I feel like a very odd teenager.

So I just recently quit my job of two years and ten months. For the sake of making myself sound better, we will round up to three years.

(Copyright Paul Devine)

Panera Bread. A lovely resort for all of your bakery goods and cafe sandwiches. The one place where you can find a respectable cafe and bakery mix together and create a love child of delicious food. It is also a good place for employment. I came here to work at store number #2815 (I feel so nerdy for remembering that. Why do I remember that?) in January of 2008. I decided upon Panera Bread after realizing that it was actually St. Louis Bread Co. A company I loved as a child but thought, for some reason, disappeared. (Turns out licensing forbid the name of "St Louis Bread Company" in any city outside of St. Louis. Funny how that works.) Once I discovered it was still that place where I enjoyed delicious Frozen Mochas and Bearclaws about ten years ago, I decided.. How about I work there?

Panera Bread was one of those places where you easily felt connected to your co-workers. My store averaged roughly 32 employees, and every person I loved to work with, even with their strange quirks, or rather, my quirks.

I always found it difficult to just tell women how I felt about them until recently, so for a long time I would spend my time awkwardly making passes at the co-workers I found attractive only to be lambasted and harshly turned down. Luckily I discovered those women that turned me down were dirty. Hell, almost all of the teenage staff including myself are running sexual deviants. The tension is so high. What I would have done to get a couple minutes in the walk-in. Or as I would have called it, the Below Zero Club.


Some of my worst times working there probably would have had to be during those event nights, jammed pack full of grilled cheese sandwiches, panicking mothers who have no idea where they are, food fights, and a kinda-emo girl/wannabe Tiffany look-a-like trying to sing Switchfoot covers while I'm running on six hours without a meal and shoes that will not stay tied. Fuck.

But I have to say that after some epic call-ins, fast-paced lunches, and some brutal back-room arguments, I am ready to part ways. It is time to focus on my next Endeavour: Cracker Barrel. Yes. I upgraded to waiting tables. But it pays, and better, too. I also never get in arguments there!

Adios, Amigos.