MrSchroeder
Lombard, IL
Male, 33
I *was* an assistant manager for a McDonald's Franchisee in Tucson, AZ from 2007 to 2008, and was hired with the explicit intention of being management and not a standard crew member. I worked hard in learning the procedures and processes of the corporation, with a goal of a much longer career than I actually had. My every day life evolved while I was there, starting from the least desirable position to overall operations. I wrote a blog detailing my experiences as well.
Please see my answer to the other question regarding minimum wage and who is to blame for it.
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Great question. Most of the disrespect from customers was less direct than it was general attitude. Many people who come through a fast food restaurant - especially through a McDonald's - tend to think of the employees as dumb, dregs of society, not worthy of respect. Not most, just many. I can understand that perception because - let's face it - many people working there actually are not the best, shining examples of what humanity has to offer. However, this is true in every position, in every company, in every industry in the history of humanity. The biggest and most common form of disrespect that people heaped upon myself or my crew was basic: neglecting to say "please" and "thank you". Or, equally disrespectful, saying, "Give me a ..." instead of "May I have" or "I would like", when placing an order. Some more common incidences were when someone waited, they would generally get really snippy. This tended to be women (it just was). Some commentary would include looking around to get crowd-affirmation and saying things like "You people are slow" or "Will you hurry the (expletive) up?" or "What's taking you so long?!". These were also almost always the person who came in and ordered $35 worth of Dollar Menu items, each and every one made with some special request. Well, of course you're going to wait a while - you just ordered 18 double-cheeseburgers made 7 different ways. Chill lady. Often teenagers and "hard thuggin'" young adults would come through the drive thru and think they were hilarious by being disrespectful to the order taker. This, simply because of demographics of the crew in the stores I worked in, was generally a female employee who had a cheerful - and therefore young-sounding - voice. We as a management team ensured that every manager wore a headset and at least half-listened to the drive thru ordering process. More than once I cut in on some idiot being disrespectful to an employee and told them they weren't going to be served, please leave. Generally the kind of disrespect in these situations would be the order-taker misheard an item or the quantity of an item they wanted. The response in general would be something like, "No, you stupid (expletive) I said 4 double cheeseburgers, not 3." When they hear my remarkable baritone (I've been told many times I sound like a radio announcer and I've literally stopped traffic at a busy intersection in Chicago during winter when everyone had their windows rolled up by yelling "HEY!") on the microphone with, "I'm sorry Sir, but harassment of that nature is not tolerated at our business. I'm going to have to ask you to leave now and find another restaurant to do business with", they would usually apologize profusely and I would usually say, "OK, well if the order-taker accepts your apology and wants to do business with you, that's up to her. If not, you'll have to leave." Then, the order-taker had the chance to say, "OK, now let me repeat your order so far" or "No, that was disrespectful, please leave". This all occurs within the course of 20-30 seconds and is very business like. At that point, if they do not leave, I will pointedly explain, "I will call the police, and you will end up arrested for trespassing on private property if you don't leave now". That always did the trick and it really only happened maybe 10 times in the 2 years I worked for McDonald's. Except for once... This was several years ago, and I may have posted an iteration of this incident on my blog (tho a brief perusal cannot seem to find it). So this once, the customer got very angry that I refused to do business with him when he was being incredibly disrespectful to a 17 year old girl working the order-taker position. I'm not going to repeat it, but think of the skeezy stuff some random scumbag might spit out to a girl with a really pretty, young sounding voice when anonymity is virtually guaranteed. So I hop on, do my thing, but this time I do not offer him the chance to apologize, I simply tell him I'm not serving him. He whips out of the drive thru lane, and I go about my busy evening shift. There were probably 30 people in the restaurant either enjoying their purchases, waiting on their orders, or waiting to place an order. This tiny little, angry fellow with a shaved head - couldn't be more than 19 or so - comes storming into the doors with hellfire in his dark eyes and shouts, "Where's the (expletive) that just told me off in the drive thru?" and started walking behind our counter area. So let me explain. I'm 6'1", at the time about 250, and I wore my hair very high-and-tight, buzzcut style. I also didn't have glasses (like I do in my profile picture). I put my angry face on, stepped in front of him so he couldn't get behind our counter and lowered my voice a register while making it about 10 decibles louder. "I did. Are you the guy I just told I was going to call the police on?" He looked up at me (seriously, he couldn't have been but 5'5" and wearing some ridiculous "gangsta" outfit with pants buckled at the knees and a shirt big enough for me) and he just cocks his arm back like he's going to hit me. I heard a collective gasp from the crowd as he swung at me, stepped back out of the way of his swing, and palm-heel struck him in the chest with everything I had. The air went "Whuff!" out his chest, and he was on the ground before I finished a following through with the step. The customers all cheered and started laughing, he got up and stumbled out the restaurant. I followed him - not to fight him but to get his plate. I did end up reporting the whole situation to the police and *not a single person left*. Everyone - every single person there - wanted to tell the police what happened. He was arrested - wanted on several warrants it turned out - and was given a "letter of trespass" that basically said if he ever stepped on property of my franchisee again, he'd be arrested immediately. I was told I did an excellent and totally legal good deed. The owner/operator warned me that I shouldn't do that again, unless it was exactly a same situation where someone tried to hit me first and all I did was stop them. He was, I'm sure, worried what would have happened if I hit that guy a second time, or with a fist instead of my palm. Sorry for the digression, but that was a fun story to tell about an extremely disrespectful customer. More to the point, the same would happen if someone was very disrespectful at our front counter. Usually, I would explain that we didn't accept rudeness or tolerate harassment, and if the customer couldn't choose to be a decent, civil human being then I had the choice to refuse them service. "So, would you like a refund or will you be kind and then leave with your order?" They always looked appropriately ashamed (at least until the food was in their hand, at which point many would mutter, "I'm going to call corporate on you"). No one ever did.
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I think there are quite a few factors involved. First and foremost, I have nothing but disgust for any CEO who makes 100x+ what the average employee makes. I think it's a travesty of society and one of the prime woes of rampant capitalism. It's something that can easily be resolved, in a manner reminiscent of what the French did when their society faced similar woes. That being said, the employee does have the opportunity to take his skills elsewhere. While our economy is terrible and suffering, and any job is better than no job, there is also the simple fact that there actually are quite a few opportunities out there better than minimum wage that essentially anyone with the determination to try hard for can find. They may not be as relatively easy and comfortable as the job you've done for 20 years, but they exist and everyone can make a change. As for who is to blame for the very low wages of McDonald's employees and other corporate giants like Walmart, I think it's really a conglomerate responsibility between society as a whole, legislators, corporations, the franchisees, and the employees themselves. Society and legislature should demand and institute a minimum wage that is actually livable. $7.25 an hour isn't enough to live on, period. This is especially concerning where the executives make as much an hour as 1,000 or even 10,000 of their employees make in that same hour. This is simply ridiculous. Society (that's you and me) are also at fault here because we continually give our business, and therefore our support, to companies that are willing to do this. Also, we have an expectation for very cheap goods and services, and have as a group, agreed to accept the bald-faced lie that unless they pay the front-line employees a less-than-poverty wage, they cannot give us those goods and services for so cheap. There could be an easy shift in this. While it's unlikely that CEOs and other executives would willingly give up their massive payscales, if we as a society - taking concerned efforts and making it clear why we refuse to do business with those companies, even for a day - took a stand and demanded that they pay better wages to front-line employees while reducing compensation of the highest paid employees, then I believe that the change could be made. Franchisees do have the least amount of profit out of a franchise, and while I did answer the question about how much a franchisee might make out of a store as honestly as I could, there definitely are quite a few franchisees who, like all other small business owners, are barely making ends meet or are living on paychecks not much larger than their management staff. However, they too have a strong hand in what they pay employees and the benefits they offer - mostly they're just not willing to do so, because as I answered before, rampant capitalism. Not to mention the very slim profit margins they face. Most sales in most stores are based off the value or dollar menu. That 99 cent McDouble really does cost about $1.25 to make, but they're able to move them in quantity, and that 99 cent McDouble customer might buy a soda, which sells for $1 but costs only about 35 cents. If someone comes in for 10 McDoubles, their $10 transaction cost that franchisee $2.50, at least. I would like to think that the corporation as a whole and franchisees in general would be willing to pay more to have more motivated and capable staff members, the simple fact is I do not think they will do so until social and legislative obligations force them to. When businesses exist with the explicit intention to make as much profit as is as possible, they will do everything in their power to do so. The first and easiest method to do this is to simply pay as little as possible and invest as little as possible in benefits.
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Not really. Who am I to judge how an adult derives pleasure? However, as part of a teaming with McDonald's and the State of Arizona in 2008, there was an initiative to push more healthful choices - especially for children. The Owner/Operator embraced it entirely, our restaurants and our local government were all over it. So for kids, we sure did push healthful alternatives. I wrote a blog post about it when it was happening: http://mcdonalds-career.blogspot.com/2008/03/arizona-smart-choice.html Quite frankly, when I started working at McDonald's I was almost 350 lbs, with a 22" shirt neck. Within my first 9 months, on a serious diet of McDoubles, fruit and yogurt parfait, and the *real* exercise of running around for 8-10 hours a day, I had lost over 100 lbs and was down to a 16" shirt neck - being a large guy who used to lift weights competitively this was actually really slender for me. Having been a desk jockey for almost all the time since then, I'm back to 350lbs.
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Sommelier
What's your favorite bottle of wine for under $20?
Private Detective
What do you think is the most corrupt industry, city, and State in the country?
Lifeguard
Did you ever have to perform CPR or mouth-to-mouth on a swimmer?
