As the title suggests, record your labor and daily life, and update it consistently every day.
21 Likes
期待
Expected:
December 22, 2025【KFC First Day】
Morning
Actually, today isn’t really the first day. Last Monday, the 15th, was my first day working at KFC. But because that was so long ago, I’ll count from today. The first two days after starting at KFC, I will go to a store and participate in a two-day training together with other staff. After those two days, I will officially start working at my own store. Today is my second day of training, and also the last day of training. Tomorrow, I will go to the store to work. The training is roughly divided into morning and afternoon sessions. In the morning, the main focus is classroom theory lessons, followed by about an hour of practical training. In the afternoon, I will spend several hours working at the station below, doing “practical” work. But in reality, this also depends on the specific situation. For example, if the afternoon is really slow and there isn’t much work, then they might go back upstairs to review some theory, or take a “break,” or do some practice questions or tests. Yes, that’s right, even though I’m no longer in school, KFC still has those rote questions for you to learn, which almost have no practical use. Everyone’s labor skills are actually learned through practice here.
I arrived at the store around 8:50. The reason I came early isn’t because I wanted to cheat and start work early, but because the training is very relaxed. Even the trainers (KFC’s term for instructors, similar to military training instructors, with a somewhat fascist militaristic tone) tend to arrive late. After arriving, I also had breakfast, and only very late did they start the actual lessons. So after arriving early, I could lie on the training room table and take a nap, then sleep a bit more until the instructor arrived and the class officially started.
Sure enough, the instructor came, ate breakfast, and I took the opportunity to nap again until around 9:10 or 9:20. Although I only slept less than five hours yesterday, excluding the time I was lying in bed unable to sleep, I managed to catch up a bit by taking little naps during breaks. Of course, the main goal was to adjust my daily routine. Fragmented sleep is just a temporary fix and doesn’t address the root cause.
When it was around 9:10 or 9:20, the instructor began the lesson. First, let me introduce my position. I was assigned to the kitchen station, specifically divided into the grilling area and the coating area. The grilling area is simply using an oven to cook, and the coating area is for coating some of KFC’s meats with flour before frying them in oil. On the first day (the 15th), I learned the theory of the grilling area. Today, I am learning the theory of the coating area.
Although I had some extra sleep beforehand, I still couldn’t completely shake off the fatigue caused by lack of sleep. Plus, these rote theories are very boring, so I found it hard to concentrate and gradually fell asleep during the class. I was half-asleep, half-awake, listening until around 10 or 11 o’clock.
After the lecture, it was time for practical training. Here, I need to explain the situation in the training room. The training room is equipped with various kitchen appliances, including a fryer for chicken, a flour coating station, and models of chicken pieces, fries, and other foods. So, I was able to practice coating in the training room as well. In the morning, I practically coated for nearly an hour. Around 11:30 or so, close to noon, the instructor, wanting to slack off a bit, ended the practical early and I went to the meal break at noon.
Compared to the boring classes, what’s more noteworthy is the trainer guiding me. Today, I was trained by a different instructor. The first instructor watched from the side as the other instructor trained me. Both are women, both college graduates, still somewhat influenced by the parasitic university student habits, with behaviors that carry a university parasite vibe. For example, they are somewhat perfunctory during training, sometimes slacking off, not strictly punctual, and the first instructor even played rhythm games on her iPad during class. But this is secondary. Their main roles are as trainers and shift managers, and they show impatience towards me, clearly treating me as a troublemaker, mainly thinking about how to complete company tasks and earn high salaries. They also talk about eating, drinking, and entertainment topics, showing that their minds are full of these decadent things. This is also a lesson in real-world class struggle for me: the petty bourgeois, if they don’t engage in ideological struggle, will polarize and become corrupt. They might not have been so bad in the past, but during their four years parasitic university life, they lived in extreme decadence, filled with spiritual opium and indulgence, and after graduation, they continue to maintain this lifestyle by doing less work, earning more money, and exploiting others as worker aristocrats. Capitalist university students are extremely decadent, detached from society and the people, especially in China, where students are disconnected from the social struggles around them. University life is basically a means for the petty bourgeois to buy a four-year bourgeois experience card, allowing them to indulge in bourgeois luxury and decadence in their parasitic life. After four years, if they want to “renew,” they must submit to the capitalist system, become opportunistic worker aristocrats exploiting others, and continue this lifestyle through exploitation. In short, university students don’t work, but are supported by the working people. They are already exploiting others, and after graduation, becoming worker aristocrats is just a shift from indirect to direct exploitation. Therefore, in university life, people’s minds tend to become corrupt, accepting parasitic enjoyment, harming others, and indulging as a matter of course. They lose their feelings for the people and ultimately become bourgeois lackeys, betraying their own class! Lenin’s words are not wrong: “The young generation of workers and peasants in such schools are more being enslaved by the bourgeoisie than being educated.” Seeing these two women, it’s like witnessing how many Chinese university students are ultimately enslaved by the bourgeoisie and become accomplices in exploiting and oppressing workers. This deeply resonated with me and taught me a profound lesson in class struggle.
