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.
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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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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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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Certified Nurse Aide
Are there social cliques (like "cool kids") in old folks homes?
Air Traffic Controller
When would you order fighter jets to be scrambled?
Claims Adjuster
What happens when NEITHER driver is at fault?
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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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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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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