I think that overall, because my McDonald's career was not early in my life (although I did work at McDonald's as a teen for 2 years), it was looked at a bit differently by future employers. The simple fact is, I went from the title of "Vice President of Sales" at a ~$5million/year private company to the title of "Assistant Manager" at a ~$200B/year massive corporation. How can you look down on that? Anyone who has actually worked for McDonald's and is not a negative person can see that it is indeed a remarkable opportunity on all levels. Most of the Owner/Operators started out at the bottom. Many of the folks at McDonald's Corporate were store managers before that. All store managers were once shift managers, who were also once standard crew members (even folks like myself, who were hired and paid as managers, because you cannot work as a manager at McDonald's without having the basic foundation of knowing all crew positions). While many people can look at it for what it is right now, and I do agree that McDonald's should be paying people much more per hour than they do - especially considering the type of profit and success those people are delivering upwards - it is still, for a motivated, intelligent, hardworking, diligent person an excellent career path, that can lead to success. As I mentioned in another answer, McDonald's management training is accredited. If I recall correctly, from the first level "Basic Shift Management" course through to the highest level regional management training course, one can acquire 20 credit hours. That's a pretty big deal for fast food, and much more accreditation than the 200 hours of professional development courses I spent prior to working at McDonald's. You might be able to tell, I'm verbose and part of that is also being able to spin things positively (I'm a pretty positive person, in general) so when employers saw "McDonald's" on my resume, they also saw that I could manage a location that saw 300-500 transactions a day and generated something on the order of $1.5M a year. They saw that I was able to manage inventory (my resume boasts of the change from ~30% over/under stocking on a weekly basis to under 5%, in one month), and I can describe very clearly how to develop skills in team members through coaching, training by demonstration, follow up and recognition. So in short, unless they were a complete idiot, any employer would regard a positive career at McDonald's as an absolute asset - they're getting thousands of dollars and scores of hours worth of the best training program the corporate world has to offer at their disposal for free.
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The pink slime stuff is something that would happen in manufacturing the burgers. They arrive at the store frozen, in patty form. The boxes are labeled as "100% Beef" and per the USDA, they in fact are 100% beef. Also, McDonald's stopped using pink slime in March, 2012. Similarly, all other proteins except eggs come formed and frozen, ready to cook. In regards eggs, they were all fresh or in scrambled liquid form in cartons. In the course of a breakfast a McDonald's restaurant might go through 300-1,000 fresh eggs. They're cracked into round forms for McMuffins and other "round egg" sandwiches. The scrambled liquid is just that - pasteurized, homogenized scrambled eggs in a carton (you can buy similar products in any grocery store). They're used for the folded egg sandwiches like biscuit sandwiches, and all of the "platter" style breakfast items. They're eggs, and they're wholesome and delicious. All the buns are delivered fresh every few days from local bakeries willing and able to cook to McDonald's standards and volumes. They're from essentially the same type of factory bakeries that grocery store bread comes from. Similarly with the muffins, bagels and biscuits, although they are received frozen from centralized McDonald's distribution warehouses. Every morning, it's someone's job to slice dozens of tomatoes and store them in double-dish, breathable containers (something akin to a Tupperware, without the air seal). Lettuce comes in two or three forms - leaf iceberg lettuce, leaf "greens", and shredded iceberg lettuce. These all are delivered in boxes, within which there are either loose bags (for leafs) or heat-sealed bags (for shredded). Pickles come in massive 6-pound tubs that will last anywhere from half a day to two days, depending on the volume in the store. Onions come in two forms - sliced and diced. The sliced onions are just like the shredded lettuce - in heat-sealed bags in a box. The diced onions are quite strange... they arrive dehydrated in packets. Whoever does prep-work in the mornings has to hydrate these with water for 20 minutes before they're usable. All the condiments except ketchup and mustard come in large tubes that are distributed with measured-use guns - essentially a modified caulk gun. The ketchup and mustard arrives in large bags. They are dispensed from large guns which are emptied and cleaned daily. The "guns" are essentially a giant funnel with a trigger that lets a measured serving out with each press. All in all, while pink slime is gross, it's in all the ground beef products you can buy in a grocery store or (until McDonald's quit the practice) at a fast food restaurant. The thing is, while McDonald's stopped using pink slime in the first quarter of 2012, grocery stores have not. So basically, the ground beef you buy at the grocery store is the one that is less appealing. The chicken products and fish are exactly the same as you might find in the frozen food aisle of the grocery store - shredded, formed, breaded and ready to cook. All the breads are fresh baked and then either delivered fresh or frozen. The frozen breads (muffins, bagels, biscuits) are in fact baked in the store to completion - as are the pies, cinnamon rolls and danishes (if your local McDonald's carries these). The veg, other than the diced onions, are delicious, fresh, quality products - higher quality than you may find at a farmer's market and about the same quality at a typical chain grocery store because they're industrially grown, which results in higher uniformity and fewer blemishes. The condiments are equivalent quality of what you probably have in the fridge, and because such a volume of them is used they're probably much more fresh than what is in the fridge at home. One other thing - the fruit and yogurt parfait. These are made fresh every morning, by hand, with high quality yogurt and frozen fruit. They're delicious and super nutritious.
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This is a great question with a variety of answers because there are quite a few different types of "manager" in a McDonald's store. Generally all management members work about 35-40 hours a week - many more if they're salaried. There are two primary types of stores, Open/Close stores and 24-hours. I'll start with Open/Close stores. Between those, there are different volume levels an any of the roles might be filled by 2 or 4 managers - more at very high traffic stores (such as those at the center of metropolitan areas). I'll also give a bit of info about the responsibilities the different part managers have. Opening manager: General a "shift" or "swing" manager fills this role. They start around 4:30am as most stores open at 5am. They generally leave before the lunch rush starts - working until either 11 (if they work a 6 day week) or they may work until 1:30 or so when the real lunch rush ends. This may also be filled by a manager seeking less-than-full-time work - 4:30 to 11, 5 days a week. When another manager comes in, this manager generally rotates into the role of grill or kitchen manager until their shift ends. Breakfast manager: This might be a shift manager or the store manager. They generally will start about 6 or 6:30am, right in time for the big breakfast rush to begin. In stores with a heavier breakfast crowd, they may start right at opening time. Generally, they'll work until 2:30 or 3:00 and usually have the responsibility of running the whole operation for the morning through the end of lunch (about 2 in most stores). This manager is responsible for deliveries if they happen in mornings. Deliveries happen 5 times every 2 weeks in most stores. Mid-shift manager: These managers generally start right at "turnover" - or 10:30 for most stores. When breakfast becomes lunch everything needs to be run like a well oiled machine or havoc ensues. For some stores, this shift begins after the turnover, and right before lunch - at 11:30. These managers are generally swing managers who are less progressed through their training path, but are "Aces" at essentially all the positions and roles in a restaurant. One day they may be running the kitchen, the next they may be taking orders in drive thru, or cleaning up spills in the lobby. The midshift manager also generally will be responsible for the entire floor from 2:30 until the closing manager comes in, which is usually 3:30 or 4:00 - depending on when the store closes. Their shift will generally end at about 7:30 or 8, depending on when they began. The midshift manager also is usually responsible for deliveries if they are scheduled for afternoon/evenings. Again, this is usually 5 times every 2 weeks. Closing manager: The closing manager is usually a swing or shift manager. This manager will start at about 3:30 or 4pm. Most stores that close are open until midnight or 1am during summertime/weekends. After this there is about an hour of work needed to close the store down for the night. They've got to be well advanced in their career path because they're usually responsible for quite a bit and generally work with a reduced staff. Also, while each manager for all parts of the day is responsible for balancing the drawers worked during their shift, the closing manager has the added responsibility of totaling out the entire day's deposits. 24 hour stores: 24 hour stores have another manager that works from about 11pm or midnight until 7:30am or so. This is almost always a swing manager who is not advanced in their career path. Business is slow, there is little to do, and few responsibilities, while it allows them a bit of "down time" to study the copious material needed to be mastered to pass through the various (surprisingly rigorous) certification processes along the path of management. Keep in mind, the further up the chain you go, the more hours and responsibilities you're assigned. While a swing manager likely gets scheduled 35-38 hours a week and work 40, a shift manager will likely be scheduled for 40 hours and work 44 or so. An assistant manager (usually a shift manager) will be scheduled for 40-42 hours or so, and work 45. A store manager is almost always salaried and is expected to work a minimum of 40 hours, but might put in as much as 50. Beyond that there are usually District and Regional managers who are responsible for from 4 to 20 stores and might work 50-60 or even more hours for a salary. I've known several Owner/Operators (they own the franchise, operate the store under a license from McDonald's Corporate) who work 80 hour weeks - they also might make from $100,000 if they own just one store, to several million a year in profit with a huge slew of franchises.
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This I do not know first hand - the Tucson market did not have McRib while I worked there. However, if I were to take an educated guess it's marketing. People desire the unattainable. Frankly, I think the McRib is pretty gross - I'd prefer the Rib sandwich from am/pm (alas poor am/pm) if I wanted to hate myself for a while. However, because you cannot always get it, people get nostalgic about it when it's gone and really, really want it when it comes back. Here's a huffington post article about it that seems to agree somewhat: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/15/mcrib-seasonal-item_n_1966680.html
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I was never embarrassed about telling people I worked at McDonald's. I looked for this job, and in fact had to convince the Owner/Operator and his Operations Manager that I in fact wanted to work for McDonald's and was not just trying for any port in a storm. McDonald's is one of the most successful franchise operations in the world - providing growth and wealth opportunities to thousands of small business owners - in 2007 there were 33,000 stores and 60% of them were franchises. McDonald's is the second most recognized brand in the world, behind Coca-cola. McDonald's spends millions each year on innovating new products and refining existing products. They also spend millions each year on improving their processes and procedures, resulting in some of the finest business management and operations management training available. Quite frankly, a manager for McDonald's can get on the order of $15,000 worth of college education for free just for working there. Granted it's industry specific, but it's still there - through the various management training programs, all of which end are accredited. Many of the skills can be taken anywhere else - especially the focus on how to develop skills in others, the coaching process, and inventory management. I was quite proud of the achievements I made in the short and long term while working there, especially the achievements with people. Several of the people I worked with thought they had the world's worst, dead-end job. A job they were working as a bandage against destitution. I think i did a lot of work with many of those people, helping them see that even when you do something that you don't love, even if it doesn't pay you the best, you can turn it into a learning opportunity and take advantage of the chance to grow your own skills and personality. Several of the employees who were "slackers" when I first started working with them grew into dedicated and hardworking individuals after some guidance and coaching. I'm remarkably proud of that. I also taught (and learned) about diversity and helped develop (and gain) stronger interpersonal skills, working with people who were nothing like me for a common goal. That's another thing I'm proud of - helping turn the environment of my McDonald's into a short-term and long-term goal setting organization. In the store I worked at most, we went from being low-quality, poor customer service, high service times and in a matter of a few months, we had a much higher quality expectation (some of it being enforced by the "worst" staff members when I got there), we had sparkling customer service skills (even from some of the most hatchet-faced and unhappy suckers you ever met), and our speed of service was reduced significantly. I'm definitely proud of the role I played in helping make those things come around.
