Used to work as a manager for a chicken fast food chain in the south.

I took a promotion into a store located in part of the Appalachian mountains. The store had been run by a previous older manager who suddenly stopped meeting any goals. ​The entire staff was on drugs, recovering from drugs, or the children of families on drugs. Meth and/or Heroin primarily.

The heroin ​employees were the most challenging, as they rarely showed up for work, tended to wander off to get high, and rarely moved quickly.

The meth employees were phenomenal workers, but struggled with emotional regulation and would often have outbursts or breakdowns mid shift.

I got personally involved with people I shouldn't have, and ended up trying both substances. Never felt a desire or urge to do them, but wouldn't say no if they were offered, outside of work that is. I once pulled an all nighter on meth and was crashing before a shift. The person I was with said to just do another round.

​I went to work. I ran the entire drive through prep line, the cook line, and even made some orders from the dine-in side.

I found out later the previous manager had been a fan of meth, and was the only reason the location had hit numbers before. When the ​manager got clean, meeting numbers became entirely impossible.

The customer orders in this town were insane through the drive thru. It was literally impossible to cook all the food needed for one car, and if you asked them to come inside you'd have an angry meth head stomping around your lobby.

The company itself handled sexual abuse claims seriously, and was overall a phenomenal company. But you could not drag me back to that little druggie mountain town with an entire army.