17 Likes
This part is very well said.
期待
Generally, unless it is a very busy time with a lot of passenger flow, you shouldn’t be too busy. Luanma still needs to take care of her health. Looking forward to it.
1 Like
Afternoon
The afternoon mainly consisted of practicing coating in the kitchen. As I said before, the process of working isn’t really interesting, and I didn’t get the hang of it quickly at first. But that idiot instructor (let’s temporarily call her A) was standing nearby looking very anxious. She’s so anxious because she’s afraid that if I don’t learn well and make mistakes at the store, she will be held responsible. I had heard before from the instructor (not A, but the one who guided me on the first day, let’s call her M) that during a management meeting she complained about her poor teaching quality, how the new employees she trained kept making mistakes, and she kept criticizing the newcomers as all being useless. She probably has the same mentality. It’s clear these people just put on a bureaucratic attitude, pointing fingers at others, only caring about their own interests and completely ignoring the feelings of the workers at the bottom. Such people dare not fight against the upper bourgeoisie, but they can strengthen their oppression of subordinates to protect their own interests—that’s the true face of the bourgeois lackeys.
Later, it became quite boring. There were several times when there was nothing much to do, and A also wanted to slack off, so she took me upstairs to “rest” and slack off together, and she also took me to do practice tests and pointed out the mistakes in the tests. Although I didn’t do much work, I had some thoughts. During this process, I thought about my previous part-time jobs at KFC on the 15th and even earlier at McDonald’s. I felt that labor has a significant impact on people. Today, I observed other workers at KFC and noticed that, like McDonald’s, many middle-aged women are working there. The middle-aged women I’ve seen, although they are already middle-aged, seem very youthful in their thinking, able to get along well with younger coworkers, and are respected by others. They are very different from those wealthy middle-aged women who are full of gluttony and idleness, living parasitically every day. These women look gloomy, and their speech is full of vulgar and violent remarks. Although they dress very elegantly, it cannot hide the decay of their minds.
Laboring women are mentally younger than their physical age, while women of the exploiting class are mentally much older than their physical age. I am actually the same. Previously, I lived parasitically, not working, hiding in a small room, pulling curtains, and indulging in wild pleasures. Although I was still young, my mental state was very decadent, like I was about to die. But now, after participating in labor, I feel energized in everything I do. This is not just a matter of mental state but reflects the different worldviews of two classes. The bourgeoisie is a dying class; because they are about to perish, they feel hopeless about their personal future. Although they are still scheming and fighting with others, their worldview is rotten, so their life and thoughts are very narrow. They are detached from the people, living only for endless luxury and scheming, yet because capitalism is approaching its demise and they see no way out, they indulge in pleasures while their brains degenerate, neglect their duties, and become spiritually decadent. Sometimes, when they see that there is no future for themselves or their class, they become pessimistic and despairing. In contrast, the proletariat, due to broad participation in labor and frequent interactions with other workers, have a wider perspective and more active thinking. They think about many things in their work and social interactions, so their thoughts are less negative. Although they suffer exploitation and oppression and live hard lives, they believe that their class still has a way forward.
Specifically, those housewives, who used to be domestic slaves confined to the home, living around the stove, find that this endless life is truly torturous. Now, although they still have to do housework and are oppressed by capitalists at work, they can step out of the small family unit, communicate more with other workers during work, and learn various social experiences in the school of class struggle. This is much better than being confined in a small family and indeed gives people hope. Society is a friend to women; the family is an enemy to women—that’s not wrong at all.
Engels said, “On the surface, the respected, detached noblewomen of the civilized era, who do not engage in any real labor, are of an incomparably lower social status than the women who worked hard in barbaric times; the latter are regarded as true noblewomen (lady, frowa, Frau = mistress) in their nation, and in terms of their social nature, they are indeed so.” Why are working women more respected than bourgeois noblewomen, at least among workers? Because they are comrades in production, collaborating and communicating with other workers. Their contributions to society are recognized by all, and their help to fellow workers is remembered by them, earning genuine respect from each other. The bourgeois noblewomen, on the other hand, rely solely on their husbands’ dependence to enjoy parasitic privileges without labor. Without their husbands, they are nothing. Therefore, people only fear their husbands’ power and thus fear the noblewomen, but they do not truly respect them. There is a saying, “The fox assuming the tiger’s might,” and these bourgeois noblewomen are just like the fox in that story—without real social standing. Only through labor can women truly become respected members of society, and only through struggle can women truly become a beloved social class.