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In terms of hardest job: Grill. Totally the grill. You have to bust hump over two or four 440 degree planes of metal with grease steam billowing up at you non-stop. Not only that, you have to be sure you are keeping up exactly with the "levels", the expected volume of cooked, ready meat, at all times. You also need to be sure to keep your eyes on the temperature of the grills so they stay within appropriate boundaries, watch timers on the grills to be sure that you're cooking meat the appropriate time, make sure the meat appears to be cooked thoroughly, and several times a day take internal temperatures on meat. Along with this, in lower volume stores (this does *not* mean 'slow' stores, as they almost never exist), the grill person also has to prepare all the non-potato fried foods (primarily the many kinds of chicken and fish served). This is much worse at night when the store is staffed with fewer people, because the same person is then responsible for preparing the food, as well as making sure the work area is clean, sanitary, safe and stocked. Closing is the worst for this person, because the grill cleaning process is a horrible, steamy, fumey, smelly mess that irritates the hell out of your nose and eyes - then after all this they have to empty out large, thin grease traps. There's supposed to be a vacuum system to clean these out with, but they always seem to be broken more often than operational. In terms of the least demanding job (and therefore the job for the least capable): front cashier. This job is easy peasy most of the time, and the responsibilities are all light. This job is difficult only when the preparation of food and serving of it slows down because you can only take so many orders and stare at people waiting for so long - all the while being pretty much helpless to do much about it. Another time it's difficult is when a van load of kids comes in from a sport/outing and you have to serve 40 ice cream cones and sundaes in the course of 5 minutes.
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Absolutely. We closed early, but were absolutely open. There was one incident on Thanksgiving 2007 that stands out in my mind. A pair of limos pull up to the front of the store. Out comes a massive family - at least 20 people all looking alike (you could tell it was family), about 4 generations worth. The least fancily dressed person was a man in dress pants, a really nice sweater and a dress shirt underneath - all the other men were in suit and tie, the women in nice dresses with their hair done up. They came in and had Thanksgiving dinner in their fancy attire. Totaled out to about $250. It was kind of strange. None of them giggled like it was funny or a joke, and they said grace.
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Thanks! You might also like my blog. It's been dead for a while, but I get tons of feedback (and way more hits than I ever thought I would, even to this day) from current McDonald's employees who want more advice. Currently I work for a multinational technology company that provides end-user, retail-style support to a variety of white-label partners in telecommunications, retail, and more. I was a technician for this company for a bit more than a year before advancing into a quality assurance role, which has a heavy focus on coaching and guiding technicians in policies and procedures. I was actually lucky enough to be able to help form the quality assurance department here, and have been a pivotal factor in guiding many people into successful execution of their roles in this corporation for 14 months now. As an aside, my eldest sister worked at Burger King for 2 years as a crew member before being made manager, then progressing to a store management position. While she's worked for Burger King off-and-on for a total of 20 years or so, she's also been district or regional management for a variety of businesses, including car dealerships, leather goods retailers, and clothing retailers. The only people who really "look down" on fast food experiences, especially management ones, are people who never worked it or who did work there but had a horrible experience - almost certainly due to their own efforts. It's my opinion that any experience can be a bad one if you try hard enough making it such.
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I have been robbed at gunpoint several times, but never while working for McDonald's. McDonald's has explicit and mandatory training that is part of the Day 1 training program for every employee regarding what to do in a robbery situation. Do what you're told, do not act brave, do not fight back, give them anything that they ask for that they want. Money, product, fixtures are all replaceable but your life is not. We also had silent alarm buttons near every register, in the kitchen area, in the stock area, even in the walk in freezers. Other policies exist to minimize the likelihood of robbery. No one is ever in a McDonald's store alone. Opening manager and staff are to meet up away from the store itself (at a nearby corner, another business nearby, etc) and then travel together to the store. Opening managers also are required to make at least one circle around the restaurant in a vehicle if possible checking all doors, making sure only the lights that are supposed to be on are on, checking for any movement through all windows, make sure no one is creeping around the store, or anything else suspicious. In fact, I called the police one morning when I showed up and the door was partly open - they came quickly and make a quick run through the store to make sure no one was there. Turns out the closing manager didn't lock up well. Other procedures include not taking trash out at night, never opening back doors at night, never allow anyone into the store for any reason after closing the dining area, don't allow non-staff members behind the counter, etc. Closing managers should make sure that everyone leaves together and the doors are locked up and no one is left alone waiting for a ride or something of that nature. After closing, a circuit around the store should be made to ensure no one is "creeping" around the outside of the store then either. I don't know why anyone would actually rob a McDonald's. Several procedures are in place to minimize the available cash at any given time. Some of these include time-locked safes and the register reminding that a cash drop must be made after $100 is in it, and most stores use systems that refuse to take any further orders once $150 has been exceeded. Only registers that are actually in use have drawers in them, and all cash drops are made by putting the cash into a slot in the register. Stores with more than $1000 in business generally need to do two deposits per day. So all in all, McDonald's is not a very good target.
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Falling Down is a great movie. Depending on what product was still fresh and servable, you could possibly get breakfast items a few minutes after "changeover". However, because of the precision of McDonald's "level" system, which dictates how much of each product is prepared per 15 or 30 minute time segment (based upon how long the food can "sit" while maintaining quality and safety), there rarely is food that was prepared and is still servable after the changeover period. These levels are based on historical sales, real world events and current traffic. To elaborate: At 10:15, with breakfast ending at 10:30, the last projected required sausage, biscuits and muffins would be prepared. At 10:20, the last projected required eggs, hashbrowns and ham are prepared. At 10:25, a quick clean of the grill is done, all the temperatures of the fryers are changed (hash browns and french fries cook at different temperatures for different times, as do the breakfast vs. lunch chicken products), the grill temperatures are changed (eggs and sausage are each cooked at different temperatures than burgers), and all of the "on hand" stock of breakfast items are switched out for "on hand" stock of lunch items (in small reach-in freezers/coolers). Also at this time, the holding cabinets (big cabinets that have many trays/racks with different temperature compartments and timers based on the product they hold) are set for all the lunch items, with usually just a few slots remaining for the last few projected required breakfast items. All of the breakfast breads - biscuits, muffins, bagels - will get pulled from the reach-in freezers will get moved to the walk-in freezers and bun stacks will be set up Also, immediately after this cleaning/temp changes are done, lunch food gets prepared. Burgers start getting made to fit projection/early lunch orders, chicken products (which generally take from 4 to 8 minutes to cook) are cooking, and fries (3m40s to 4m20s) are dropped into fryers. This is so that the appropriate projected level of product can be available as soon as we advertise that we're selling lunch products. ((Rereading this I've realized that apparently all this McDonald's talk, 4 years later, has reignited my sense of ownership. By "we" I mean "they".)) At 10:30, maybe 10:32, all breakfast items are "wasted" (that is: thrown out and accounted for), because they've generally reached a time that they are no longer fit for serving, either due to safety or quality concerns. If you're lucky right at the switch, at 10:30 on the nose, you might be able to get some of these last few breakfast items, but likely not. Again, those projection levels are really precise so there generally isn't much - if the store is well run and adheres to policies. So, the reason why McDonald's is such a stickler is that the same equipment is used to prepare both breakfast and lunch items, but at vastly different temperatures. Also, you can't very well make a batch of eggs then slap burgers down on that part of the grill, even if you could cook them at the same temperatures. It takes time to switch from being able to make breakfast foods to lunch foods. All of the condiments get switched out, they're made with vastly different products for the most part, and there simply isn't room to serve both simultaneously. So - either come in when they advertise that they're serving breakfast or eat lunch. Deal with it. I will add that many restaurants that serve breakfast all day, or lunch during breakfast have vastly different set-ups. They also serve half as many customers throughout the day as a McDonald's does, if they're lucky, so there *is* room to sell both all day, or to reserve a single grill and fryer just for breakfast food prep. Or their corporate office splits the difference on quality and determines that just because French fries shouldn't be cooked at 550 degrees like hash browns and french toast sticks are, doesn't mean you *can't*!
