Golden arches sell your fries...

Volly from This is my secret hiding place has remarked: "I'd love to hear some "inside" stories about how they run things (at McDonald's). One can only imagine!" This was in the comments field of one of her recent posts, and I could respond there, but this is Day Seventeen of NaBloPoMo for me, so I'm not using up a post-sized comment on someone else's blog. Sorry, Volly, you'll have to read it here, but thanks for the post topic...

In keeping with this month's emerging theme of unpleasant recollections of Februarys past, I was a McDonald's employee for five miserable months a very long time ago. Never mind how long, pilgrim, suffice it to say we didn't sell Happy Meals. A year or so after my time of trial and tribulation, a friend of a nemesis wrote a freelance undercover report of what it was like working at McDonald's for Monday Magazine, Victoria's local indie weekly news magazine. She described the pecking order of McDonald's employees as being something like a big Mac: the sesame seeds on top, the middle meat part and the heel of the bun. Guess in which category I would fall. Just guess. (Oh yes, and McDonald's wrote the magazine a pretty aggrieved letter about the friendly and family atmosphere of its working environment, and the values instilled in its employees.)

I was seventeen, and when you're seventeen, you're trying to jump start your life, because you think it's never going to begin and everything is passing you by. I got in a panic because I was in my graduating year and still didn't have a "real" job, outside of babysitting. I applied to McDonald's and Dairy Queen, and the McDonald's offer came through first. I often wonder if things would have been different if I'd gone for Dairy Queen which was in my neighbourhood and run by women with a female staff.

Perhaps not. I'm not sales or cashier material. In those days, cash registers didn't figure out everything for you, and we had to tote the figures up by hand. I'm not quick at calculations, nor at giving change. At one point, I was accused of stealing because of discrepancies in my cash drawer. We were coached to sell to every customer: "How about some fries with that order? Care for a drink?" I found this embarrassing and phony. The irritation in the customer's voices when you tried to sell something else was palpable.

Here's a brief list of what made five months at McDonald's among the most unpleasant of my life:

1. When the restaurant was quiet, we were expected to look busy, wiping down spotless counters, restocking stocked supplies.

2. Crew meetings, an artificial gathering of pep talks and group chants convened half an hour before the restaurant opened, were mandatory. It didn't matter that they were scheduled before the buses ran and I had difficulty getting in. It didn't matter that they were a total waste of time. A schoolmate of the Resident Fan Boy was fired for failing to turn up at a crew meeting. He had broken his leg. His furious parents had him reinstated before he quit. (He's a doctor now.)

3. It was a largely male crew. The guys got the coveted grill positions. Ambitious girls might get "shakes and fries". The rest of us were at the tills, and if we were really lowest of the low, sent out for "Lot and Lobby". I got sent out for "Lot and Lobby" a lot.

4. If you fit in well with a high school mentality, that is, attractive, and good at sports, you tended to fit in well at McDonald's. You might be surprised to learn that this wasn't me. (Oh, go on, pretend.) Someone sidled up to me at some point and told me the managers were looking for ways to fire me because I was too "intellectual". Considering the state of my intellect when I was seventeen, this is a little hard to fathom. On the other hand, you might like to have taken a look at my managers. Well, no, you wouldn't...

5. Harassment and embarrassment were daily tools of management. I was often spoken of, in disparaging terms, in the third person while I was sitting there in the crew room. The grill guys thought it was hilarious to come order at my till on their time off, requesting a "grill order" (that is, an order with changes to it) of "Fillet O' Fish, hold the ketchup". I'd call the order back, and the derisive shout would ring throughout the restaurant. "There is no ketchup on the Fillet!" Roars of laughter. Oh, stupid me. The girls were routinely critiqued on their attractiveness, or in my case, lack thereof.

6. I was constantly being taken aside and criticized for clocking out on time. Yes, on time. We were expected to show up early for shifts and clock out at least five minutes late to show our eagerness and enthusiasm.

I could go on, but we've had enough, hadn't we? Why did I hang on for five months? Because it was bloody McDonald's, that's why and I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting any better at it. Eventually I got mononucleosis, as did a couple other crew members. I'm pretty sure I picked it up at the Golden Arches.

I've heard many people say that McDonald's teaches work ethic, salesmanship, and team work. I learned all about humiliation and pecking orders, but you can learn that just as effectively at high school. I haven't set foot in the place since, which is probably the best thing I ever got out of it.