I’ve been working at Hungry Jack’s for a couple weeks now, which is what Burger King is known as over here due to certain copyright issues. I started doing counter work but now I work on the broiler at the back too, mostly at busy times when the manager decides to replace the noob up front with someone a little faster. It’s fairly repetitive work but the people keep it interesting. I noticed there’s a bit of mystery surrounding this stuff and some misconceptions so I’ll just sit here and answer any questions you may have. Because I haven’t learned everything yet there might be a few questions I can’t answer but I’ll do my best. To start off:
Our burger patties do not contain worms/eyeballs/Ethipian orphans. They are 100% dead cow. In fact, none of our products contain anything any email forwards claim they do, so don’t bother asking
Before we start working we have to watch 2 1/2 hours of training video detailing how to take orders, how to handle food, how to keep the work environment safe and so on as well as what to do in more extreme situations like hold-ups and fires. I’m pretty sure they’re designed to break our spirits because by the end of those 2 1/2 hours I was willing to do anything, ANYTHING, as long as it meant I could stop watching that infernal disc.
I make about $8.50 an hour and work around 10 hours a week. Between the low pay, low working hours and putting away half my earnings I am stuck in a perpetual cycle of saving up for my next bus pass (which I need to get to work) and not actually spending money on anything else. I get bummed out about this sometimes but them I just remind myself I’ll be in much better shape 2 years from now than the kids who spend their paychecks on clothing and booze.
There are 2 ways to get a raise: master more stations or grow older. IIRC a 22-year-old gets about $5 per hour more than me right from the start and gets better raises for learning more stations. This is probably why I haven’t seen anyone in the lower ranks over 19.
The McDonald’s next door to us is much nicer, but don’t tell management I said that
I’m pretty sure the menu is the same. We do have an Aussie burger - I’m not sure what’s in it, though. Do you Yanks have an American Burger (I’m assuming you are American)? We also have a mini-pavlova which I’m not sure is available in other countries because they’re pretty Australian food. It’s a meringe with a little ice cream and passionfruit syrup. Oh, and we’re trying to push our promo product right now but it’s not selling very well because it’s the worst idea ever. It’s the Malibu Whopper: imagine a Whopper, but with PINEAPPLE. It seems like the only way to sell them is to downplay the pineapple “It’s like a Whopper but with bacon and barbecue sauce… oh and there’s pineapple but we can leave that out if you want.” :smack: And I dunno what you have in the US, but we’ve got Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, Fanta and raspberry Fanta. So, probably the same.
Yeah, at first I was looking for something that paid a little better but apparently they want people with “experience”. Pffff. So I bit the bullet and applied to all the fast food places I could think of and managed to land a job with one. Apparently if I stick around long enough I’ll pick up some food handling/worksafe certifications, which is cool. The plan is to ditch the job before graduation but who knows, as a design student I just might end up working fast food for a little longer than planned
$8.50 to start, or $13.50 if one is a wee bit older is much higher than I would’ve thought for fast food joints - is that an accurate translation in USD? I’m pretty sure basic fast food joints where I live start employees at or about minimum wage.
Are the vegetable bits actually sliced up by employees, or do they arrive boxed and pre-shredded and cut?
Why do you give people 187 packages of ketchup per little bag of fries?
In America (Massachusetts more specifically), fast food workers start at around $7. If they’re over 18, and available to work flexible hours (including nights), we usually start them around $7.50
Different companies do their veggies differently. Wendy’s cuts up their own lettuce and tomatoes, but everything else comes already prepared, we just have to pan them out. McDonalds got everything already prepared for the most part
And if you give someone only a couple of ketchups, they always ask for more.
Nope, that’s in Australian dollars, so about $5 US. Minimum wage in Australia is a lot higher than in many countries. I think it’s around $12 an hour but that’s only for adult full-time workers and I’m 17 and casual.
We give people too much sauce because it costs us next to nothing and it slows us down if they come back for more. I dunno why we don’t just put them next to the straws and paper towels so people can help themselves; probably so people don’t actually make off with 187 packets. Or maybe choosing 4 different kinds of sauce is more than we think our customers can handle. Or management just doesn’t like change. Or something.
As for vegetables, we have to wash and slice tomatoes ourselves. I’m not sure about the lettuce; I’ve seen large plastic boxes of shredded lettuce sitting around (and no boxes of sliced tomatoes) but I wouldn’t be too surprised if we had whole heads sitting around out back.
Pineapple on burgers, yum! Do you grill the pineapple first? It’s best that way. Pineapple on a burger with barbecue sauce for dipping, double yum! Of course, its better Red Robin style.
Do you have to wear an ugly polyester uniform? Could you post a link with what they look like?
Do Aussie fast food restaurants serve beer?
We don’t have an American burger but we do have American cheese.
Well, we actually have American pasteurized process cheese food, which sounds like something you feed to cheese so it can grow up big and strong like Uncle Roquefort, but it passes for cheese, I suppose…
I was gonna mention Red Robin. I love their Hawaiian burger - but then I love pineapple on just about everything. Burgers with pineapple and a nice freckled lemonade…bliss.
I believe Kua’Aina burgers out of Hawaii also serve these “pinaeapple” burgers. At least in the Japan outlets, they sell these. Don’t know about the Hawaiian or Southern California restaurants.
Here’s what the uniform looks like. Nobody got any overalls, we all just wear what the guy is wearing, and we don’t tuck in our shirts. I think it actually looks better and more professional that way, because the McDonald’s employees DO have to tuck in their shirts and it looks really crap. Of course, their uniforms are also uglier than ours to begin with…
Oh yeah, no beer. I don’t think we’re licensed.
All our burgers are made on demand to minimise waste. I don’t think the company cares about wasting food, but it does care about wasting money. If someone ordered a burger and walked out, or one of us makes a mistake and we end up with an extra burger somehow you might get one that’s a little older but we toss burgers after 15 minutes. Next time you buy something take a look at the wrapper; there should be a row of numbers going from 00 to 50 with a line through one of the numbers. That’s how many minutes past the hour your burger was good for.
I like Hawaiian pizza and I like the Malibu burger but it seems every customer gives some variation of “Sorry, but I loathe pineapple.” It could just be psychological but it’s not like we can hand out free samples to convince them - the folks in marketing really should have thought this out more :\
Interesting, thanks. I had always assumed that for fast food restuarants the priority went speed>cheapness>quality and so stuff was made beforehand and reheated.
“Hungry Jack’s”, eh? Do you ever get the Who song “Happy Jack” stuck in your head? Because now it’s running through my brain.
No they couldn’t stop Jack from being hun-gry…
