My experience at McDonald's...

This is the most passionate thread I've ever made, and it deserves to be here.

I'm going to tell you about my experience at McDonald's, and why I'm not lovin' it.

Before I tell my experience, I need to say a few things first. First off, this is gonna be long. I'll have a summary at the bottom of the post. If any of you work at McDonalds, and/or feel any offense to me saying anything bad about the place, you should not read this. If you decide to read this, I apologize in advance, but it's your fault for reading on.

My experience at McDonald's was one I never want to experience again. I'm quitting my job there soon. (I put my 2-week notice in on on Monday.) I worked there for 3 years, and each year was worse and worse. When I first got the job there, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I was placed on the grill, which has been my favorite place since I started. It was easy to me. I did this for about 4 months, then I wasn't scheduled for a month. Aparently, "my name was lost in a manager switch".

When I got back working there again, they taught me front counter, which is where my McDonald's experience went downhill. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be unless we got a bus, or it was the breakfast rush.

Breakfast was worse, because it happens every day. Customers want to storm us 10 minutes before we switch over to lunch food, causing our lobbys to be full, and our drive-thru lines to wrap around the building. We're only human, and usually understaffed during breakfast rushes. Then customers want to complain and get mad when they can't get their precious little Egg McMuffin, or Sausage Biscuit. Breakfast there is good and all, but it's not good enough to where you have to scream, yell, and insult the people who are making your food. For the record... that isn't a good idea. Since they're making your food, it would be wise to be nice to them because there's no telling what they'll do to your food. ( I won't say what I've done to angry customer's food. ) And I don't mean just regularly angry, I mean slamming the food on the counter, screaming so everybody in the store can hear you, and swearing left and right into the cashier's face angry. Come on now. That isn't right.

Depending on the manager running the place, your shift was either smooth, and the time flew by, or stressful with managers yelling at the employees and time stood still. Out of all the manger bosses I've had, I've had about 4 managers that I could work side by side with, 2 of those 4 I had respect for, and 1 of those 2 I actually liked and was happy to work with. THe worst manager was this 50 year old lady. (Darkfire knows who I'm talking about.) She made my shifts a living hell. I called in sick more times when she was working than any other manager. And she had the nerve to try and get smart with me even over the phone when I would call in sick. Talk about a witch.

After about a year working counter and grill alternately, I was taught how to work the back drive thru speaker, and my experience working there took nosedive. Customers in drive thru... I.. can't even come up with the right words to explain how frustrating they were. The most irritating part was this:

Kel: "May I take your order?"
Customer: "Just a second."

It doesn't seem like much, but it is very annoying. You pull up to the drive thru speaker, and just sit there and read the menu!? You can come inside and get as much time as you want to look at the menu. You can come inside and make a portrait of our friggin menu, but for god sakes, when you pull up to the drive thru speaker, be ready to place your order. I'm not going to go into FULL detail about how aggravating drive through customers are, I'll have about seven full posts back to back about it, but try to picture this: "Uh, gimme uhhhhhhhhhhh... I would like uhhhhhhhhhh... no wait, uhhhhhhh... how much does a large drink cost?" We don't usually know the cost of anything by itself, and would have to run and read the menu up front when they have a menu right in their face that they're too lazy to read. Anybody who asks for a drink light on the ice, is a fool. Our drink machine only understands no ice, and extra ice other than regular ice. Not only did I not like it, but they put me there nonstop for about 2 months, so I was completely drained of patience for counter customers, thanks to drive thru speaker. Bottom line: Drive thru is the worst place in the store to work.

Assembling sandwiches is walking a razor's edge. It could be the most fun part of working there, or even more frustrating than Drive thru, especially during rushes. If you're the type that likes a challenge, then you'd have fun trying to keep up with the pace, but if you're more laid back like I am, and care more about making the sandwich neatly and the right way, than getting it made fast, you had serious problems. A bad manager would increase the pressure tenfold. I have grey hairs to prove it.

Free food? That's a joke, right? There was no such thing as free food at my job. I know other places offer free food, but this is MY experience, and MY rant. You couldn't get free food, you couldn't drink any pop on the job, you could only drink water, you couldn't eat on the job either. If you were caught eating, you were sent home and wrote up about it. I would sneak and eat. I was never caught either.

I would get my paycheck every other thursday. Often, I would walk out of McDonald's, and ask myself out loud; "Is this really worth it? Is the sweat, grease, and stress worth this?" after a while, I finally said "no" and filled out my two week notice before going to work last monday.

I had been promoted to a Crew Trainer, but demoted myself because you get in more trouble if something goes wrong.

Summary: My job was cool at first, but it got lamer and lamer to the point now where I can't stand it anymore, and I'm leaving the place. McDonald's is corrupt in all kinds of ways you'll have to ask me about in PM's.

I had to get this off my chest. Before closing the thread or deleting it, mods, I think you should take a look at this. I'm done ranting.