Stabbing Cracker Barrel

Ahem. I am going to stab the Cracker Barrel right in their stupid heads, I promise you that.

I like to start off each one of my little entries here with some sort of a seemingly random quote that will grab the reader’s attention and let them know that, hey, I mean business. And business, in my case, involves stabbing corporations right in their stupid heads. I know it is only pro bono work at this point, but I’m hoping if I stab enough corporations on my own dime I will latch on to some bigger corporation stabbers in some sort of paid internship or something.

Granted, I don’t actually know if Cracker Barrel is incorporated, it may be an LLC or it may be part of a larger conglomerate that is run by lower primates. I will leave finding those answers up to somebody who didn’t just get rejected by them for an interview based on some sort of screening process that was obviously devised by a chimpanzee. I’m still going to stab them.

For those of you who have never been to Cracker Barrel, I congratulate you, for you have successfully dodged one of the worst dining experiences known to man. Here is what it’s like to engage in a dining experience there: As you make your way past a seemingly endless row of “handmade” rocking chairs priced at $149 on the porch, you see a menu describing the daily special written in chalk on the side of the building next to the door. You can NEVER read that because it has been the same special for 13 years and they ran out of chalk 12 years ago. The management has never gone through the rigorous process of going to Wal-Mart to buy more chalk because they are so engrossed in figuring out how to put on their suspenders they have little time for anything else.

Inside you will be forced to walk through a retail store that has somehow managed to cram so much stuff into the space that it looks like an episode of “Hoarders” is getting ready to film there if they could just figure out how to get the camera inside the door. In between Christmas ornaments of Elvis and cassette tapes of Kenny Roger’s Greatest Hits you will find cool things like . . . ummmm, nothing. There is nothing cool there. Unless you count the little tub full of those awesome dinner mints that melt in your mouth, but that little 8 ounce tub costs $7 so if you do count that, you should be eating at a much better restaurant than Cracker Barrel. You should be at the Red Lobster, moneybags. There’s more flavor in those cheesy biscuits than in a whole table full of crap from Cracker Barrel.

If you manage to find a path through all of the piles and piles of shit that makes a Grandma’s knees quiver in dry-crotched joy, you will finally find a hostess who is genuinely unhappy to see you. If she wasn’t so busy fielding special requests from people making ABSOLUTELY SURE there is no spice on any of the food, she would actually spit in your face before taking you to a table right next to either a table of pure-blood white trash or a table full of the bingo club from the church or, better yet, both.

At this point, the dining experience is completely unremarkable unless you happen to catch some of the conversation from the pure-blood white trash table, where you will hear genuine, straight-faced statements like, “I don’t care what you say, I will park my Camaro anywhere in the yard I feel like,” and “Does this tank top make my rebel flag tattoo look bitchen or what?”

Just eat your “food” and get the hell out of there as fast as you can. And on the way home, don’t forget to stop off at ANY OTHER RESTAURANT to make sure you get some good food in your belly before you get to your front door.

Okay, so back to why I am going to stab these F-worders, they have an ad up in Flagstaff looking for a manager to run their retail side of the restaurant. I applied to the ad and was given a link to their screening process. From what I could tell from the “screening process,” the only question was this:

Do you have at least 2 years of retail management experience?

My answer was, “Yes.” (I have almost 15 years of management experience, for those who were wondering if I was lying about the whole “yes” thing right there)

My final score: 0

What the fuck?! I can say that word because I am over 18, in good physical health, have never been convicted of a crime (or even accused of one, for that matter), and have seen “Scarface” more than 57 times in my life.

I know I am probably not the best employee in the world. But I am as close as you will ever get without having to deal with someone who says things like, “Buck up, camper, things are getting better” and “What a fantastic day! It just makes you want to whistle a happy tune, doesn’t it?” early in the morning before you’ve had your coffee or pushed a midget down the stairs yet.

Somehow I have become fundamentally unemployable over the last 2 years without even trying. That’s the best part. I am the same guy who ran $2+ million volumes with little or no effort (just kidding, I worked my ass off, I just made it look easy). I am the same guy that managed to keep all of the various races and tribes from killing each other on their lunch breaks up at Savers in Flagstaff while SIMULTANEOUSLY lowering my golf handicap by 8 strokes.

Let’s face it, I rock. So why do I score a big fat 0 on the screening process for stupid Cracker Barrel? I don’t even want to work for Cracker Barrel. Their food tastes like it was designed by a chef who wanted the food to taste “as close to air” as possible, the people wear stupid outfits, I can never figure out that damn pyramid game with the golf tees in it before my food arrives and all of the people who work there look like they’d rather be in the back taking the jawbone of an ass to their manager, bible style.

What I want from Cracker Barrel is an interview so I can tell them to fuck off and quit calling me. I already know how awesome I am and I am WAY too good to be working in a shithole like that. But how can I tell them that if they won’t even give me an interview?

Somebody get on that for me, will you?

B!

P.S.--I don't care what you think about it, that "dry crotch" comment made me laugh, and that's all that matters, even if it is kind of sick and twisted.