Malcolm Gorrill
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Oct 06/00) - Hard but fun -- that's how Dez Loreen describes working at Quickstop.

Loreen started there about four months ago and worked full-time until he entered Grade 12 at Samuel Hearne Secondary school this fall. He now works part-time.

"It's hard work. I run till, cook, do the dishes, a lot of cleaning involved," Loreen said.

"I like working till, you know; till is my thing," he said. "There's a lot of numbers you have to know to do till. It's pretty tiring. So after work I like to go home and just sleep."

Loreen described his routine for a typical Saturday.

"I come in, I turn on the ovens, make sure everything is ready for opening. Then basically when we open it's pretty slow until about 2 p.m. Then we have a nice constant rush," he said.

"Supper rush is the worst, the busiest time," he said. "Once we close, we just take out the garbage, wash the dishes, mop the floor."

Loreen revealed the secret to dealing with the long lineups.

"The best thing to do is to get a plan before the rush. You want to know where everybody is, you know. If everybody's jumping around, it's going to get pretty stressed out there. We get irritated very easily.

"So some days it's really okay, other days it's just like, 'don't talk to me,' you know. Yeah, it's a fun job," Loreen said.

"You have to learn fast because there's not much time, even if they start you off on, like, a Saturday. Yeah, I had to learn the numbers pretty quick, and where everything was and how to cook stuff," he said.

"But people are nice," Loreen said, revealing another benefit of his job.

"You get to know other people's names, what they like, what they dislike. So some people can walk in and you're like, 'okay, you want a small coffee and a small fries,'" he said. "You can get to meet a lot of people, a lot of different people."

Loreen said the best thing about his job is his co-workers.

"Everybody's on friendly terms here," he said.

"Next year, after graduation, I plan on being supervisor here, working full-time for at least a year, then I'm off to college."