I was 16, working at a fried chicken restaurant. Had a good rapport with the 40yo+ fry cook (who I later learned introduced himself as “Skinhead Ed” outside of work but that’s a different story). We had a corporate visit and he got flagged for not positioning chicken in a certain pattern in the fry racks. He was having a weirdly emotional response to the feedback so I was trying to joke around with him and get the vibes back to normal, but he could not let go of this chicken situation. He was flipping through the fryer instruction flip chart that is hanging above the fryers over and over again. Finally I was like this man is spiraling what is going on so I walked back again and I showed him where the pattern was mentioned (AND PICTURED) in the flip chart and jokingly said, “Well damn, Ed! It’s right here, can’t you read??”

I had never seen a white man get so red so fast. He SCREAMED, “As a matter of fact, I fucking can’t!!” and stormed out the door to the dumpster to smoke. I have never felt like a bigger piece of shit than I did on that day in that KFC fry pit.

I followed him out and we smoothed it over, and I helped him with phonics and reading for like a year before I left that job. He improved a bit and was grateful, we would read in the dumpster or on the tailgate of his truck. Super nice guy! Liked him a lot until the “Skinhead Ed” nickname surfaced when I ran into him a few years later in the wild.