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Thanks for noticing. The next paragraph is going to sound boastful and pretentious. I'm not being such, I'm just putting some details out there. I was invited into MENSA at age 7 (but didn't join because my parents couldn't afford the membership fees). At 16, I tested with an IQ so high that if I post it, everyone will think it's a lie anyway, so I won't. I had several works of poetry published by major publishing houses in magazines and anthologies before I was legally of age to enter my writing for publishing. I've read on the order of 2,000 books in my 32 years, and as a hard-working father of 3 with a serious gaming habit and a demanding wife, I still managed 45-65 books a year over the past 5 years (most of them hard sci-fi and fantasy, but many of them in hard sciences such as physics, quantum mechanics and psychology). Yes, I worked at McDonald's and it was a bright spot in my life (not as regards pay). I also worked at many less savory positions - I once spent a month literally digging ditches for $5/hr cash under the table. The school system really let me down when I was a teen (putting me in remedial classes because the advanced classes were "full" and other examples). I was very disenchanted with the world by 16 or so, and didn't want any part of "their" programs and plans and processes for education - so I dropped out of high school and went to work. It's only now that I'm working on beginning a formal higher education so I can pursue my dreams of being an astrophysicist. I'm the meantime I exercise my mind with writing and hope to have a couple books completed in 2013, possibly 2014. More to the point of the question: it's very difficult when people around you are not as intelligent as you are. You expect people to be and do so much more than they are and do. Very intelligent people often have a hard time relating to people, and get frustrated easily with normals and stupids. I'm very lucky to have a best friend of 22 years whose IQ is but 9 points lower than mine, who reads even more than I do, and remembers many more things than I do (having caused much less self-induced chemical attrition to his brain cells than I have). He's always there to remind me that I shouldn't and cannot expect the same from others as I expect from myself. He's much more tolerant than I am, and I try to emulate him when I get frustrated in this regard. All that being said, I think that while it's frustrating to work with less-bright individuals, I've grown accustomed to it over the years. I change my speech and the words I use to try to match the people around me. That sentence is a good example: in other media I'd have written or said that as "I modulate my vocabulary to better suit the company within which I am". I think I'm a relatively good judge of peoples' intelligence and capabilities, and try hard to keep expectations as well as coaching/guidance/topics of conversation relevant to what I perceive as their capability. When they modify my perception of them, I adjust accordingly. As it's very relevant to McDonald's, there really are a variety of complex, multi-step functions that a manager or an advanced crew member is expected to execute in the course of a shift and a career. Some things that may sound simple, but actually have a degree of difficulty include: properly maintaining inventory, ensuring that sales projections are on pace with expectations, matching food production with projected sales and modifying as real sales volumes occur, learning how to manually time and average transactions (because each transaction has multiple parts to it that are 'weighted' in averaging differently), and maintaining equipment. McDonald's does a remarkably thorough job of presenting these complex, multi-step functions in a way that is not threatening and in a way that, through repetition, the most average of intellects could grasp and execute well over time. Also, the basic 4-part training/coaching process is designed to address and appeal to very base (and very common) psychological realities. These don't often differ based on intellect, training or capability. This process boils down to the following: Identify the opportunity, privately communicate and demonstrate the correct method, have them demonstrate the correct method, publicly praise them for doing it successfully later on (reinforce often). This appeals to anyone, no matter background, intellect, experience, or any other factor (barring a severe unwillingness to do well and continue receiving paychecks) and addressing people with the right tone and vocabulary while executing these steps helps to level the playing field as it were.
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Check out my blog, I give a ton of information there. It's in the description at the top.
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Depends on what you mean by obligated. Was there some policy that said if a person with special needs came in, we had to hire them before other candidates? No. If someone with special needs came in, met the job requirements we had and could perform the job? Yes. Some Owner/Operators prefer to staff their store - at least for lobby attendants during busy periods - with special needs workers. They feel they are doing their part to an underserved part of the community, that can be and definitely are hardworking team members. Equal Opportunity Employment laws do not allow for turning someone away from a job they can perform without considerable modification/assistance, simply because they're special needs. Funny story, we had this one guy who worked for us, mostly evenings, mostly doing order taking in the Drive Thru. He was young, in high school still, this was his first job, and he was a really hard worker. Well, after about 3 months of working there, he made some pretty silly mistake - I can't remember what it was - that could have resulted in equipment getting damaged and/or a person getting hurt, but did not. Basically it was a close call. One of the other managers screamed at him, "What are you stupid?!" and he retorted, "I'm not stupid, I'm just retarded." Turns out he was special needs the whole time, no one knew and he didn't make a big deal about it. He was high functioning autistic and had some other disorders along the autism spectrum.
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Most of this comes from coaching people. The process for coaching is to first identify the issue, then to explain the proper way to do something. This can be done very easily by simply taking them aside for a moment, without other crew or customers hearing and saying something like, "Hey, please remember to smile and be nice to the customers. Fake it if you have to!" The next part is to demonstrate the behavior - which means having that employee see you doing exactly what you explained. That may be passive by simply doing it and when they're around, or it can be active, "Hey, let me show you what I mean, go around that side of the counter for a minute" then demonstrate the expected behavior. Last is follow up. Catch the person doing it right later on, and give them feedback immediately in front of peers and customers when they're doing it right. The real reason so many people are grouchy in customer service positions is they get paid jack diddly squat. It's sad and stupid really, that most customer-facing positions in customer service enterprises pay between $7.25 and $10 an hour. That low wage translates to poor attitude, which translates to a lethargy about doing well, which itself turns into a lack of effort. Without effort, there's no growth and without growth there's nothing but a sense of stagnating in terrible, and if you're stagnating in terrible, how likely are you to engage the next stupid bleepy-bleep-of-a-bleep that walks up to you with their "Gimme a ..." BS? However, if the management team encourages trying hard, rewards it with praise, recognition, growth and more recognition, people will be willing to grow. I know for a fact that I turned at least 3 people who hated their jobs into motivated, hard working *team members* who took pride in their ability to do their jobs very well and even train and encourage others to do that job as well as they did - all without changing anything about the physical environment or the compensation for the job. It just took a change in attitude.
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Not a thing, based on how it's prepared. Everything is pretty much prepared the same way, either on the grill, fried, hand-made (salads, parfaits), out of a machine (coffee, shakes, ice cream), or baked (cookies, muffins, biscuits, pies). There are a few things I don't enjoy. I dislike the Quarter Pounder meat - even though it's remarkably similar to the smaller patties, something about the texture in that size doesn't appeal to me. I also am not a huge fan of the McWraps. While the tortillas are delicious when they're served in the breakfast burrito, the fact that they're served unheated just puts me off. I like my tortillas at least warmed so they soften up.
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Since their information is entirely proprietary, and is taught in the form of several *hundred* hours of preparation training (in four gigantic 3" binders full of info, and several other resources), as well as dozens of hours of class time and hands-on training, I'd say - go through the training yourself. You can also read Ray Kroc's book "Grinding it Out" for a brief overview of the tenets upon which the company was formed and the corporation still operates, but this is not a detail of the processes and systems used.
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Well, yes and no. There were expectations and projections that each store should achieve. Each day-part (Early Morning/Breakfast/Lunch/"snack" hours/Dinner/Late Night) all had different projections based on historical sales, promotions and what was going on in the real world, such as holidays or local activities. These are subject to a variety of influences, though the McDonald's plan really considers the critical, manageable factors primarily. These are (and everything within McDonald's is) QSC&V. Quality - Service - Cleanliness - Value. All negative changes in a McDonald's restaurant, short of there being some significant, tangible external effect, are thought to be due to shortcomings in QSC&V. It's really true, when you think about it. Do you ever drive out of your way to go to that McDonald's that has the really fresh french fries all the time? Ever avoid the one with the filthy bathrooms and stained, old seats? How about that one McDonald's that you will *never* return to because no one smiles and they give you dirty looks when you ask for more napkins? I personally have boycotted a franchisee that started charging 25 cents for 4 packets of ketchup (I kid you not, those things come in 1000 count boxes for about $11 in 2008). A very large amount of planning is based off all these projections. Short and long term product stock, short and long term staffing, hours of operation, and much more. I'll get more detailed in the planning based off those projections. Long term stock means everything from how many wrappers, containers, bags, condiment packs, straws, cups, napkins and "Bag-in-a-Box" sodas are stocked to the number of french fries, hamburger patties, eggs, tomatoes and other food is based off projections. Short term stock means how many pieces of bacon are cooked for a 12 hour period, how many cooked hamburgers and chicken nuggets are prepared and waiting to be prepared and served by 15 minute periods, how many gallons of ice cream/shake mix are poured into the machines in the morning, and how many cups, straws, napkins should be stocked accessible to busy workers in a rush period. Long term staffing refers to how many crew members work at the store in total, how many managers there are, and whether or not the store needs full time maintenance and lobby staff. Short term, this might mean how many individuals there are working in each day-part and even more short term, when breaks can be scheduled without interrupting the flow of business. Hours of operation might mean whether or not the store is 24 hours, or if it isn't if they close at midnight or 1 am, do they close the dining room an hour before or two? Should the store open at 5am or can it open at 6am? In some franchises and in corporate stores, management teams may or may not make bonuses for exceeding expectations in a positive way. This might mean reducing wasted food to under 2% of total sales, or reducing labor below 17%. Maybe this is exceeding sales by 5% over last year, or improving service times by 10 seconds in the Drive Thru, or perhaps it's simply achieving a 45 minute store closing routine. Again, all of these things can be achieved and improved upon by improving QSC&V (which is applicable to internal customers such as crew members and management, as much as it is to actual paying external customers).
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Meh, we knew where we were working. I don't know of anyone who felt personally attacked by any of these movies, not even Owner/Operators. Some of the corporate folks probably got their panties in a bunch over it, but for the most part I don't think anything about either of those movies really changed anyone's minds about McDonald's or other fast food. If they did, you'd have to be a pretty dim individual to not comprehend that greasy, cheap food is not that healthful nor does it deliver good nutrition. Let's be real here - it's relatively low quality food (compared to what you might make at home, but this isn't true for everyone) for really cheap (making it very appealing to poorer people) and those people they're marketing to are truly ignorant of the facts of basic nutrition (sorry for calling those people dim, but it is what it is). The fat/sodium content is really high in these products, and that's most of what makes them so delicious to our programmed-to-survive palates. For people who are the "perfect storm" of ignorant, poor, lazy, and easily addicted, McDonald's and other fast food can be very harmful. But so could trying to cross a busy street. For everyone who relies on McDonald's as their main food source, and say it's because it's so inexpensive, I say Mac & Cheese, an apple, and a banana. Go hit up the grocery store. You can find store brand Mac & Cheese for 45 cents, apple and a banana cost maybe a buck together- $1.70 with tax and you have a more wholesome and satisfying meal than McDonald's offers for a higher cost. For $5 you can get a loaf of bread, peanut butter, and a few apples. I know several bachelors who live on peanut butter on bread and fruit. Clean protein, moderate carbs, fruit - you'll feel great and look like an Adonis while not spending much on food. It's just much more convenient to swing through the Drive Thru and spend $5 off the Dollar Menu, or if you have a couple kids, $25 for dinner, than it is to go home, prepare food, and sit down for dinner. It's even more convenient to claim that somehow this is cheaper than the alternative. I think that anyone who eats nothing but fast food isn't very wise, and anyone who feeds their kids McDonald's 3 or 4 times a week is just doing it wrong. That said, it's a delicious treat, hits the spot, and as long as you pace yourself and don't eat out regularly, you should be fine. That, and there actually are quite a few really healthful items on McDonald's menu, and lots more in the past 2 years. Even back in 2007/8 I'd say 25% of the parents who came in with kids under 8 or so got Apple Slices instead of French Fries for their kids. People know about these options, and choose them if they want. Then again, I'm a big, mostly sedentary fat guy these days, so what do I know? (Although I don't eat fast food except maybe once every two weeks, because I don't want my 3 kids getting addicted to it.)
