, we're out of beef."
"Well fuck," Dick replied, "beef is vital to the process of making our default Beef Taco. Why are we out of beef?"
"There isn't any beef in the bag boiler."
"I can infer that, obviously. I meant whose job was it to stock the bag boiler?"
"Your job."
"Well yes, but I delegated that part of the job. Who did I delegate it to?"
"I don't know what delegate means. Someone should probably go get a beef bag for the bag boiler, though. Actually, several beef bags."
"Yeah." But before Dick could move away from the TacoTown Advanced Manual Taco Associate Assembly Line to get some beef, he was interrupted.
"Yo, Dick," said Dramantha, who called Dick Dick not because that's his name but because she thought he was a dick, "are we seriously out of beef?"
Dramantha was not On Dick's Side, not completely. But she was a professional and wasn't outright hostile.
But she had a hard job. She stood next to the window to interpret the taco-centric screaming of our Beloved Customers, which meant she had people screaming directly at her face for extended periods of time. This can affect inner-ear health, and the excess contact with spittle means she has an increased risk of death from viral disease.
"Yes," Dick replied, "I fucked up and there's an imminent beef crisis upcoming. Let's say I can make about..." Dick peered into the beef bucket. "Thirty more tacos' worth of beef. I'll keep you posted."
Without further delay, Dick sprinted away from his spot, yelling back at Stevey, "take my place".
Cool relief overcame Dick as he ran into the big fridge.
Dick looked around. He grabbed six bags of beef and left. He put them in the bag boiler and set the timer for the beef.
"Forty-five minutes," Dick announced. "Or less, if it gets up to temperature. We can do this."
Above the assembly station, on either end, were specialized Dinkles that beeped obnoxiously with every new order that came in. On the screen, a screen like a normal Expensive TV, the strange language of TacOS spoke to the crew.
Dick actually didn't know if it was called TacOS, but its real name was not revealed when performing normal TacoTown operations, so he called it TacOS.
There could be about four or five orders on the screen at once, depending on their size.
Right now, the screen said:
x869 JUKE
BF TC 1
x868 GLORIA
BF SP BRTO 6
x867 PISS
BT NCH SP 1
This may or may not seem like gibberish. But it's simple. Order x869 for Juke asks for one beef taco, order x868 for Gloria asks for six beef supreme burritos, and order x867 for "Piss" asks for one BigTown Nachos Supreme. It's easy to get used to, for the most part.
"Hurry up," said Dramantha, "there are thirty people in line, which is twenty-nine above official TacoTown policy."
"I know," Dick said, "But it is faster by far to order a taco than make one."
"Then you must be faster by further. 67 is already at two minutes."
Dick tried making the tacos faster, but he was unable to go any faster. Even if he could go faster, Stevey couldn't, and it was up to him to wrap the tacos and put them in bags and hand them to Dramantha. And even if Dick could go faster AND Stevey could go faster, they would not only need to be fast enough to make the rest of the orders in under the maximum acceptable time of three minutes, but also fast enough to prevent all the new orders coming in from going over three minutes. Any delay in this fragile system is invariably enough to destroy any chance of meeting acceptable TacoTown standards.
---
Eventually, the backlog of taco customers was defeated, leaving Dick time to think. The beef issue ended up not being an issue at all, the beef got up to temperature in time. Still, Dick was frustrated he forgot to make sure there was beef. Dick walked over near Dramantha's window. He glanced at her; she was fucking around with her mobile dinkle. But it wasn't Dramantha's dinkle that Dick walked over there for. Instead, he was looking at the dinkle hanging above and to the left of the soda fountain. This dinkle was the TacoTown Regional Leaderboards. This is where everyone could either look in pride at their handiwork or look in shame at their tomfuckery. This was where everyone in this particular TacoTown region (really just all the TacoTowns owned by the franchisee ShitCorp) could see how they compared to each other.
Snetch: 05:45
Dyxon: 06:33
Cocko: 09:58
De Tora: 15:01
Jackough: 16:30
Cusp: ---
<Well god my damn and call me motherfuck!> thought Dick, <That's us, bottom of the list.>
Not the very bottom, not Cusp; they don't count. Cusp blew up. But Jackough, that was the town in which Dick's particular TacoTown was built, and they were at the bottom of the leaderboards. Bethanie would not be happy about this.
Dick knew what he would see, and he knew he shouldn't have even looked. Since it was finally quiet, and he could trust Stevey to make an order or two alone if they did come in, Dick decided to go outside for some fresh air.
Dick didn't smoke, but he did try to take small breaks now and then.