The Boss is Dead de Ron Pullins

The Boss is Dead: A Novel

Ron Pullins

The Boss is Dead is a novella, from the play of the same name, based on the author's experiences managing a fast food restaurant in the Midwest. To some extent it is the author's reflection on work and the nature of work in modern America. It's here, at last, exposed! The whole stinking, fetid, painful, unexpurgated story of life in the fast-food-biz lane; in the grind of the working-for-minimum-wage lane, in the working-for-the-boss-you-hate lane. Who hasn't had this dream? You think the picture on the cover is the boss? Wrong! It's the night grillman who thinks he is free at last, free at last. When Ron Pullins was first hired into publishing, the national sales manager of the publishing company asked him if he thought selling books was going to be any different from selling hamburgers which he was doing. Because, the manager said, if I thought it was, it wasn't. He was right, although he maybe didn't know it. He hadn't fried any hamburgers.

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Recenzii

"The Boss is Dead" is a kind-of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" for the "want-fries-with-that?" generation, but without the 2,000 years of Western philosophy with which to contend. The burger joint is a machine like any other and, to function properly -- to feed the people and corporate bean-counters -- has to be properly maintained. And, with all apologies to Pirsig, the larger point is that the burger you are working on is a burger called yourself. Not that our hero actually understands this. He is so caught up in Orwellian double-think and, perhaps, unacknowledged Oedipal frustrations, it is all he can do to keep up with the evening rush. He wants the Boss dead because he wants to replace him, and he will do whatever it takes -- even becoming him -- to make that happen. It is the story of burgers, of society and of us. It's a battle for life and for sanity. The characters will ring true to anyone who has worked in the fast food industry. And who hasn't? It is, for many of us, a rite of passage. Most of us walk away from it. Who needs that kind of ... well, special sauce? Some, however, try to get ahead and, in the process, sell their souls - without even knowing it. Oh, good evening, Mr. Mann. Would you like fries with that? Perhaps a clue as well? To be fair, Chris knows what's going on. He knows he is at a dead end. He acknowledges it whenever he runs into or speaks with Davidson, who got bounced from Interburger and holds a similar job at the burger joint up the road. Davidson "is me reflected in a cheap mirror a few years from how", he says. "Unless something changes, I will be him, doing what he does and dying." Will he get ahead at Interburger? No. He's already been branded. But you can dream, can't you?" -- J C Lockwood, Merrimac Valley Current