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Most people call it the worst job they ever had because the work is hard, the pay is relatively low, and most stores aren't run by rock stars like me. But seriously, there rarely are positive work influences at McDonald's. The training is available but poorly implemented, and many of the people working there (as I've mentioned in other posts) are not society's best and brightest - although sometimes they are. Because you have few highly educated or well trained people, and few leaders to look up to. This, in my experience, is no different than most work environments, however. I think a large part of the reason many people hated their McDonald's work experience comes down to one of two facts. First, many people work at McDonald's as their "first job" or their "first real job". This means this is their first taste of not having their time be their own, their first experience of exchanging their mortality for a few dollars. That's never a good feeling, especially if you've spent your life having everything handed to you. So, they're learning the real value of their time, taking orders for the first time, have obligations and expectations for probably the first time in their life, and it's not quite what they think it should be. Yes, this all sucks - but it's not McDonald's fault. Second, many people work at McDonald's as a "last resort" type job, and is not the job they would have if they had their preference. These are people who would prefer not to be doing this demanding, sweaty job with many policies and procedures to adhere to. They may have to take direction from a some "kid" who has been on the planet half as long as they have. Yes, this all sucks - but again, it's not McDonald's fault. I'm a firm believer that perception is reality. The job I had immediately before McDonald's paid me about 50% more in base pay, and I received frequent bonuses and commissions. My title was "Vice President of Sales". My third month at the company I worked at immediately before McDonald's I won a contest and got a three-nights-two-days stay at a $250 a night resort for myself and my family, free food and drink, and room service. While working at McDonald's (I mentioned this in another thread about injuries), my boss bought me $175 shoes and it was the best fringe benefit I got. I was dozens of times happier at McDonald's than I was at that company (until my last two days that is). Perception is, I reiterate, reality.
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Good question. This depends on the market, really. Urban areas or rural areas with generally lower incomes definitely do not experience a downturn in traffic after New Year's resolutions are made. Suburban areas definitely experience this - many pictures are out there on reddit of empty post-New Year restaurants. Areas where shopping happens (near malls, in malls, etc.) *definitely* experience a downturn in traffic after the New Year but mostly because most people are not shopping as much.
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This really depends on the franchisee's policies and the market. In some locations, they really only hire bright-eyed, fresh-faced, clean-cut and clean-recorded individuals. They do this because they have a volume of people like this to choose from. In other locations, a guy with forearm inks (like myself) and a minor record with no felonies might be the very best candidate they can find. Generally, I would say as long as it's not domestic violence and is not related to stealing, theft or robbery, a record should not inhibit you from being employed at a McDonald's.
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Some restaurants have switched to ketchup tubs, like the various nugget type sauces have available. Heinz apparently is in a court case over this very thing right now, because they appear to have violated someone else's patent by marketing these. This could seriously be a dissertation on ketchup - ketchup packets are a really important part of American fast food society. I know that sounds silly, but Americans are generally very "nostalgic" people. We do many things in a nostalgic way, the way our parents and grandparents did them, for no reason other than that's how we've always done it. This could turn into a diatribe about vertical toasters and gasoline combustion engines, concrete roadways and steel-beam bridges - but it won't. Suffice it to say that the ketchup packet, while annoying, tiny, and an undesirable expense to owner/operators, they are also the most effective balance of cheapness, convenience, and nostalgic ketchupy goodness.
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I don't have a great amount of knowledge about this, but I can tell you what I do know. The franchisee I worked for acquired 4 stores in Tucson that were all already existing. Prior to this, he had a single store in Colorado. He either bought out the previous owners because they wanted to sell or was "awarded" the right to buy the franchise based on his previous recorded - awarded by McDonald's corporate, usually this happens when the existing franchisee is not succeeding financially (is unable to pay franchise fees or for inventory), or they fail heavily on the Operations Reviews that occur periodically. I know that one of his 4 stores was turning over $75k in profit per month. Another one, the one I worked at, lost $5,000 the first year he had it (also the first year I worked there). I was actually able, in the first month I was put in charge of managing inventory, to reduce over/under ordering costs by a bit more than $5,000, thus cancelling out his previous year's loss. There are a huge variety of factors in the success or failure of a McDonald's location. I've spoken to franchisees who lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in the course of a year, and others who made several million dollars. It depends on so many factors - most of them basic principals of McDonald's management. Some unmanageable ones are nearby traffic and location, ease of entry, competition, the neighborhood. Manageable ones include quality of service, speed of service, inventory management, labor management, cleanliness, and more (these are the basic tenants of McDonald's operations, referred to as "QSC&V: Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value"). No actual location will "fail" unless it truly is a loser based on unmanageable factors. Otherwise, if a franchisee fails, McDonald's will either buy back the franchise and make it a corporate store, or sell the franchise to another, more successful franchisee who has demonstrated success and is interested in the location. A fun note on franchises with McDonald's... The franchisee owns everything inside the walls, the parking lot and structures outside (such as trash bins, or external storage areas). Everything else belongs to McDonald's. The land, the shrubbery, sidewalks, signage, flagpoles all belong to McDonald's. As do the walls, windows and doors. The franchisee has to maintain and upkeep all aspects of the property, and is required to purchase all fixtures, equipment, plumbing, seating, counters, signage, food prep and drink dispensers, etc. It's an open secret that McDonald's really isn't in the hamburger business, they're in the property business.
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This differs depending on the operation. Most franchisees and corporate offer 1 free meal per day that you work, up to anywhere from $5 to $10, though most that I know of are in the $7 range. Some franchisees do not offer this, and they're completely jerks for it. As for "eating for free while working", every manager is required to taste pretty much every product during the course of the day. You need to make sure the fries taste right at various times during your shift, taste breakfast food items to make sure they're coming out correctly, taste burger patties and completed product, test some shake of various flavors, try all the flavors of drinks from all the different dispensers in the store. It really does get old at times, because you're not enjoying it, you're testing it. It was common for me, when I was working, to get people I relied on to do this. So, if someone mentioned they're hungry or something, I'd have them place a "complimentary" order (required manager override to get it to ring up at $0.00 for inventory management purposes) and go eat it. We didn't have people eating full prepared items endlessly, but in the course of a day at least 25% of the various food items would be made completely and someone would eat them. We, for obvious reasons, didn't make things like Double Quarter Pounders, and it's unlikely the fancy Angus burgers (which we did not have when I worked there) get made and tested, but it's likely about 4 times a day someone's trying the Angus patties for quality.
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This really depends on the store, how common a problem this is, customer flow, and local and state laws. Your best bet is to ask someone who works at your neighborhood McDonald's.
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There was this girl named Gabriella - maybe 19 years old - who worked in the kitchen. She spoke very little English, was constantly arguing with people in the kitchen, refused to follow procedures and policies, and liked to simply stare with an angry look when she was asked to do something that was more than putting sandwiches together. I observed all this in the first two shifts working with her, and it was more apparent a few weeks in. So, she was in fact my first "target" for growth. I spent a lot of time trying to demonstrate to her the proper procedures, and in fact, since I was so new, I made her train me some of the things that I didn't know (or what I wanted her to demonstrate correctly). Every time she did something well I praised her for it. A few shifts into this, I started taking it more proactively. I'd show her things that I knew she was uncomfortable and possibly even angry about doing - like stocking small freezers correctly, labeling things with times, making sure that cheese is "tempering" and labeled properly, mopping, preparing sanitized water, etc. I'd follow basic "coaching" procedures on all of these - explain the right way, demonstrate the right way, provide praise when they do it right. After a while, it sank in that all of these things were easy, and earned her praise from managers all the time. Silly thing that it is, praise from someone (even someone you may not like) is valuable and potent. It's even more important when it comes from someone you do know and love. We were short handed one day, and none of our staff could cover. So we got a staff member, Luna, from another store, and she was essentially this girl Gabriella +5 years. As soon as I explained where she'd be working and she got next to Gabriella, I was like "Wow you two could be sisters! You look so much alike!" and they both giggled. They were sisters. Well, it turns out Luna was in fact the rock star super-Ace in her store and throughout the day Luna and Gabriella were praising the hell out of each other, and Luna seemed genuinely surprised that her sister could not only keep up with her in the workflow, but was able to hold on to every policy and procedure in the heat of a lunch rush. In the end, Gabriella started along a path to management and was transferred to another store, as ours already had 3 new-ish swing managers and 2 management candidates. The whole time between meeting her with her horrible attitude and her moving on to being a management candidate in another store would not have happened if I did not coach her using tried and true McDonald's coaching procedures. It took me having a good attitude to accomplish this as well. Keep in mind however, there are total jerks and a-holes who have no intention of doing well, ever, no matte what you do. Those people get fired and wonder why the world hates them so much.
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Look the person in the eye, like they are a human being. Smile at them genuinely. Start your order off with, "Hi! May I please have..." and end it with, "Thank you!" Compliment them, if you feel like it, in exactly the same way you would compliment any other human being you interact with in the world. There's no magic trick. That person might still hate you with everything in their soul. Or you may be the first person to treat them like a person all day. As to tips, almost assuredly no, McDonald's employees are not allowed to accept tips. The reason for this is varied, but mostly because tipped employees are paid differently than non-tipped employees and it's a terrible hassle when you have tipped employees. McDonald's wouldn't be able to have their prices so low and allow tipping. It's fine at more expensive eating establishments because that's built into their pricing. Also, low-priced mom and pops will always allow you to tip and they'll keep that part of it quiet, most likely. But anywhere that always has tipped employees has to have at least one accountant to handle the headaches.
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I think on the Store manager/Director/Owner Operator level this went on, but among crew no way. Like I said in another question - we knew where we were working.
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Several million dollars a year of product testing and development is the short answer. I think the deal is they use seriously high quality potatoes (because they have buying power), and ensure consistent cut size. The fries go through a very thorough cleaning/soak to get some level of starches out of them. Then, they get flash fried (par-cooked), and then flash-frozen. At this point they're packaged and sent to stores. There was a really good "Modern Marvels" episode called "Fast Food Tech" that Netflix probably has.
