Builder Brothers' Pizza is Kinda a Weird Place

Ceithre

Silence. That's all Adam heard when he walked into Builder Brothers'. The only sound in the entire pizza place was the sound of his shoes.

It was eerie. On a calmer day, there would usually be the sound of customers, pizzas cooking, employees talking, but today it was completely silent. It was morning, so there wouldn't usually be many customers there, but there would always be at least one employee that could be seen. But there wasn't a soul in sight.

Adam poked his head out the front entrance. No signs except for a faded one from the old manager explaining the strike. The parking lot was completely empty, as well. Where did everyone go? Even the manager's not here.

Tentatively, Adam walked behind the front counter. Peering through the window, no one was in the kitchen. He walked through both sets of doors into the pizza boxing area. No one there either. Jesus, are they all just skipping work today? Adam walked to the door to the manager's office.

He knocked on the door, "Mr. Gates, are you in there?" No answer. "Mr. Gates?" Still no answer.

"What do you need?" A voice rang out from behind Adam, startling him. It was the manager.

"Oh, uh, it's, uhh... well, no one is here," Adam stuttered, the jitters from being startled still wearing off.

"No, there's one person here," Sean simply stated.

"Oh, really? Who is it?" Adam chose not to comment on the fact that the manager thought it was completely normal that only one person was there that day.

Suddenly, a young woman with a pizza delivery box burst through the door, panting and leaning on the doorknob for support. She looked like she had been running before going in, which was strange considering all the delivery drivers could use cars.

"Oh, thank god," The woman panted, "I thought I would be all alone doing every job for the whole day!"

"There she is. Adam, meet Christina Watts. Christina, this is Adam Drell," Sean introduced, putting his hands together.

"Pleased... to meet you!" Christina quickly raised her head to see Adam's face. Her own face was red and she was still catching her breath, but she was smiling. Well jeez, this woman must be unbreakable if she can do every job in the pizza place excluding being the manager and still smile.

"Nice to meet you too..." Adam said cautiously.

"Well, I'll leave you two to do the jobs here," The manager said, already walking back into his office.

"Wait, what? There's no way just two of us can do all of this work, it's just-" The door closed before Adam could finish his sentence.

"Ugh, that guy's such a dick, did you know he made a joke about blondes earlier? He said it directly to my face, he said, Why did the blonde girl stare at the carton of orange juice? Because it said concentrate! God, such a douche!" Adam was startled by the change in character in the woman. She had done a full 180 from the happy-go-lucky, just slightly absent-minded employee he had seen earlier into... this. So this is her true personality, huh? She's a pretty good actress if I do say so myself. 

"Ouch, Isaac texted me earlier about him, said he made some pretty sexist jokes to him. I'm not surprised that he would make jokes about other stereotypes, too," Adam put a finger on his chin as he spoke.

"Yeah, now, in his eyes, I'm condemned to being the 'dumb blonde' until he leaves!" Christina complained. It was then that Adam noted her appearance, specifically her shoulder-length light blonde hair. With this assessment, Adam realized the manager would have insulted her to her face with that joke that he made. Scratch pretty good, she's an amazing actress if she can keep her cool when someone insults her intelligence directly to her face. I'm impressed.

"That's pretty low, insulting you to your face like that. By the way, it doesn't seem like you're dumb at all, being as you held it together when he made that joke," Adam smiled at Christina.

"Thanks. You know, it really helps to just vent my feelings sometimes. I'm sure you think so too. We employees take a lot of shit during the day and sometimes we just need to rant. So, thanks for that, too," Christina smiled back.

"Oh, I know it. Now, we should probably get to work. Customers will probably be coming in soon and we'll have a lot of work to do until some more employees arrive. It was nice talking to you though, Christina," Adam gave her a thumbs-up, to which Christina just nodded her head.

Adam got back to the front counter just in time to see Isaac walk through the front door, along with a few other customers that Adam would be serving soon. The purple-haired man looked as tired as usual.

"Morning," Isaac mumbled as he walked by Adam and into the kitchen. He wasn't wearing the uniform, but Adam wasn't sure if he had ever seen Isaac wear it. He always wore black Vans, jeans, and a T-shirt. Only the old old managers actually enforced the dress code. Old as in when Isaac first started working at Builder Brothers'.

Adam didn't even bother saying good morning back, knowing that Isaac wouldn't respond. It was just how he was. Jaded.

Two more employees that Adam didn't know the name of walked through the door and into their various jobs. Surprisingly, the day was running rather smoothly. Knock on wood.

Until about noon, the pizza place was running smoothly and efficiently. It seemed like the strike had weeded out all the crazy workers and only the good ones were left. But at exactly twelve o'clock, well... shit hit the fan.