It’s Friday and the clock screams 6 pm. Customers are rushing in constantly, and the True Blue Crew is taking orders at the drive-thru and counter, scrambling to prepare food, and running orders to the dining room or the outside patio.  LZHS student employees know what it takes to keep Culver’s running like clockwork.

“[One] night there was this lady [in the line for] drive-thru, and she was talking really fast and I couldn’t process anything she was saying.  I kind of just sat there.  I literally said to her, ‘oh my god,’ but I didn’t mean to; sometimes it just gets overwhelming,” Jordan Davis, junior, said.  “[The good news is that] you know you’ll have other people there to help you out.”  

Over 20 LZHS sophomores through seniors work at the Lake Zurich Culver’s.

“It’s fun when you’re with fun people too because there’s usually like three people on drive-thru and there’s usually more to do.  I’ve formed really good friendships with them and we’re all really close, making the job more fun,” Davis said.

Davis got her job from the job fair, but Anna Galuppo, sophomore, was forced by her mom to get a job to pay for her trip to Hawaii with the high school’s choir.  Galuppo says she chose Culver’s because “they were the only ones who were hiring fifteen year-olds,” and was fifteen when she began trying to find a job.

Working above and along a young staff, Martha Hernandez, one shift leader/manager at Culver’s, is currently a college student and started out as just a cashier three years ago. Hernandez is now a manager “after putting in a lot of hours” she said and also enjoys working with the teenagers.

“They’re like my babies and they’re great.  They’re definitely a lot sweeter than the older kids or the kids who have had other jobs.  For most of them, because they are so young, this is their first job and they’re super sweet.  They kind of just listen to everything you say,” Hernandez said.  “I don’t really feel the age difference, except for some [of the kids] that are fifteen year olds.”

Hernandez says she “loves having them around,” however, the student employees sometimes make mistakes that Hernandez must deal with.

“Something goes wrong everyday and nothing is perfect, but we tend to mess up people’s orders a lot with numbers.  Sometimes when we get really busy, they will get a little overwhelmed and don’t check their numbers when they’re [handing out orders],” Hernandez said.  “We’ll end up giving like three people the wrong food.  The car behind them will get the car in front of theirs food occasionally.”

Galuppo admits there was a learning curve when first beginning to work at Culver’s and learning all of the various positions and routines.

“People messed up a lot and we had to give people free food, but that was mostly in the beginning when we all got jobs there.  Everyone was new and kept messing up,” Galuppo said.  “I like working with the high schoolers though, and we have a good bond now.  It’s also cool we can all talk about the same things because we’re together a lot.”

Because of the young environment, Davis and Galuppo also recommend working at Culver’s but agree that the job takes maturity.

“You’ve just got to have focus and you’ve just got to be able to want to work.  You can’t just walk in there and expect not to do anything,” Davis said. “You have to be part of the ‘True Blue Crew.’”