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Well... I guess it's not related to the Q&A but sure. I love games. I like pen and paper games like D&D and Call of Cthulhu very much, I also love video games especially, including some MMOs, many RPGs, simulators and strategy games, flash games (kongregate.com is fun for the whole family!). I play board and table-top games like Settlers of Cataan, Risk! and Go. As to the self-induced chemical brain attrition, I enjoyed many psychoactive and psychedelic substances in my youth, which my best friend did not enjoy as heartily.
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First - not only have they considered it, they’ve been selling them for at least 2 years in stores that have a McCafe. http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/promotions/Smoothies.html Secondly, that statistic is, in my experience, hugely inaccurate. As I’ve explained in the question about why McDonald’s serves breakfast/lunch in separated segments, most McDonald’s restaurants are focused solely on breakfast food items during breakfast time. More importantly, most McDonald’s stores don’t have their ice cream or shakes machine running until about 9 or 10am (depending on the market, traffic and other factors). The prime reason for this is that the person who is generally assigned the task of "building" the machine - that is, takes it from its dismantled, clean state and puts it into operational condition - has other tasks before then, like recycling oil. This role is generally filled by a person with the title of "maintenance". They have a regular schedule of tasks, from cleaning the outside of the store (including pressure washing sidewalks, watering/maintaining flower beds, scrubbing and rinsing out the trash corral area), to taking out last night’s trash (remember, you never open the back doors after dark!), cleaning out the lobby (which also includes scrubbing out trash corrals and trash cans and cleaning all of the Play Place area), and making sure the bathrooms have a deep sanitizing clean (the bathrooms are touched up as needed throughout the day, and sanitized again if needed later). So, as I said, this person has a tight schedule with many tasks. It’s usually about 9 or 10am when they get to putting the shake machine into operational condition, which takes from 5 to 20 minutes depending on the quantity and types of machines. Then, the mix is poured in which takes about 25 minutes to become servable, making shakes and ice cream ready just a bit before 10 or 10:30am.
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This is entirely dependent upon the franchisee and the market. In general, standard crew members do start off right at or barely above the minimum wage. Managers have several pay brackets and most of it is based off experience. You might have two people with the exact same job title and responsibilities working in the same store with a $2/hr difference. Depending on the market the store is in, and how many qualified applicants there are, pay might be as much as $9 for crew, or it might be bare minimum wage. Store managers might make anywhere from $27k to $75k a year depending on the market, performance, and many other factors. As far as raises, there were 6 months reviews for crew and lower tier managers, annually for store level managers. At these reviews someone would receive anywhere from nothing to 25 cents an hour pay increase. Usually it was about 5 to 10 cents. For assistant and store managers, the range was nothing to $1 per hour, with 50 cents being the norm. Keep in mind, assistant and store managers also got bonused (as explained in a previous post).
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Very rarely will a McDonald's dining room be full. The longer people stay, the more often they'll come. If you make it easy and convenient for a customer to come hang out for an hour and a half, the more likely they'll repeatedly come in. Even if they just order a soda or a coffee - the profit level of those drinks is so high that it takes 10 refills before the McDonald's loses money. Also, if you come more often, you spend more money. It's pretty simple really.
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Generally people would plan when they were leaving and give adequate notice. I do remember several employees who "walked out" or quit with no advance warning. Some had good reason such as being treated poorly by other staff members (one woman walked out after being propositioned by the late-night manager), managers being disrespectful when someone who was not trained to a task could not accomplish the task as expected, and one crew member that I remember in particular had requested months ahead for a week off to go on vacation with her family and the scheduling manager scheduled her anyway, told her if she didn't show up she's fired and so she didn't show up and the manager in question tried to claim it was "quitting". I however backed up the crew member and made sure she got unemployment because the manager said she was fired - and I'd heard it, there was no quitting involved).
I myself walked out with no warning, but my case was pretty special and quite frankly it was a poor decision when I made it, but I felt right about when I did.
I was moved into the store I did my very initial "crew" style training at. I elaborated in my blog and in this thread elsewhere, but the short of it is I was clearly not welcome, and when I addressed the fact that I was constantly verbally abused and was threatened repeatedly by the management team in that store, the Directors of the franchise and Owner/Operator told me I was lying to them. It came to a head one day when the Training Manager (essentially a Director level in the franchise company) was present, and watched three women surround me, screaming at the top of their lungs calling me every anti-white racist cuss word that exists in Spanish and English. The reason for their displeasure was I was following the policy and procedures in regards cooking breakfast sausage 15m before the end of the Breakfast period. Really.
So, finally the store manager grabbed a big metal pan used to bake biscuits and pies and smacked me with it. I tried to walk away but she followed after me screaming at me. It was about the 3rd or 4th time she hit me in the body with it that the Training Manager (who was literally 5 steps away the whole time) stepped in and told us all to separate. I turned to her and said something like, "This is exactly the type of treatment I was describing that you told me was a lie". Her response was, "Go calm down" and I said, "No thanks, I quit instead".
It was very difficult to be put in that position, but the harsh reality is that even though I demonstrated excellence, and helped to grow the store I was originally in for about 15 months into an operation that developed several top crew members and several management trainees/candidates, and in the first month I was assigned handling inventory in full I negated the previous year's losses, and I was able to do a myriad of other tasks far more accurately, efficiently and effectively than my peers, the Owner/Operator intentionally ignored my reports of harassment and abuse, violence in the workplace, and overt racism - I was one of two non-Hispanic employees in the store out of approximately 25 or 30. Now, a white guy claiming racism is a bold thing to say. I speak relatively fluent Spanish and know what I was being subject to. As you can read through my blog and all these posts, I almost exclusively had positive experiences and tried to be a positive influence. Except this.
In the end (I shall not discuss it) I was compensated relatively fairly well for the whole incident, although I have not continued my career with McDonald's after that. I may one day return, but it seems unlikely to me as there are in fact several better applications of my capabilities, knowledge and experience than in a McDonald's restaurant (although I did love it. Never had so much fun, got fit, and was in a position to develop people and a workplace environment more thoroughly than any other before or after).
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Well first and foremost, a store generally wouldn't be "way overstocked" - it likely wouldn't even be a little bit overstocked. Every McDonald's is a business and as such doesn't just pile up their stockrooms, coolers and freezers with more product than they need (at least not enough to benefit a shelter or other organization) unless in a gross case of incompetence.
Directly to the point of the question, most of the food that was wasted (the term for throwing out food that doesn't meet quality or safety expectations) was food that was already prepared and exceeded it's hold time - and at that point it can't be given away. Because all of the products that make McDonald's food have a long shelf life, and the few products that do have a high rate of spoilage (such as lettuce and milk) are used in quantity, there's little actual stock spoilage or food going bad. Also, once food is spoiled, it's spoiled. I'm sure you can agree, it would be far worse to give a shelter or some organization food that has gone bad than to give them nothing.
The vast majority of stores actually run understocked in an effort to reduce costs. However, this backfires seriously because it is much more expensive to get stock that a store is short of (by immediately delivery or borrowing from another store) - not only realistically (it costs more to have immediate delivery from a warehouse or the costs associated with driving to another store and borrowing product) but also from a paperwork standpoint. Also, product requests/shortages affect a management team's performance assessment as these inventory inconsistencies are tracked on a daily basis. Inventory management being the second most manageable aspect of a McDonald's restaurant (labor being the first), this is rightly a big deal.
In the rare case that a product goes bad inside of it's shelf-life, in most cases it gets returned to the distribution warehouse for a refund/replacement. I think this happened with maybe 1 product box every 10 deliveries or so, a really great record considering most deliveries were on the order of 2,500 individual boxes.
Managing inventory well is one of the most costly aspects of managing a McDonald's and one of the most difficult. The first store manager I briefly trained under (before moving to the store I worked at primarily), never walked her stock rooms, coolers and freezers before making orders - she relied on her managers to accurately count inventory for reporting purposes. These staff members followed her example and barely put any effort into their work, meaning her inventory reporting was never accurate (something I encountered nearly instantly and tried hard to resolve in the short time I was there, ineffectively). This manager never reviewed her inventory reporting prior to making orders, but only used that reporting to meet the requirement that it be done. She also could never comprehend why she was always running out of stock and had high spoilage. So basically, she had no idea what she had on hand when she went about the task of ordering more stock, and even if she had used the tools at her disposal, they would have done her more harm than good through their inaccuracy.
The second store manager I worked with had more experience (a decade with McDonald's, as I recall him mentioning repeatedly) and thought he could "eyeball" product stock and made orders based off of usage and studied the inventory reporting but also never walked the stock room, walk-in or cooler. He delegated all inventory counts to a capable manager (usually me) and used that inventory reporting to determine what he would order.
I mentioned elsewhere that my first year, the store I was in lost $5,000 for the year. In the course of one month, strictly controlling inventory and actively reviewing reports *and* the physical stock, I was able to reduce our inventory overage by $3,500 and reduce stock requests (borrowed/immediate shipped) by a further $1,500 - negating for that loss from the year before. The trick was to make sure there was not a surfeit of stock that had very long shelf life and increase the stock of short shelf-life items enough to cover but not enough to waste. It just so happens that the products with the longest shelf-lives (generally proteins) are the most costly - so cutting the number of them by a small amount has a great effect. The shortest shelf-life items (like lettuce, tomato and milk) also had a lower cost. 5% fewer protein items in stock (let's say $1000) and 10% more vegetable/perishables stock (call it $250) had a net positive effect on the inventory.
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I had no idea what you're talking about. I think you mean this snippet from a Reddit post about what things you would not recommend eating from the restaurant you work at: “I accidentally left a whole bag of about 100 chicken nuggets out on a counter for way too long. They melted. Into a pool of liquid. I never understood why. But they were completely indiscernible as being the nuggets I once knew.”" The stupid things people will say for karma. No. Just no. The only way I could imagine anything close to this actually happening to McNuggets would require so many levels of poor food handling that it's as unlikely as it gets. The only way this could possibly happen would be for somehow the nuggets to be soaked in liquid for a long period of time, to the point where they begin decomposing and are barely discernible as a solid, then flash frozen so they retain their nuggety shape. After this, they'd have to be left out for long enough that the frozen substance melted and then left out long enough again for the last bits of solid degrade into liquid themselves. Seriously, if a redditor tells you that somehow the basic laws of physics are defied by a fast food product, perhaps you should take it with a grain of salt. Or a dollop of BBQ sauce.
