The Clown™ celebrates its 50th Anniversary today. Well, not the clown himself (he’s only 42), but it was 50 years ago that Ray Kroc opened up the first McDonald’s in Des Plaines, Illinois.
I was one of the troops from 1981-1986 (along with Ric the Schmuck). The Mrs. did her tour of duty just a few years ago. To mangle Dickens: “It was the best of jobs. It was the worst of jobs.” Everyone should be required to work there. Seriously.
For one thing, there is nothing that will teach you coping skills like having to run grill by yourself during a bus. Any organizational abilities I have came from doing a thousand things at once whilst wearing orange-brown pajamas and a paper hat.
For another, there is nothing that will make you appreciate your current job like a few years of being treated (and paid) like the lowest life form in the universe and being reminded every single day that there are a million teenagers ready to take your place.
Somehow I missed that experience. My frat house neighbor at Arizona worked the swing shift for Jack, though. He used to get home stinking of grease (this was 1968-1969, so that may have been the beef-fat era).
Thing is, at today’s McD’s they don’t have the urgency that we used to have. I doubt that if a bus (or three) full of kids pulled up that they’d even get remotely concerned, or attempt to hurry the hell up.
Two frickin windows is all they use nowadays. Microwave ovens!
Young pups couldn’t handle a 12-12-6 turn/lay sequence to save their lives.
We could do it with two people. For hours………………..
I did meet some lifelong friends while working there, though. (Solly doesn’t count. We knew each other before the Clown Experience) Mostly fond memories for me.
(heh heh heh food fights with the Mac Souce dispensers, throwing creamers at the wall to make’em splat, watch out for whoever has the hose at the sink, stickin’ an empty beer can in Ronalds hand…)
i didn’t do Mcds, but I did a stint at BK. Exactly like your job only different colors…lol
I almost fainted the first time I saw them use a microwave. Sacrilege!
i worked at the Golden Arches, once long ago. this is so true:
“For one thing, there is nothing that will teach you coping skills like having to run grill by yourself during a bus. Any organizational abilities I have came from doing a thousand things at once whilst wearing orange-brown pajamas and a paper hat.”
…except my uniform was a teal blue polo and a snappy/sporty sun visor type thing had replaced the paper hat.
i worked drive-thru. Welcome to McDonald’s, may I take your order please?
I did my time at BK. From it, I got (a) an appreciation of what assholes some customers could be, and a resolve not to be of that number, (b) an appreciation of what was involved in the job, and both a tolerance for its stresses and an utter lack of patience for bad service, and (c) a spiffy set of “Empire Strikes Back” glasses for having the highest register count all week, which glasses are ferreted away somewhere to help pay for my daughter’s college education …
I haven’t been to McD’s in a long time but last time I remember I still liked their french fries. 🙂
Why hasn’t anyone made a “would you like fries with that joke”? Are we that vein!!
ok, fine. Maybe it’s cause I never worked at Mc’ds, that I find those jokes funny.
I did do my stint as pizza delivery boy extrodinare though…