McWork Stories

Easter 2014, these 2 girls came in, obviously extremely stoned, but they were trying to hide it. They order, barely keeping it together, and as one of the girl pulls out her cash to order, her baggie of weed falls out onto the counter. She tries to subtly scoop it up, I just remained silent. To this day I kick myself for not making a "Sorry, we don't take that kind of green" joke.

I didn't realize I had a reputation.

I did.

Luckily the manager thought it was hilarious, I was great at keeping my tongue in check around the public, and he thought the sudden change when the public was out of earshot was hilarious.

Every January we had performance evaluations that determined how our pay rate changed. The highest rating earned you a massive $0.25 an hour wage increase. Second highest, which was "Good", was like a $0.15 an hour increase.

Coworker B and I, who were basically the only reason the store functioned at night (Tooting my own horn here: *TOOT* *TOOT*) both got the highest rating (and I believe we were the only ones to do so). The next day, we had a slow day and were just talking when Coworker A mentions that he only got a Good rating and he bets that no one gets the highest rating because they don't want to spend the money on raises. Coworker B and I just give each other the exact same knowing look, and then half-heartedly agree.

Our store was right at major intersection, and also the only intersection that accessed the High School without threading through like 5 residential neighborhoods. So the WBC setup camp at that intersection, and after about 15 minutes of like no traffic, realized they had the wrong spot and went back to Topeka.

It was a Monday.

I said I'd think about and gave my notice a few days later.

The Night from HELL

We're fine with sports teams. IF they call ahead and let us know. That way we can have staff on hand to handle the load. This time, it was completely unexpected, and during a huge rush. It can't get any worse, right?

All 4 employees are trying to keep stuff moving, while the manager is frantically trying to call backup, getting needed stock out, and whatever else needs doing. So, during this time, our the fryer we fry all of our Potato products in completely dies. No alarms, nothing. Display just goes blank and the thing just shuts down. We left the 4 baskets in the fryer in there until they looked ready (We were VERY good at telling when fries were done) and hoped to god those 4 baskets would fill the orders we had. We may have underfilled those orders a little, but hey, everyone who ordered fries got some.

I seriously don't know what they thought yelling would change. Just the torrent of screaming customers because we couldn't serve 1 item was horrible.

The closing manager finally got hold of SOMEONE. He woke the GM up, and the GM and his wife come to the war zone. The GM is dressed in a t-shirt and pajama bottoms, and his wife just stays in the car. He decides that since the fish fryers are fine, we'll just use those. He got the fry problem sorted, helped with some orders, then went back home.

The fact that we had absolutely no complaints about those fries astounds me.

People would complain about perfectly prepared fries! We'd pull a batch out, salt 'em, and give them to the customer about a minute after they leave the fryer and still had a customer complain they were too cold. They demanded a new order of Large Fries, but oddly enough the order that was horribly cold was good enough to be kept. They left after the Manager made it clear that they would only get a fresh order if the handed in the "bad" ones.

But yeah, these fries were like a dark yellow and smelled like fish, and NO ONE complained. I'm still amazed we got away with that part.

There is a right and wrong way to disassemble the Ice Cream/Shake Machine for weekly maintenance. The manager was so frazzled he switched some steps around. Unfortunately they were fairly major steps. The machine just launched all the ice cream mix remaining in the first tank over anything within about 8 feet. Including the manager. Wellp, lesson learned. Next tank will go better....

It didn't.

At this point, we're all so fried, the 4 of us (The other service member was lucky and got to leave at close. Just me, the manager, and 2 grill workers) just stared at it for like a minute before we all just started laughing like maniacs. Because of course that happened. Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

After doing a half-assed cleaning of that (Did the job proper the next day by cleaning the floor/wall/ceiling behind the machine) we finally got out of there.

I still have nightmares about that night.
I still have nightmares about working at McDonalds in general, but mainly that night.

I was working the Drive-Thru Lane 2/Cashier (Whee, taking orders over the headset while also cashing out orders! I made the mistake of being competent there, and almost always ended up being put there.) when a customer pulls back around to my window and tells me theres a guy rolling around in the grass by our parking lot, and that she think he needs help. I immediately call the manager about it, and he goes out and checks on the guy. Now, this manager is like 6'5" and looks like the stereotypical gang member, but he is one of the nicest guys I've ever met. He finds the drunk guy steadying himself on a tiny-ass tree, trying to cross 6 lanes of traffic, without any attempt to go to the light controlled crosswalk, or even bothering to check if there are cars coming. The manager sees this, and yanks the guy out of the road back onto the grass and keeps him from becoming a red smear, but this guy is so out of it, he thinks he's being mugged. He starts yelling "TAKE MY WALLET! DON'T HURT ME!" The manager manages to calm him down, convince him he's not being mugged, and brings him inside for a nice glass of water. Cops get called, and our friend spends a night in the drunk tank or something.

Next night I'm at front counter when the same guy comes back in. The Manager recognizes him immediately, and asks if he's feeling better today. The guy is completely confused, it's obvious he has no memory of the previous night. He orders his meal, gets his food, and sits down.

I'll never forget him staggering back up to the counter about 30 minutes later, $20 bill in hand, and drunkenly slurring out "What do I owe ya?" It took a bit of time, but I eventually convinced him he hadn't placed a new order, and that he didn't owe any more for the previous one. He seemed satisfied with that answer, went back to his booth, and passed out. We had to call the cops again.

We had 2 regulars who came in with their laptops almost every day. They weren't together or anything, just both had similar routines and were frequently in the lobby at the same time. They'd both order something then go sit at their respective table (I still remember which table each one sat at) and work off the free Wi-Fi for a few hours before going home.

Regular A (RA) was an older lady like in her 50s, who I realized looked like the CEO of GM when that giant recall thing hit because she looked just like picture of the CEO on the front page, was oddly picky and annoying. She usually got a cookie, and was very specific about which one she wanted. There were other things, but that one struck me as the weirdest, mainly because she would only tell if she didn't want the one you had grabbed.

Regular B (RB) was an older man in his 70s who was always extremely friendly to everyone, even offering to help the staff clean up messes in the lobby he wasn't involved with, just a nice, soft spoken guy.

Well one day, RA and RB are both at their favorite tables, when RB starts cursing under his breath. RA finds the manager, and mentions the cursing to him. They are the only 2 people in the lobby at this time, but RA is technically correct, he shouldn't be doing that. The manager goes over to talk with RB, who reveals he has tourettes, and wasn't even aware he was doing it. He apologizes, and decides to leave, even though he wasn't asked to. Manager goes back behind the counter, we're all working on being ready for closing in a few hours, and RB stops by the counter to apologize again on his way out the door. At this point, RA comes from wherever she had been lurking after reporting him, and starts screaming at him. Full on screaming about stuff that wasn't even related to the minor incident. RB again apologizes, and the manager kicks RA out for throwing her tantrum.

RB stayed away for a few days, but eventually gets back to his routine.

RA started frequenting the store the Manager's brother works at, and never returned.