Mini-Episode: Mallory Works Her Way

MULTIPLE VOICES

This is
This is
This is
Greater Boston

[Engine sound]

[Chopping food]

[Frying]

MALLORY–JOHANNA BODNYK

Thanks for this opportunity. I appreciate you’re still considering me, after…well fuck, you know. It was your deal after all. But it’s really decent of you not to hold it against me.

I’m really psyched about this job. I mean, I know it’s not exactly a huge career opportunity or anything, but I like traveling around, seeing different parts of the city. Delivering food is perfect for that. See Copley Sq. one day. Harvard the next. Sweet. And I’m good with food, like managing dietary restrictions and allergies, and stuff. I’m gonna be a doctor, so I take food hygiene fuckin’ serious. That shit’s life & death, you know?

Uh…I mean. Yeah. Anyway.

I’m taking early start courses in veterinary science at CCSCCCC. The Cambridge Central Square Community College Commuter Campus? You know, in Red Line. They’ve got the most kickass rodent rescue facility in the northeast, ‘cause of all the mice and rats that live down on the tracks. I always loved watching those little guys scavenge while I was waiting on the platform for a train. And now I get to actually help them! Pretty fucking sweet, right? Sometimes I feel like what’s-her-face, that lady with the gorillas. Joan Goodall. But for subway rats.

I mean…it’s kinda weird to got to college on a train; not like, *by* train, but actually *on* the train. But they’ve got a nationally ranked program in exotic domesticated small animal surgical medicine. And if I’m gonna do this, I wanna do it right, you know? Rats have the tiniest fucking organs. You can hardly even see them, and here I’ve gotta learn to disentangle tumors from a mess of guts that look like a blob of angel hair spaghetti packed into like a baby mitten. Which is some hard shit in the first place! But I’m learning to do it on mother-fucking mass transit!

Like, some people can barely manage to get a cup of coffee into their face without spilling it on a half dozen unlucky fuckers sitting next to them, and here I’ve gotta do surgery with the world’s tiniest scalpel, on a skank-ass subway train driven by some coked-up wannabe NASCAR jackhole, and I gotta do it without fucking shit up any worse for this sad little guy on my operating table. Like, she might have kids, you know? I don’t want to orphan any little ratty babies.

So…man…

You gotta be fucking wizard to get through that program. I mean…I had no idea. I really didn’t. But I’m doing it. I’m…I’m really doing it.

But anyway, school’s not cheap, so I need a job. But a job that knows I can’t be its bitch, like, I got other shit to do. I need a flexible schedule, so I can be at school when I gotta be at school, and still know my paycheck’s coming, even if I’m five minutes late for throwing meatball sandwiches to a bunch of entitled douch-nozzles.

And if you’ve got like a complementary free lunch for employees thing going, that’d be awesome, but also, you’ll totally save money if you hire me. I’m strictly vegetarian. Like, I love animals. Animals are my friends. And I’m not gonna chow down on my friends, not even the really dumb ones. But meat’s the most expensive part of the food, so I’d get a free meal, but it doesn’t really cost you anything. So that’s like win-win.

Also, I’m totally kickass at dealing with people. And that’s really the most important part of the job, right? Like…that’s fucking retail. That’s front-end food service. I know that shit. My mom’s been a waitress since forever, and I always used to hang out at the diner after school, until she got off shift. Like, there was nowhere else for me to be, y’know? And I’d help out. I’d bus tables. I’d get the ketchup if somebody needed ketchup, or Tabasco if somebody needed Tabasco. And so I learned about dealing with customers, the good customers, the regular customers, even the creepass customers. Especially the creepass customers. And most of the time, I never even had to put a fist into anyone’s piehole, though I totally can if I have to.

So like, if I’m here, and one of those douche-nozzles is all “I wanted nine croutons, and you only gave me eight croutons,” I know when to be like, “sure, whatever, have another crouton,” and when to be all “dude, that’s an eight-crouton salad, and you got your eight croutons, so shut the fuck up and pay me.” Like, it’s all about line management. You gotta keep it moving. Off hours, no one’s there, you can afford to be a little nice. But you got a line of twenty people all trying to chug their food inside of a half-hour lunch break, no way am I going to take extra time to coddle some asshole who think’s he’s special.

Sure, he’ll be pissed, but better one guy’s pissed than the other nineteen, y’know? That’s basic strategic thinking. And I rock at strategic thinking.

Anyway, you should totally hire me. Right? I mean…I’m pretty fucking awesome.

ALEXANDER DANNER

Greater Boston is written and produced by Alexander Danner and Jeff Van Dreason. This episode featured:

• Johanna Bodnyk as Mallory (she/her)

Charlie on the MTA demo track recorded by Emily Peterson and Dirk Tiede. In our recent hiatus update, we ended with shoutouts to a few of the people and shows we love, and we’ve decided to keep doing that through the remaining mini-episodes. So here’s a little more love to go around. Now, more listening recommendations to enjoy through the Greater Boston hiatus! First congratulations to Ryan Estrada on the launch of the much anticipated Big Data! Ryan is an old friend from my time in webcomics a good decade ago, and It’s been Next, I want to mention The Bridge, which is only a few episodes in, but the setting alone—this vast, abandoned, transoceanic bridge–as a geography, that image immediately captured my interest, and the show thus far has lived up to that promise. Finally, we raise our glass to the Spirits Podcast, where Amanda and Julia enjoy their booze with a chaser of folklore and mythology. Entertaining, educational, and slightly inebriated, it’s highly recommended.