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 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 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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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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Chick-fil-A General Manager
What's the back-story behind the cow mascot and eat-mor-chikin campaign?
Fashion Model
Do you feel objectified when you're standing around in skimpy outfits?
Border Patrol Agent
When you catch an illegal alien crossing the border, is he deported immediately?
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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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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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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