Later, the exam results came out: full score is 100 points, passing is 80, but I only scored 70. Although I failed, A still wrote that I passed the training on the note she filled out, so the exam wasn’t really that important. Maybe KFC really needs part-time workers and doesn’t rely heavily on exam scores to filter people. The specifics are not very clear. But in any case, I passed the training today. The last half hour was spent answering questions under A’s supervision, and after today, I am officially going to the store.
10 Likes
I remember that KFC did not have this training during my third year of high school summer vacation, at least not part-time, there was only an online video watching so-called training, which in fact was useless after watching it, mostly learned after being guided by senior employees after starting work. Now it seems that KFC wants to further exploit workers, even refusing to pay wages for training. KFC now belongs to the Yum! Brands group, a major monopoly capital in China, and giving the trainers the title of instructors reflects the fascist dictatorship of the Chinese revisionism and the influence of KFC. Most of the brands controlled by Yum! Brands are Chinese cuisine, as well as Western restaurants like KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, but these are also the most oppressive to workers among Western restaurants. For example, KFC is a good example, with work intensity comparable to or even greater than McDonald’s, but wages are lower than McDonald’s. It can be said that the bourgeoisie of Chinese revisionism’s oppression of workers is the most brutal among imperialist countries.
3 Likes
December 23, 2025 [KFC Second Day]
Today I went to the store to officially start work. I am on the evening shift, from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m., so I got up relatively early in the morning and had plenty of time to get to the store. But after arriving, I found out I wasn’t scheduled for a shift. So I asked the duty manager what was going on, and it took forty minutes for him to clarify with another manager who scheduled my shift. As a result, I clocked in forty minutes late, and then I could only apply for a make-up punch to recover the lost time.
After arriving, I was assigned to the back kitchen to work with a middle-aged woman. She seems to be a full-time employee at KFC, and she clocks out using facial recognition when she finishes her shift, which is different from my part-time job where I punch in and out. Now KFC has become disgusting; they only hire part-time workers, but the part-time hours are the same as full-time, and when there’s no work, they can directly reduce the shifts for part-timers or even not schedule them at all, allowing flexible employment. Moreover, part-timers don’t have many rights under labor laws, which is very disgusting. Of course, my working hours definitely exceed forty hours a week, which under Chinese labor law can be considered full-time, giving me some advantage if I want to fight with KFC later.
After starting work, I found it was actually quite busy, with little time to slack off. I had to constantly bread and fry various items or use the oven to bake. Since I had learned for two days before, I can make everything except the late-night snacks (lamb, skewers, etc.). Although I was quite inexperienced before, I at least learned the basic operations. With two people, I could work alone for a while, then the other could rest, even if I couldn’t look at my phone, it somewhat eased the labor intensity.
My coworker’s situation is also interesting. Although she is middle-aged, her mindset seems quite young, and she talks to me about training and what to eat. But I feel her consumption view might be a bit more right-leaning than mine; she still thinks the employee meal at 17.5 yuan is cheap, and she told me that the 29.9 yuan or more expensive set meals are cheap. I don’t know her specific situation. Before I arrived, she seemed to be the only one responsible for the entire kitchen.
Besides the meal break from 5:00 to 5:30, I was working the rest of the time. After 8:00, they started closing. During closing, I was surprised to find that KFC’s oven can clean itself; just put in some washing machine effervescent tablets, and it cleans automatically, no need for us to crawl inside and scrub, which is very high-tech. There’s also a dishwasher, which can improve efficiency, but since I used it often when I worked at McDonald’s before, I wasn’t surprised. Overall, compared to the milk tea shops I’ve been to, the organizational structure here is very advanced, indicating that foreign monopolistic capital like KFC is larger and more socially integrated than those milk tea shops. The capital investment in running a KFC is higher than a milk tea shop, but the profit is much greater. Milk tea brands change frequently, but brands like KFC and McDonald’s have been in China for many years.
