
What I learned working at McDonalds for 4 years - stillsut
https://medium.com/@katenorquay/what-i-learned-from-4-years-working-at-mcdonalds-f278ad27faee
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loxxed
I worked a lot of crappy jobs to fund my studies - working places that treated
their employees like cheap fodder, only caring they showed up on time and
moved A to B as fast as possible. You'd show up for summer shift one year to
return the next to find your co-workers who'd been doing the exact same thing
every day while you'd been gone with no suggestion of training or boosting
their skills. McDonalds was the one place that I actually saw investing in
their staff - training and promoting and pushing those they saw capable of
going on the management track - even if they didn't have any qualifications
that would put them on that path elsewhere. One guy I know from those days now
has his own home and car and lives quite comfortably, having taken that
training and transitioned into another business organisation. Certainly not
something that would have happened if he'd taken the same minimum wage job
down the road at the fancy restaurant.

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orionblastar
When I was going to college I worked at McDonald's part time. I lasted maybe a
few months and they hired me for the Christmas season and promised they'd keep
me on after it, but let me go anyway.

I worked at McDonald's for Christmas and Thanksgiving, I worked for breakfast
and lunch. I worked all of the stations for cooking food as I waited for
coworkers to be woken up by an assistant manager who drove to their addresses
and rang their doorbells because maybe didn't show up for work.

I tried to show up early for work, used a bus, lived in an apartment with two
friends from high school. Along the way there was a children's hospital and
one day a helicopter landed in the street and delayed the bus 15 minutes and I
was late and got chewed out that I should have planned for the helicopter and
gotten out 15 minutes earlier to catch an earlier bus.

I was studying Calc II and Chemistry at the time and kept my backpack with me
with a change of shirt so I could take the bus to my classes after my shift
was over. I was picked on for being in college by other coworkers and
management. But I did my job, even cleaning rest rooms and the parking lot.

I feel empathy for people who work at McDonald's I got an Aunt who works for
them and can't find a job elsewhere, and most of what she does is clean the
tables after someone is finished eating.

I'm the sort of type of employee that they use temporarily because I am
qualified for other work due to my college degrees. I hoped I'd have a job for
four years, but it didn't work out that way. It would have paid the 1/3rd of
the rent and kept me in college. But I lost the job at McDonald's and Captain
D's as well, and after not finding a job moved back with my parents and
attended a community college near their house.

I see fast food as a service industry, and people who work it serve the
community. My own son taught me that, so we must never look down on them.
McDonald's hires a lot of diverse people as well and other companies need to
learn from that.

~~~
Pyxl101
McDonalds provides value. They provide clean, safe, consistent food that I can
rely on if I'm hungry and don't have other options I prefer anywhere in the
world.

I think people also underestimate the quality and precision of McD cooking.
They are not aiming for high quality like a fine restaurant, but they
precisely hit the quality that they're aiming for. A well run McD probably has
more consistency than a Michelin star restaurant. McD fresh ingredients tend
to be fresher than other restaurants - for example, if I pick up one of their
salads, they have among the freshest lettuce of anywhere. And it's _always_ in
good condition. From what I understand, even flash frozen ingredients like
their beef are typically 2-3 weeks from farm to store.

Other restaurants, even ones that are nominally more "authentic" and "local"
etc. etc., screw this up and give me wilted lettuce. Maybe McD is using some
kind of industrial food science to achieve this, but that doesn't matter to me
- what matters to me is that I get to eat perfect fresh lettuce and
vegetables. When I'm in a hurry and just feel like having some extra basic
foliage or a bit of filling protein, McD delivers.

~~~
room271
You have to balance the value (which I think to be honest you overstate - how
hard is it really to find somewhere with safe and clean food that you like)
with the costs. On the latter, I am mostly thinking of the health effects of
their food.

~~~
dozzie
> how hard is it really to find somewhere with safe and clean food that you
> like

In India, Egypt, or Thailand? Where bacterial flora and local food are so
different from what Europeans and Americans are used to that you end up
sitting on toilet for first three weeks of stay?

~~~
taurath
Big chain stores are a _HUGE_ upgrade in cleanliness and food preparation
practices (as well as exterior cleanliness) compared to "home-grown"
restaurants and food stalls. There are no health inspectors - the companies
policies are sometimes the best chance to ensure you're getting uncontaminated
food.

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vijayr
The most important takeaway from the article is this

 _I stopped equating dislike for big shitty companies with dislike for their
foot soldiers._

I wish more people felt the same. Developers have more job options in general
than people in other fields, but they also end up working for unsavory
companies sometimes because of circumstances. It must be much harder for
people in retail, fast food, warehouses etc :(

A little empathy goes a long way.