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I was hired as a manager - I didn’t work as a crew. However, when someone had their hours significantly cut like you’re describing, it was generally due to performance issues or a lack of motivation to succeed at the work assigned. I’m not saying that is definitely true for you, and I don’t know what you were hired for, how your training has progressed, and how your store is staffed. $200 every two weeks? I can barely management my household on that much money every 3 days (which still isn’t all that much). I’m no life coach, but I would say the very first thing you should be doing is reassessing your performance. Identify your strengths and your opportunities for growth. Have a conversation with the store manager (or if needed, the Owner/Operator) and highlight your strengths while finding out what you can do to address those opportunities. Explain that you know you are good at <strengths> and that you have to improve upon <opportunities>, but you’re not only willing but able to learn to capitalize on those strengths. Be honest and explain that you need as close to full time hours as possible, and find out what you need to do to get those. If that’s not possible, or they’re not willing for whatever reason to help you grow and give you more hours, then perhaps you should hunt down a new job.
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Menu is not dictated entirely. Some stores don't participate in sales/specials/promotions/seasonal items. Right now McRib is back - some stores aren't carrying it. Some stores have found they don't sell salads as well, so maybe they price those higher or don't carry the same variety.
Pricing is definitely up to the Owner/Operator, and depends on market. Most of the stores don't have a "Dollar Menu" anymore, or if they do it's very limited. They have a "Value Menu" where items are $1.19-$1.59.
However, franchisees can't "add" items that are not part of the McDonald's menu to their menu and cannot serve food "off menu" as a rule (like a Land-Sea-Air burger (Big Mac with a Fish Filet and a McChicken on the burger patties).
As far as decoration goes, there is a ton of leeway allowed. In Tucson, one of the stores was decorated like an expensive, rich guy's library. Shelves and books, dark floor, the vinyl seats were faux leather, a couple of large lounging armchairs and ottomans... A very impressive design. In Chicagoland, there are several theme restaurants, including a 1950s pastel diner look. However, I do believe that they must predominantly have the familiar Gold and Red in some way and all deviations are probably required to be approved by McDonald's Corp. but I'm not certain.
Here's a couple links with the more unique McDonald's restaurants including one that's a freaking AIRPLANE! http://www.sortrature.com/unique-mcdonalds-restaurants/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/mckroes/galleries/72157622406186208/
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It was relatively rare that anyone would even get minor injuries working in the kitchen. Usually the only times people would get injured were due to not paying attention, foolish mistakes or not wearing appropriate shoes. No one ever really got hurt very seriously and even somewhat serious injuries were very rare. Most injuries were slip-and-falls (which can be serious, but thankfully weren't too bad, too often - see below), cutting oneself on the very sharp knives used for prep work, scalds from the very hot water used to wash dishes, or rare small burns from grease splashing.
I had my own injury from not wearing non-slip shoes. Long and the short of it was, I was moving more quickly than I should have been, on a wet floor without the right non-slip shoes on (right about a month into working at McDonald's). I slipped mid-step, and because I'm a very big guy had a lot of momentum. My following foot kept going with enough force that my whole body ended up fully parallel to the ground at my shoulder height (call it five and a half feet off the ground), then slammed downward, jarring my wrist and elbow on a stainless steel counter next to me. My injuries included a heavily bruised wrist and elbow, a bruise on the back of my head with no concussion, and a hyper-extended knee that required a support for a month or so. Mostly all my fault, and possibly the most serious slip and fall that I witnessed. After this incident, the Owner/Operator (who witnessed it) gave me a week off with pay and bought me some really nice, $175 executive style non-slip work shoes. I'm sure he would not have done this for most other people, to be frank.
The knee took so long to heal because I was ridiculous stupid as a youth and did dangerous things all the time - jumped off buildings, rode bikes off buildings, surfed on top of cars, fell out of trees, and less likely, but equally stupid accidents like when I was 14 I smashed the hell out of my knee in a bicycle accident that resulted in permanent water on the knee. Three years later I was competitively lifting weight in high school and overdid it by about 250 lbs on a horizontal leg press machine (ending my weight lifting career and taking almost 2 years to fully heal).
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No matter how well it’s designed, it’s still a speaker and microphone system, often with an LCD or LED screen, which is exposed to sun, wind, rain, snow, and everything that comes with those 24/7/365. Not to mention that it consists of electronic devices that are running continuously, which causes it’s own wear and tear, as well as it being activated and in use nearly constantly in most moderately busy stores. Next take into effect the equipment inside the store. It’s worn literally constantly, which means from 19 to 24 hours a day. The equipment usually consists of either simply a headset which is connected to the 2-way receiver/transceiver wirelessly or a headset connected by wires to a belt pack which houses the battery, talk and channel buttons, and connects to the 2-way receiver/transceiver. While each type is constantly in use - again 19 to 24 hours a day - each type also encounters its own issues. The headset only style might fall off the head of the wearer constantly, striking the ground *every time* the wearer bends their head forward more than 15 or 20 degrees. If the wearer is really swift, they may catch it 4 out of 5 falls. But fall it will. Part of the reason for this is that all of the communications devices and batteries are stored in the headset. It’s heavy and by nature has imperfect balance. The device is in motion endlessly and the electronics fail due to constant use. There are generally several headsets as they’re also used by management to hear orders and used to communicate with kitchen teams as well. In some stores, everyone wears a headset. They may have a rated lifespan of about 2 years, a functional lifespan of 1 year, and get used for 3 years. The belt-style headset systems are awesome and terrible. On the one hand, they’re not a stupid headset falling off you every time you, because even though they consist of a headset as well - it can be lighter weight and better balanced because it doesn’t need to house receiver/transceiver and batteries. Those are on a belt at your waist. The problem these types have is that they’re constantly smacking into things, generally the sharp corners of brushed aluminum prep tables and the counters. I’m sure you can understand what this might due to sensitive electronic parts? Also, they face the same issue of constantly being in use 19to24/7/365. These have a rated lifespan of about 4 years, a functional lifespan of about 2 years and are used for a long, long time. I’ve seen some as old as 8 and I’m sure there are 10 year old sets still in use. Last, two huge, brief factors of the inside-the-store equipment. First, grease. Grease is in the air everywhere in a McDonald’s. It gets into the electronics, even though they’re usually mounted away from the kitchen area and they’re housed in reduced-airflow systems. Second, idiots and jerks. I’ve already discussed how many McDonald’s employees are not the creme de la creme. Many of them are disgruntled, or immature, or simply jerkfaces who don’t give a whit about life. They’re the sort who like to destroy stuff for fun’s sake. Idiots and sensitive electronics leads to those electronics not working optimally.
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McDonald's menu is often changing. They spend a large amount of money on product development and improvement, and I really don't think there's anything they *don't* have that I would like to see again.
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In short, none. There really aren't any fast food restaurants that can take over McDonald's position as #1 in volume. Not only is McDonald's historically successful in nearly every market they enter, they have momentum of growth. There are many, many new restaurants opening every year, worldwide. McDonald's is something of a symbol of Americanism throughout the world as well - a food-related space that no other brand other than Coca-cola holds. Also, the McDonald's franchise system works remarkably well, putting a large amount of risk on the shoulders of franchisees and minimizing exposure to loss on McDonald's part (they generally own the property - and can always sell it in during a seller's market). While I don't think there are many restaurants that will overtake McDonald's for volume either domestically or internationally, several brands are growing and have many locations around the world. "Worth" of brands per statista.com, 2012. Subway - 27,000+ locations, worth $15B KFC - 11,000 locations, $10B Pizza Hut - 12,500 locations, $5.4B Wendy's - 10,000 locations, $4B You could also include Starbucks in that listing, although it's not quite "fast food", they have 21,000 locations and a brand value of $17B. Now, compare that to McDonalds - 34,000 locations and a brand value of just short of $100B.
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Mon-Fri 11:20 AM
Breakfast is over, Store Manager is probably there (80% likelihood or better, considering usually they take a single weekday and a weekend day off), and lunch has not gotten full swing yet.
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During the hiring process, there are generally cues that potential employees will give to the content of their character and their interest in doing well. Sometimes, people would shine that they were management material. Other times, someone who I thought would be a 3 month-turnover employee who had to be coached constantly would turn out to be a shining star. So, sometimes but that initial impression is generally not very reliable.
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Thanks :)
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I'd say it's the consistency of production. I actually do have a comparison, having worked at Burger King in my late teens, for about a year and a half as well (I was even low level management the whole time, there much like at McDonald's).
The very thing that makes McDonald's so exceptional is the volume they put out - there are several quality effects that are overall positive with increased volume of service, not the least of which are the overall effect of the margin of error on customer service decreases significantly, and muscle memory develops much more swiftly.
So, I'd say, overall, McDonald's just has a better, more developed, more intrinsic system to operations than does Burger King, and it's applied more consistently.
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You have to discuss that with the store's manager or owner/operator. In my case, I had an injury on the clock, at work, also to my right knee. I was on 6 weeks sedentary/reduced duty - which kept me at the register or drive thru window.
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I can't answer this question for you - be honest and open with the highest ranking person who knows your good work ethic and see how that goes. There are just a handful of outcomes.
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If you suspect someone is stealing, you should address that with the general manager of the store or the owner/operator. Often, stores or franchises will require managers to pay back money that is not accounted for on their shift. Cash control is a major part of the responsibility of the manager - however it may or may not be legal in your location.