But I want to clarify that I am not praising foreign capital or monopolistic giants. The high organizational structure of KFC does not reduce workers’ labor intensity; it actually increases it. Lenin said, “In capitalist society, technological and scientific progress means the art of extracting blood and sweat.” KFC saves time on cleaning ovens, but the cost is that the saved time is used to clean other things, like wiping tables, packing breading boxes, washing material containers with water hoses, tidying cardboard boxes, throwing out trash, etc. If I need to clean the oven, then additional staff would be needed at night, but now just me and another person can finish everything. As a result, the labor intensity has actually increased.
However, probably due to workers’ struggles, they hired someone specifically to clean large equipment, like the boxes used to hold materials in various machines. Cleaning these items is very labor-intensive, and we don’t have to do it, but he comes to do it. He probably arrived after 8 p.m., without even a uniform, just for cleaning. It seems he’s here solely for high-intensity cleaning work, and I don’t know his wages, but he looks very tired. Maybe I can ask him next time, but I didn’t have time tonight. Although hiring an extra person objectively reduces labor intensity, it doesn’t fundamentally change the exploitation system. So another full-time employee also said that if she finishes work at 9 p.m., she still can’t leave if she hasn’t finished her tasks. The most disgusting thing about these restaurants is that the closing time must be after the store officially closes, but because business is often busy, it’s impossible to close early, and some even impose fines on employees who close early.
About twenty minutes before the scheduled closing time, I and another employee finished early and went to the front hall to chat with the duty manager. He still hasn’t shown his predatory fangs and seems to be a bit of a slack-off, able to chat with us. He asked about my learning situation, and I told him that besides the troublesome oil change I haven’t finished learning, I learned all the other tasks needed for closing tonight, which I was quite “satisfied” with. He also told me that aside from Thursday’s “Crazy Thursday,” the store isn’t that busy (though I think that’s from his perspective; for lower-level workers, there’s no real free time). Thursday is the most stupid day (literally), with constant breading. Honestly, KFC’s “Crazy Thursday” is extremely absurd, entirely designed to intensify exploitation of workers. The discounts offered are at the expense of increasing the business labor intensity, with no increase in wages. The duty manager even thinks it’s stupid. This also spreads a very bad materialistic ideology; the so-called “V I 50” (referring to the 50-yuan set meal on Crazy Thursday) is derived from this, with petty bourgeoisie using it to create vulgar jokes. It’s a joke, but it also reflects the money-worshiping ideology that money can do everything. However, in the impending demise of capitalism, no matter how much advertising and propaganda big corporations like KFC do, it’s hard to turn their decline around. With the intensification of the fundamental contradictions of capitalism, even small bourgeoisie will go bankrupt in large numbers and increasingly cannot afford these things.
7 Likes
Kentucky Fried Chicken’s equipment still uses foreign standards, the oven is National, and the fryer temperature is in Fahrenheit.
1 Like
Some employees I’ve interacted with at KFC, for some reason, also seem to have a more right-leaning consumption attitude. Someone previously recommended a 30-yuan noodle shop to me. Some people even recharged their KFC God Card to order breakfast for themselves. The cheapest employee meal is only a 10-yuan burger, 1-yuan cola, and I remember that it couldn’t be taken out to eat.
1 Like
Because these petty bourgeois materialistic ideas are relatively serious and their thoughts are close to the exploiting class, their lives are only focused on narrow personal interests, they think very little, and their spirits are very empty. Therefore, spending money on eating, drinking, and entertainment is also seen as indifferent, after all, this is their entire life.
1 Like
I was quite surprised at the time; some of them were middle-aged women who had been working for a long time but still behaved like that. Some even actively interacted with student workers about the second dimension (anime/manga).
1 Like
Whether young, middle-aged, or elderly, class consciousness is the most fundamental thing. The decayed life of the urban petty bourgeoisie, accustomed to a monotonous life, spiritual emptiness, and lack of ambition, will inevitably turn into this kind of moonlight clan.
7 Likes
That’s indeed the case. I didn’t quite understand it before when I heard them say it like that, but after listening to Fenghuo’s explanation, I suddenly realized.
1 Like
Indeed, working for a long time does not necessarily mean having proletarian thoughts.
I am also the same. Now, when working on the assembly line, the coworker on the right is a middle-aged woman, and the coworker on the left is a very young man. During work, they often joke around while screwing in screws and plugging in wires, such as insulting each other playfully, swearing, or giving each other nicknames (sometimes there’s a sense of awkwardness where there’s nothing to say, but they still force themselves to keep talking). Usually, in my eyes, this kind of social interaction is something only young, petty bourgeois students or people obsessed with the second dimension would have, but I didn’t expect that even middle-aged women working in factories would do this too.
