As much as I hate vegetating in the callcenter, a 2 month stint in McDonalds back when I was 16/17 was definitely the worst working experience of my life. Firstly, there was the general work that was required such as;
Cleaning up tables after the usual crowd of 13 year olds decide to play a game of mess **** the **** up
Going from the roasting heat of standing over the fryer vats to heading up to the subzero freezer rooms
The constant burns you would receive from the fry baskets
Having to keep a straight face when dealing with customers who order extra large meals along with a diet coke (this happens far more often than you can imagine)
Having to deal with members of a certain nomadic Irish community who would order food - eat it all, then return to the counter screaming and shouting about getting given the wrong food, and demand a refund/more food.
Having to kick out drunks who insisted on smoking inside
..etc etc.
But the worst part of it was the crowd I worked in. Save for one or two sound chaps, the staff were the biggest contributors to me knuckling the **** down and getting a decent leaving cert after my stint there. A few select stories;
One man with very poor English demanding that instead of "Staff", we were called "The A-Team". There is nothing less enjoyable than associating the A-Team with cooking fries for around €6 an hour.
A spitter. No, not the good-but-could-be-better kind. A kid who dropped out of school for the McDonalds lifestyle - obviously hated it, and felt the need to express this by spitting in burgers. Thankfully he was ****ed out shortly after we copped on to him.
An overweight boss who insisted on eating everything in sight in the Kitchen. Cook up 18 Nuggets to fill 3 orders, and you'd be lucky to have enough left for one after this prick.
The severe lack of employee's washing their hands.
Children's allowance day - most depressing days I've had in there. Full families constantly piled in to load themselves and their kids with that crap we called food with their welfare money.
The McD 4 Life patrol - those who believe that McDonalds is the 4 Seasons of dining experiences, and is very srs business. Got a meeting off one of these blokes before - worked for 6 hours without a break due to understaffing, was starving myself so munched down a chicken nugget while on the floor. I then had a 15 minute meeting to explain the consequences of the business losing money from me eating a chicken nugget. I offered them the 20c but this didnt help my case
The above again - was feeling a bit too generous with the dressing and sauces on burgers one day. Official meeting with 2 of the bosses in there, informed I am damaging the company with excessive costs in dressing. Was warned that this would be taken into account for my 3-monthly performance review, and that "my future with the McDonalds franchise looks grim".
A man, who did nothing but eat all the chicken. Seriously. I don't know how he fit it all into him. Worked in the kitchen, and literally deepthroated the **** down within seconds whenever the boss left the floor. His very poor English, cookie monster noises, and pride in doing this made it the only thing worth going to work for. "FRIEND, LOOK THE CHICKEN OM NOM NOM".
A bit of an odd case bloke who was caught having a toss in the store room one day - by staff thankfully, not a customer. This is the source of one of the only good employee references this McDonald's establishment has ever given one of the staff - the girl who walked in on him threatened to sue the company for harassment if one wasn't given.
Likewise, the fat boss mentioned previously recently had to make an out of court settlement on a sexual harassment suit due to his own stupidity. This is the 2nd he has had legal action taken against him due to reports of sexual harassment.
Oh, and walking out of there smelling like the place. Nothing worse than going directly from McDonalds to the pub, smelling like burgers and chicken nuggets. The women do love the pants though.
So, what has been your worst working experience ever?
inb4 I'd take any job like that now & professional AH proof reader.
