Yesterday, six assholes from Florida bought out our owner's share of Hungry Howie's. In the dead of night they came, moving into a house in town and devising their new empire. The news of change came on the same day as the change itself. Rob abdicated his spot on the echelon, and "Victor" took over. Victor brought with him a 600-pound Mexican, four other dudes to be managers, and a guy from corporate who Pat would later describe as "lookin' like a fuckin' gallon-a-milk".

The new regime planned on bringing in an all new crew after the existing crew showed them the ropes for a couple of weeks, seeing as how these people were extremely incompetent. So, in lieu of helping these assholes only to be fired two weeks later, Sanders quit. Since my loyalty is to Sanders and not to Hungry Howie's or Rob, I quit too. The great thing, however, is that not only did I quit, everybody quit. In one of the most amazing shows of solidarity among any group of people, we had a solid walk-out. We left those poor suckers from Florida to the dogs. (For one night anyway)

The shitty thing is that, in the long run, they will win. Corporate America always wins. They'll get their shit together at that store, hire an all new crew, and run things the way they see fit. The Floridian Assholes will prosper too, they'll make money. People will work there, and never know anything of the people that toiled there before them. So, allow me to be
the speaker for the dead.

May 2, 2007

The dream is over, and it was a dream. For almost two years I dreamed that I worked in a place with a staff of great people, and more importantly, friends. That's something most people never get to experience; a job performed among friends, and I'll always be thankful for that.

Yesterday was one of the saddest days of my life, and I mean that. As soon as I heard that Sanders was going to quit, there was no hesitation, I knew I had to quit as well. Rollie, Blicker, and I went to Brick Oven Pizza Co. and actually filled out applications for new jobs, it felt wrong and it was at that moment I felt like crying. I realized that I was more sad about losing my shitty job at a pizza place then I was about burying my grandmother two weeks ago. I shed no tears for my grandmother, I shed many for Hungry Howie's. I said "shitty" because, on paper, Hungry Howie's was a shitty foodservice job. The environment, however, was magic. It was a great place to work, and for almost two years I happily worked there because I knew that the alternative (Chick-Fil-A and The Auburn Softball Complex) was terrible, worse than terrible, soul-crushing. People at my other jobs didn't treat me as a person, they treated me as if I were some anonymous person passing them on the street, and the managers at these other jobs, of course, wanted me to be an obsequious little robot, if you'll pardon the cliché.

Howie's was a place where people who had been kicked around by their other jobs could come and work and be happy, and not feel bad about being happy. It was a place where the customer got what they had coming to them. If the customer was shitty to us, we'd be shitty in kind. That doesn't seem like the American way, what with the "the customer is always right" nonsense. At Howie's it was the opposite, the customer is always wrong until proved innocent. This might be the reason that we're all unemployed now, but I don't give a shit it was the right way to operate. The method, though revolutionary, was effective and people treated us the way they wanted to, and we treated people the way we wanted to and I say that the biggest winner in that situation is not Howie's and not the customer, but America goddammit. That's real democracy, real egalitarianism. There's no masks, no big bullshit smile for the customer, just reality. Kevin Blicker said it best: "Howie's wasn't so much a place as it was an idea." I couldn't agree more.

And that we all went down together, to the bitter fuckin' end, that's a beautiful thing. So, now our big happy family must go our separate ways, and even now as I write this I feel a sense of loss that is profound. I had planned on working at that place until I graduated college, I was resigned to it and I was happy. Now, the dream is dead, and a dozen people that I love won't be together anymore. I feel like such a fool to have taken that place for granted, and now it's all gone. But, we will all go on, each-and-every one of us, because, like the man said : "It's such a burden to carry 'round the vestiges of dead dreams and I don’t want to make a wake out of my life, so I'll just have to let you go."

-Rivers Langley
Delivery Driver

Speaking of "the bitter fuckin' end", after our respective fates were sealed, we gathered at my place, and eventually Insomnia, to spend one last evening with each other and cry in our beers. I took some pictures of our pity party:


Even Alex stopped by for this one.























*Shameless self-promotion








Long Live Howie's!