Tehshigelisok
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 10, 2014
I work at a McDonald's, but I'm mostly in the kitchen so I don't often interact with customers unless it's late at night and I have more freedom to move around the store.
The story that's probably the biggest for me. I was in the back doing dishes since it was a slow night shift. Co-worker J was the only one in the kitchen, and one of the managers, L, was working too. J and L are almost always on shifts together, and they seem to be fairly close friends. J is a large, rough-looking guy with a deep voice, but he's also polite and friendly. L is very petite, bubbly, and silly, but not ditzy — she takes a lot of pride in her job, and often gets upset when the other managers cut corners or fail to do something.
Anyway, from what I remember, the customer wanted a Quarter Pounder fresh off the grill, and both L (who had gone on cash to ring them up) and J informed her that this would take about three minutes, then asked if he would like a Big Mac instead since it would be about the same price and take less time to make fresh (Quarter Pounder patties take about three minutes to cook, and the "regular" patties for the Big Mac and all other burgers take only 40 seconds). But they insisted on their fresh Quarter Pounder in spite of the wait. I put a fresh patty on the grill and it literally went straight from the grill to the burger box.
A couple hours later, the customer came back. The store was dead, so I followed the manager to the counter because I wanted to see if it was something I did. He claimed that, among other things, J had made fun of his wife for being fat and said she had eaten enough Quarter Pounders (not true; J wouldn't say anything like that), and in addition, the burger they got was horribly undercooked. (They threw it out and I inspected it. It certainly was not undercooked.) He also said "so is it NORMAL for you to have an empty paper towel holder next to the hand dryer? I stood there for 5 minutes, spinning the towel holder handle like an idiot." Then he launched into a complaint about "all the flies on the building" (every building in town is covered in fish flies in the summer, and there's nothing any of us can do about it) and "all the other flies buzzing around" (even a clean store will have flies buzzing around in the summer).
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Another time, we got a new worker at McDonald's, whom I'll refer to A. S. ("S" for "Slacker"). New workers usually start off at grill, so I was put on table (meaning I was assembling sandwiches) while another worker, A. R., trained him at grill. Keep in mind that A. R. is deaf, but literally everyone else seems okay with this, and all are willing to work with his disability. (A. R.'s sister and mother both work at the store as well; in fact, his mother is a shift manager.) Anyway, when he was being trained, it seemed that A. S. didn't really get what A. R. was explaining to him in what seemed to me like very straightforward nonverbal communication (grill is really simple: you just have to have it set to whatever meat you're cooking on it, and cook no more than the maximum amount that's on a chart. If a tray of meat is emptied, cook a new one.)
A. S. did start working on grill whenever I wasn't, but I had noticed that he had a tendency to just stand around and do nothing when it was slow. Now, I had already figured out that if it's slow, you can find something else to do — clean up, check stock, do dishes, whatever; there's even a list by grill — but A. S. never seemed to get it. He was always standing around. Nearly every other manager had warned him about it, and even I would often say "A. S., go find something to do" or outright GIVE him something to do while I found someting else.
One time I needed a ride home so I asked A. S. to drive me home. I live on a residential road two miles off the main drag, and nearly all of that is narrow roads where you'd be crazy to drive faster than 30. He drove 60 all the way to my house.
Anyway, A. S. turned in his two weeks' notice about a month ago now. During his last week, I was doing dishes and he was on grill. I hear one of our managers — a very loud older woman — yelling his name over and over. After a few minutes, I get called back into grill because A. S. has been sent home. Apparently he hated Loud Manager and was blatantly refusing instructions to put down more meat, so I had to catch things up for him. The next day, I was off, and he was working grill. I heard a day later that he got sent home AGAIN because he was apparently putting his fingers in his mouth and claiming a toothache.
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Also, my sister worked at a Rite Aid for about three years. She told me once that a customer came in reeking of pot (apparently not a rare occurrence in Flint), when an old lady calmly walked over and sprayed him point-blank with perfume.
The story that's probably the biggest for me. I was in the back doing dishes since it was a slow night shift. Co-worker J was the only one in the kitchen, and one of the managers, L, was working too. J and L are almost always on shifts together, and they seem to be fairly close friends. J is a large, rough-looking guy with a deep voice, but he's also polite and friendly. L is very petite, bubbly, and silly, but not ditzy — she takes a lot of pride in her job, and often gets upset when the other managers cut corners or fail to do something.
Anyway, from what I remember, the customer wanted a Quarter Pounder fresh off the grill, and both L (who had gone on cash to ring them up) and J informed her that this would take about three minutes, then asked if he would like a Big Mac instead since it would be about the same price and take less time to make fresh (Quarter Pounder patties take about three minutes to cook, and the "regular" patties for the Big Mac and all other burgers take only 40 seconds). But they insisted on their fresh Quarter Pounder in spite of the wait. I put a fresh patty on the grill and it literally went straight from the grill to the burger box.
A couple hours later, the customer came back. The store was dead, so I followed the manager to the counter because I wanted to see if it was something I did. He claimed that, among other things, J had made fun of his wife for being fat and said she had eaten enough Quarter Pounders (not true; J wouldn't say anything like that), and in addition, the burger they got was horribly undercooked. (They threw it out and I inspected it. It certainly was not undercooked.) He also said "so is it NORMAL for you to have an empty paper towel holder next to the hand dryer? I stood there for 5 minutes, spinning the towel holder handle like an idiot." Then he launched into a complaint about "all the flies on the building" (every building in town is covered in fish flies in the summer, and there's nothing any of us can do about it) and "all the other flies buzzing around" (even a clean store will have flies buzzing around in the summer).
====
Another time, we got a new worker at McDonald's, whom I'll refer to A. S. ("S" for "Slacker"). New workers usually start off at grill, so I was put on table (meaning I was assembling sandwiches) while another worker, A. R., trained him at grill. Keep in mind that A. R. is deaf, but literally everyone else seems okay with this, and all are willing to work with his disability. (A. R.'s sister and mother both work at the store as well; in fact, his mother is a shift manager.) Anyway, when he was being trained, it seemed that A. S. didn't really get what A. R. was explaining to him in what seemed to me like very straightforward nonverbal communication (grill is really simple: you just have to have it set to whatever meat you're cooking on it, and cook no more than the maximum amount that's on a chart. If a tray of meat is emptied, cook a new one.)
A. S. did start working on grill whenever I wasn't, but I had noticed that he had a tendency to just stand around and do nothing when it was slow. Now, I had already figured out that if it's slow, you can find something else to do — clean up, check stock, do dishes, whatever; there's even a list by grill — but A. S. never seemed to get it. He was always standing around. Nearly every other manager had warned him about it, and even I would often say "A. S., go find something to do" or outright GIVE him something to do while I found someting else.
One time I needed a ride home so I asked A. S. to drive me home. I live on a residential road two miles off the main drag, and nearly all of that is narrow roads where you'd be crazy to drive faster than 30. He drove 60 all the way to my house.
Anyway, A. S. turned in his two weeks' notice about a month ago now. During his last week, I was doing dishes and he was on grill. I hear one of our managers — a very loud older woman — yelling his name over and over. After a few minutes, I get called back into grill because A. S. has been sent home. Apparently he hated Loud Manager and was blatantly refusing instructions to put down more meat, so I had to catch things up for him. The next day, I was off, and he was working grill. I heard a day later that he got sent home AGAIN because he was apparently putting his fingers in his mouth and claiming a toothache.
====
Also, my sister worked at a Rite Aid for about three years. She told me once that a customer came in reeking of pot (apparently not a rare occurrence in Flint), when an old lady calmly walked over and sprayed him point-blank with perfume.
