Drinks, cold. Are you ready? Here we go!
It’s up to you, it’s up to me…to inflict another Wendy’s training video on you!
Previously, On Pop Culture Retrorama…
The preparation and serving of hot drinks is a task that requires copious amounts of training, coupled with music video-style visuals and an earworm of a song to “really get you going.”
And this zoom amid the fires of Hell.
Wendy’s attempt to cater to its younger workforce in the 1980s was made all the more interesting by incorporating training tools with visuals and knock-off music. To train on hot drinks, a young Michael Jackson-esque employee extols about how said products “really get you going.” That’s great and all if you want coffee, decaf coffee, hot tea (with a lemon wedge!), or hot chocolate, but what if you want soda, lemonade, water, or cold tea?
That’s a whole other training video, my friends!
Soft Drinks, Lemonade, Water, Cold Tea…
It’s up to this chick to tell you all about how to prepare and serve those drinks!
She’s not bored, it’s just a really opportune screenshot that implies boredom.
There’s four sizes to remember (Biggie, Medium, Small, Kids Meal), protocols for how much ice to put in the cup, how to fill it (tip the cup for soda to reduce foam, hold cup upright for lemonade), and even how to serve water (small cup!), and Proper Lemon Placement for cold tea (inside the cup for carry out, on the edge of the cup for dining room). Cups are filled 1/4 from the top, ice is put in halfway for all sizes when serving soda or lemonade (but ice is filled all the way to the top for cold tea), when to place a lid (and how to place it!), and of course, service with a smile.
All of this while sounding like a Janet Jackson/Paula Abdul mashup.
Go white girl, go white girl!
It’s less than two minutes, but has all the awesomeness of those Diet Coke commercials Paula Abdul and Elton John did in the early 1990s.
It’s Up To You…To Watch This Video!
Because I already did!
Upload via Chuck Drake
Does Allison Like Wendy’s Cold Drinks?
Well, yes, I do!
I love their flavored lemonades – the Wendy’s near my house has Passion Fruit and Regular lemonades, I prefer Passion Fruit. I like getting it in a large, since I don’t drink much in the way of sugary drinks, and getting Passion Fruit Lemonade is such a treat. The ice is filled appropriately in the cup, and since I always get take out, I get a lid for my drink.
I recently had a Chocolate Frosty, which doesn’t seem to show up in any training videos. Those Frosties are darn good – a thick milkshake you eat with a spoon. A rare treat for me, they are a super sweet indulgence.
My husband and I watched these training videos together (Hot Drinks, Cold Drinks, and Grill Skills…all in one evening). We agree that Hot Drinks is definitely the best of the bunch, and after that, they get progressively worse – diminishing returns, if you will. We were still singing the Hot Drinks song the next day, and my husband was quoting the process of grilling Wendy’s hamburgers. As I mentioned in the last article, he is a former Carl’s Jr. (in California) and Jack in the Box (in Arizona) employee, so he has watched corporate training videos before. They’re everything you see on YouTube.
Go Ahead and Try, I Know You Can Do It!
I’m pretty sure when these videos were made, the good intention was to make this as informative (and again, on the level of younger employees of the time), but they don’t age particularly well. Be it production values or even the visuals or audio, these training videos just wind up becoming fodder for lovers of nostalgic cheese. The educational value is so diminished by this point. I’m one of those nostalgic hopefuls that want to believe someone learned something from them when they were originally used.
So, now you’ve mastered the service of drinks both hot and cold, but can you master the all-important skills of preparing a hamburger at Wendy’s?
That’s an article for another time…next time!
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