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I sat thinking about answering this for a while, and initially wasn't going to answer - mostly for what's in the tail end of this post. I decided to just answer it anyway. I'm going to make some generalizations that are probably not true in most cases, but are true in some. The some are the ones we're focused on for this conversation, but keep in mind that *most of the time*, there were not racially-charged incidences. I love people no matter who they are - I don't care about anything but content of character and willingness to work hard. My experience was in Tucson, which has about even mix of whites and hispanics, with about 20% of the population being black or native American. Between the general entitled "in charge" attitude of the Whites, and the general entitled "the US came to us" attitude of the Mexicans, there was great opportunity for racial discourse to take a negative turn. Every now and again, interactions became racially-charged. In one situation, I had to explain to a pair of upper-middle class white women that they and their 7 children were going to have to leave, because of the racist remarks they made about one of my employees while ordering. They got incredibly angry about this and started calling me a "beaner lover". Yes. That is what the women said. I responded with, "Why, yes I am. My wife is of Mexican descent. You're right! Now beat it and don't come back or you'll be trespassed". Another time, one excellent team member (who I wrote about in my blog without a name, his name was Chad), was working in the kitchen and doing a great job of holding his position. He spent about 20 minutes being messed with by the two Mexican women who were also working in the kitchen, taking in stride the remarks about how white people are so slow, and Chad is just like all white boys, no stamina - then made lewd comments comparing Mexican and white men in bed. At this point, I stopped the conversation and explained to the two that their racism wouldn't be accepted any longer and they should start making fun of the way he looks or smells instead of the color of his skin. The reason I left McDonald's was actually racially-charged actions. I was transferred to a store in which the Store Manager was incredibly poorly performing, but the entire staff was either related to her or had worked at the store (with her poor standards) for 5 years or more. The Owner/Operator moved me into the store specifically to identify problems and do what it takes to resolve them, so that I could eventually become Store Manager at the store. The staff was explained this - including the Store Manager I would be replacing in time. Also, I was one of two non-hispanic employees and I was tasked with basically identifying every single manager and staff members' short comings and assisting them in turning those opportunities into strengths. I was more than capable, but I received fierce anti-white sentiment day in and day out for a month. I reported it repeatedly, and the owner, who was of Mexican descent, flat out told me that "White people can't be harassed due to race". On my last day at that store, at that franchise, and at McDonald's, I was attacked by 5 women, including the store manager, with a variety of things: a 16 inch spatula, steel baking pans and even a glass coffee mug. It was all on camera, and the Operations Manager (a Director level position in the franchise) was in the store and did not do a single thing about it. They attacked me because I was trying to explain to them the "by the books" procedure for cooking breakfast sausages "to level" (the number prepared for maximum freshness/availability, I discussed this in depth in another post). Throughout this attack, they were screaming (literal screaming) profanities and racist remarks at me. I'm serious. I was trying to demonstrate to a group of employees how to properly adhere to procedure for cooking breakfast sausage, when I was physically assaulted and chased out of the store with them screaming racially motivated hatespeech at me. While that sounds hyperbolic, it was a terrible situation. I called the Owner/Operator and then the police. When the Owner/Operator refused to show up, and the Director of Operations explained that - somehow - none of the 12 cameras in the store were recording at that time, I knew it was futile. It was my word against 6 peoples' word that the incident happened (no customers hung around to speak to the police), and the police - while they believed my story - had nothing to indicate it occurred. I'm not legally allowed to explain what happened after that.
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Dat smell. McDonald's all smell the same because of consistency. What you should want is to avoid any McDonald's that does not smell the same as all the rest. They are doing things wrong.
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This is highly localized. It depends on the laws of your country, state, county and maybe even your town. You also likely will have to get some sort of permit to work from your school. Start with the resources in your school.
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Somewhat yes, but mostly no. Great answer right? First my digression - I currently work in Quality Assurance for a moderately sized consumer-level technology repair company that is a white label partner for many companies. Only one of our "tenants" receives anything approaching actual quality control and it is only moderately well executed overall. I firmly believe that quality control is most overlooked aspect of all companies - whether they provide a product or a service - and my experience at McDonald's is part of what cemented this idea for me. McDonald's franchises do get regular inspections - usually in the form of a twice-annually brief review and an annual in depth review. These reviews are called SOR - Short Operations Review - and FOR - Full Operations Review. The priorities of McDonald's on a daily basis are QSC&V Quality - Service - Cleanliness - Value. Along with these are procedures and policies (which I discussed in depth in my blog) which McDonald's corporate spends a tidy sum every year ensuring are optimal for cost- and time-efficiency and QSC&V. While these are overall demanding evaluations and many criteria are evaluated to determine whether or not a particular store is achieving success, on the whole they are entirely planned for which is how they fail. For 10 months and 2 weeks of the year, a store's maintenance and cleanliness may or may not be addressed thoroughly based on the Owner/Operator and Store Management's attention to detail, as well as their willingness to utilize labor hours to get these things done. Most Owner/Operators do *not* spend a large amount of money making sure that the detail work is done regularly (things like pulling grills out weekly and scrubbing the walls behind, or dumping every product off every shelf and getting the shelves scrubbed clean and sanitized monthly). For the remaining 1 month, 2 weeks of the year, in the week prior to a *planned* (these are scheduled!) SOR or the 2 weeks leading to a *planned* FOR, a store might spend 150% their normal labor attempting to clean every single detail of every single corner of the store. We're talking about cleaning out the muck in the gaskets around the walk-in cooler/freezer doors, cleaning every ceiling-light screen, scraping old gum off the sidewalks, detail cleaning the trash bin (not the garbage cans inside. The Dumpster) inside and out. Then, the day of the review, you might have 300% normal labor (3x) so that every single order is within time requirements and you can have every stage of production and presentation with only a single person on it, so not a single policy or procedure is missed (it's easier to remember your requirements exactly for 1 task than if you have several tasks, right?). For one of the stores that the Owner/Operator I worked for, when we had a review on that day, no crew members worked that store during that shift. All the management teams from the other stores were brought in, with the other stores running under "Team Leader" crew for the duration, and only managers were working the crew positions, to improve performance on the reviews. So, because the reviews are scheduled, not only do they present an entirely false view of the store's condition (within 2 weeks it will be filthy again and none of the detail work will get done until 3 weeks before the next review) but also of the store's service levels (there will never be that many people working at once again until the next review). As a caveat I have no real experience with, but some knowledge of, stores near Corporate (Chicagoland, IL) *do* get much more frequent visits from the corporate office and have more regular oversight.
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That situation has almost nothing to do with the environment of it being a McDonald's. That could be anywhere that stupid people involved.
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That depends on far too many factors for me to go into. I'm sorry - call corporate and find out!
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You should go talk to the store manager and say something like, "Why are you holding my check? I have never quit. Not only MUST you provide me my paycheck in a timely manner, but you can't accept my resignation from someone else". Then hash it out like grown-ups.
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Rarely, unless you're a rockstar. You go where you are needed for the business.
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Well, the "prep person" generally has the role of being sure all the consumables that are prepared on site are ready for the day. Slice tomatoes, prep leaf lettuce, prep cheeses and sauces for tempering, all the made-on-site items like parfaits and pies/cookies. After that, if you're not tied to a specific station after prep is complete, then that role is usually a "floater" role - you do what needs done wherever.
Discuss with your manager the actual responsibilities and try to get them to explain the expectations for you.
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Every part of every process - from hiring, to inventory management, to basic training, the order in which food is prepared, the way in which orders are taken, the schedule of cleaning the outdoor property and bathrooms, everything - is intended to be identical in every McDonald's. The only real differences are some menu offerings, decoration, and hours of operation.
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I'm not the guy to ask this, but I'll speculate.
It's probably entirely legal, announced or otherwise. You should probably change somewhere with an expectation of privacy. This generally means it does not have open access (closing, locking doors), and you have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
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Wow, sounds like a very specific questions regarding a specific situation. I'd say this: You can always call the police to settle a dispute between citizens, no matter the environment - work, home, in public, school, et cetera.
If you're ever assaulted (this definition changes based on the state, locality and municipality you're in) or battered (again, definition depends on locality), I'd say call the police immediately.
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Wow. I hope you made it through Thanksgiving alright. I would have no idea who you would contact, I believe those donations are collected quarterly or so by a third party company.
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Wow this is a great question, actually. There should be room to move freely and manipulate the boxes in the area - so they must be at least the width of the widest commonly used box, with clearance for arms (from an OSHA/ergonomics standpoint). If you have concerns about this, you should contact your local OSHA office and/or local health department (which probably also has local regulations on this)
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PROBABLY, BUT MAYBE NOT. IT DEPENDS ON HOW MUCH OF A STICKLER TO RULES AND REGULATIONS THEY ARE.
REALLY, ITS A BIG DEAL TO WEAR NON-SLIP SHOES IN A WORK ENVIRONMENT LIKE MCDONALD'S AND EVEN WITH THEM YOU CAN GET DISASTROUSLY HURT BY A SLIP AND FALL.
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There should be a sign on the front of the pump station. However, we did not have McCafe when I worked for McDonald's - the Iced Coffee was a relatively new addition at that time.
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I think a manager should only be in the back booth if there is no one else able to handle the position well. In general, a manager should be mobile and crew should be stationary. If there is something only you as a manager can do, and you're tired to order taking and cash handling, then you cannot do it without interrupting the customer traffic flow.
I would suggest talking to your GM about training crew members to become Aces on the drive-thru so that you, as a trained manager, can be more available to help in areas that need your experience and training more than back booth. Demonstrate your ability to train those people, demonstrate your willingness to do more and handle more tasks, and most importantly openly communicate.
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Good question. If I recall correctly, 6 months.
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This depends greatly on market, experience, cost of living, and what both the manager and their employer believe they are worth. Generally mid 30s to high 50s.
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Your chances probably are not terrible, depending on how long ago this was. I hope you've resolved your responsibility issues.
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I'm answering your second question first.
I have kanji (Japanese pictograms/letters) tattooed on my neck. I also have wrist and forearm tattoos. Tattoos are very private and unless they're obscene or something, there should never, ever in my opinion be an issue with them. Not everyone agrees however.
As far as how someone dresses? Well, that somewhat depends. It's a low-income job that most people take because there's nothing else they qualify for. So you have to take that into consideration. However, if someone's clothing is not nice it can still be clean and appropriate (pants, not shorts, plain shirt or button down or polo, not a band T-shirt, etc.), you can be well groomed and have good hygiene.
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I was working only about 44 hours weekly. My pay was not great, but better than others.
The pay rate has so many influencing factors, however, that I wouldn't venture to guess.
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Call her?
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Like all things, you get out of the experience what you put into it.
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It's possible but Owner/Operators are usually really tightly knit. I myself was blacklisted after I left my position.
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