McKvetch
August 31, 2009Jon Brooks 1 Comment »
Rightly or wrongly, a job at McDonald’s is perceived to be one of the lowest rungs on the capitalist ladder—so much so that the term “McJob” came into prominence in the 1980s. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a McJob is “an unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects.”
I had to work for nine hours on July 4th this year and as a result, I missed seeing much of my family…(and) it turns out that in Texas, no employer is required to compensate employees with Holiday Pay…So basically, the owner of the store I work at stated that she offered other benefits which is why she doesn’t offer holiday pay. However, those benefits aren’t so great in my opinion.
1. Free uniforms. (Are you serious? All we get is one shirt, and we have to buy the pants and shoes ourselves….so no that’s not a benefit.)
2. Free meals during your shift. (This isn’t anything special, either. Let’s say I don’t want to eat fries. The policy is posted on the wall in the back and it states specifically that we may have any three menu items as long as the third item is a drink and ANY two food items as long as it doesn’t add up to 6.50….but when I tried to get a big mac and a sundae, I was told I couldn’t. Not really fair, eh?)
yeah that’s it. Seriously — how does that qualify as benefits?
On Monday, My store manager got a call from the bank that there was a counterfeit $100 bill in saturdays deposit. After she gave a call to the manager who closed that night … I am told that he said it came from MY drawer. I worked saturday and was off on monday,tuesday, and wednesday, and came in on thursday and have not yet seen my store manager.. They told me that she is going to make me pay it… we’re a 24/7 mcdonalds, my shifts range anywhere from 2-10 6-10 5-10 along those lines…well almost every night i work i am in grill and it takes its toll…tonight i worked 5-10 and my other grill people left at 7 so it was me from 7 to 10 by myself and if anyone does grill by thereselves they know why im complaining. between dropping food making food cleaning and everything you have absolutley no time to even rest for a second…i feel i had to rant about this because im exhausted and have never done grill by myself before today…I think an O/O is breaking the law…
…(the owner/operator) recently made a change to the T-Red policy…T-Red stands for “Total Reduction” and is caused when an employee takes the total and then removes an item, resulting in a smaller total… (The owner) has changed the definition of T-Red to mean ANY change in the order whether it’s been totaled or not… He has rigged the computer to track these “T-Reds” and he displays them publicly in the crew room for everyone to see. It’s a sham because even if a worker rings up 20 doubles he isnt losing any money because the worker fixes it right then and so the grill does not make them….His service crew are in constant fear of losing their jobs because he has told the managers to aggressively write up any employee that gets allot of these “T-Reds”. Today he fired a girl for this….Further, he is using this fabricated rule to create documentation with which he can conveniently fire anyone he wants because every crew person gets written up (two long time employees have been suspended for this that I know of and have confirmed) because it is the customers that change their order all the time and ultimatly they who create these new T-Reds….
I emailed McCorp but did so anonymously (I tried to call but they said that if its about a specific store they would pass it to the O/O so no help there)
My store charges for sauces if people want an insane amount… We’re only supposed to give two sauces for 10 piece nuggets and one sauce for 4 and 10. I have no problem giving an extra sauce or two if asked, but some people are nuts with what they want. Typical scene: EIGHT sauces for a ten piece. Do you baste your nuggets for crap’s sake? A woman today came through and got a 10 piece and two 6 piece Happy Meals, and tells me FOUR sweet n sour, FOUR honey mustard and FOUR bbq. Me: No freaking way, sweetheart. So, one of my managers has been treating me like hell lately. We used to get along really well, I don’t know what happened…(One) saturday morning… it was pretty slow. and she was yelling at someone because their shirt was wrinkled. then she came over to me, and out of nowhere, she was like, “You have facial hair.” and i said i knew, and i forgot to shave (it was barely visible, i don’t grow much facial hair), and then she said “I’m going to have to send you home to shave.” she didn’t send the other guy home to iron his shirt… i never have any trouble with any other managers. I’m new to McDonalds ( I’ve worked like 4 days. ) Once on front counter, Once in presenting, and once half in counter half in presenting. I’m horrible with the register. Finding everything they want then adding the coke or what ever drink, they don’t want that take it off… special orders, im super slow.But right now I’m only getting a 3 hour shift like 3 times or 2 times a week, will I get more? They seem to like me
Finally, an exchange between one of the U.S. McDonald’s workers and one from Finland:
Finland: Is the work atmosphere in the stores in the US of A so different from what it is here? Because I’m used to being able to either confront the manager in question, or just bitch to the GM about it. Or is it because our jobs are more secure here? Can you get fired from McD’s there if you complain about a manager being out of line? Because here, it seems no one has problems with snapping back if a manager is being unreasonably aggressive/catty/whiny/whatever.
U.S.: pretty much yeah your jobs are more secure, and well maybe you all have more respect for other human beings…here you CAN get fired or transfered or lied to if you do not agree with the way your managers say and do things… i pretty much had to learn to keep my mouth shut just so i can keep my job…
Finland: Wow :/
September 30th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
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