1 Like
It’s been several days since the last update, so I should explain to everyone. Recently, my mental state has been quite poor, so I haven’t continued updating. However, tonight after returning to work, I plan to complete all the previous labor diaries. Because my thoughts have turned bad, I have fewer reflections at work, and I haven’t had much communication with my coworkers, but that’s not a reason not to write. I plan to write a compilation tonight.
8 Likes
My feeling is that working in KFC’s kitchen is not like other simple labor tasks at times, such as warehouse packing where you face the goods and repeat the same actions of wrapping and finishing to clear your mind.
In the kitchen position, simply put, you are responsible for the battering station, the fryer (double槽炸锅 and 四方平炸锅), and the baking area (oven and baking台,生台,熟台). The oven and fryer will beep to signal when the food is ready (the oven also beeps after preheating), and at this moment, you must immediately and quickly take out the food; otherwise, if the time is exceeded, the product will burn (actually, it won’t after a short while, but for “quality” reasons, employees are often required to be strict) or not meet the “best quality.”
Later, the kitchen position involves going to the freezer to retrieve various ingredients for processing, and in front, you need to listen to the packaging and central distribution (burger wrapping) staff shouting to inform what is missing (how much batter) and follow the orders from managers and team leaders regarding production.
All of this combined makes it necessary, especially during peak hours or when producing two or more products simultaneously, to consider many factors. Hands are constantly busy, but the mind cannot stop at all. You need to have a three-point vision, listen with all your senses, adapt spontaneously, and respond at any moment.
What’s even more annoying is KFC’s strict separation of raw and cooked items, a rule that seems almost like a ridiculous legend—any contact with surfaces or items is immediately defined as “raw,” requiring gloves and handwashing. During operation on the raw station or battering, hearing the beep indicating food is ready means, if no one is helping, you must quickly change gloves, wash hands, and take out the food, or precisely predict the timing to free up space.
Above all, countless monitors watch everything, and colleagues “warn” newcomers not to do certain things, or if a small action causes alarm (for example, if something drops to the ground and is instinctively picked up, it’s considered “contamination”), they say it’s under surveillance.
In such work, both mental and physical effort are enormous. From this, one can also notice “things that ordinary people are unaware of” that are specialized in labor. During this period, I found that even just observing a colleague make a simple one-second action, or hearing the team leader, manager, or central distribution person mention one or two product words from afar, combined with what I see, I can immediately judge what they want to do and what action I should take next, and I have no choice but to follow.
The production process at KFC vividly reflects the planning of capitalist enterprises and the disorganization of the entire capitalist society. The so-called “not recognizing objective laws” is “man proposes, but heaven disposes.”
Everywhere in KFC, there are production plans. The operation screens even incorporate AI systems that provide reference production plans based on in-store data (though they often are useless). Managers and team leaders are responsible for setting production quantities, considering how many people are present, which products sell well, how quickly they are consumed, estimating hourly and peak period sales, and assigning production targets to kitchen staff—how many chicken legs, how many wings to batter. During defrosting in the afternoon, they also need to make estimates. When ordering and stocking, estimates are also necessary. Because capital turnover is extremely fast, these actions are very frequent.
However, how many customers will come, how many fried chicken and burgers can be sold—ultimately, “man proposes, but heaven disposes,” and plans often don’t match reality. Tiny moments include products passing their expiration date, edible but not “at optimal quality,” discarded into boxes or trash.
Next, the kitchen struggles to keep up; ovens and fryers are fully occupied, unable to produce, and the front manager can only temporarily halt some products. Larger issues include stockouts and depletion of certain items. My store collaborates with several other nearby KFCs; when stock runs out, managers and store owners call to ask if they can borrow some products. They exchange missing items to support each other.
The AI system on the operation screen also calculates estimated sales daily. Often, actual sales surpass this estimate “joyfully” and turn green on the display, but sometimes, sales are sluggish, lagging by thousands of yuan. It becomes increasingly difficult to sell products and realize their value.
Therefore, KFC’s “Crazy Thursday” promotions—special sales days—make almost every Thursday a hell for employees, but sales are “crazy” (as described on the operation screen when sales far exceed estimates), and they also run various game collaborations, like Genshin Impact, and Love and Deep Space. During these times, sales surge, exhausting everyone.
Even so, my personal feeling is that, in this short period, each Thursday, despite the high intensity, becomes less intense than the previous one, with lower sales than before. Colleagues have also frequently mentioned the declining sales trend. It’s clear that the downturn is becoming more severe.
9 Likes