# Ask the former fast food GM **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 20, 2011, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127 "2011-06-20T08:40:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2011, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127/21 "2011-06-20T19:27:22Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I’m no longer bound by the confidentiality agreements I signed when I got the job. Huh? What top-secret stuff were they afraid of you blabbing about? The way you treat your employees? The source code to their software? The launch procedure for nuclear missiles? It’s a fast-food branch, not a military base, and not a Wall Street brokerage (with ,say, options for criminal insider-trading). What was so confidential at a Jack in the Box? And did Jack have secrets that Ronald McD doesn’t ? (I assume there’s a lot of movement by employees from one chain to another, so why the secrecy?) ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2011, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127/22 "2011-06-20T19:34:26Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > Huh? > What top-secret stuff were they afraid of you blabbing about? Jack’s true identity, perhaps. ---
**Author:** ![melodyharmonius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/melodyharmonius/32/21310_2.png) [@melodyharmonius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melodyharmonius)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2011, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127/23 "2011-06-20T19:35:44Z")
It’s standard procedure for any franchised business to have confidentiality agreements - some that supposedly extend in perpetuity, depending on the fine print. Did you ever experience an armed robbery at your store or drive-thru? I know there was a slew of those for a while. ---
**Author:** ![Billy\_Baroo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/76d3ee/32.png) [@Billy\_Baroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Billy_Baroo)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2011, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127/24 "2011-06-20T19:56:50Z")
Ever bang an employee? Looks like special sauce question has been asked. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2011, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127/25 "2011-06-20T20:31:44Z")
[QUOTE=Loopus] Do individual stores get the results of those phone surveys customers occasionally get invited to take on their receipt? How seriously do they take them? What are you supposed to do about it if the results are unsatisfactory? [/QUOTE] The stores get the scores on a monthly basis, and any recorded messages left by guests are sent to the store immediately. Any score less than a 5 (completely satisfied) is considered to be a “failure”, and if a customer has a specific negative problem it’s supposed to be addressed within the day. [QUOTE=lieu] Did you ever catch a cook spittin’ on a burger? [/QUOTE] Yes, once. I fired him. [QUOTE=chappachula] What top-secret stuff were they afraid of you blabbing about? [/QUOTE] Sales numbers. upcoming marketing events, recipes, etc. [QUOTE=melodyharmonius] Did you ever experience an armed robbery at your store or drive-thru? I know there was a slew of those for a while. [/QUOTE] Not personally, but one location I worked at was robbed the day after I transferred to a different location. ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127/26 "2011-06-21T05:33:23Z")
Did you ever experiment to see how many things you could deep fry ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127/27 "2011-06-21T05:43:12Z")
I ate at jack in the Box once, and the inexplicable love of the place cast doubt on everything any West Coast American would ever say to me about the Art of Food (Fast or otherwise), ever again. What a turd of a restaurant and the most hacneyed fast foods of the fast Foods, I’d rather eat at a Midwest Mc Donald’s or Midwest Del Taco than that shit. Hell even Burger Chef and Hardee’s is better than that slop… ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127/29 "2011-06-21T05:49:46Z")
With your experience as a fast food GM. Is it difficult to get a similar job with another company, like Sonic, Wendys etc.? Would it require much retraining? I guess every company has their own set of rules. But, serving good food is still serving good food. ---
**Author:** ![Bearflag70](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Bearflag70](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bearflag70)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127/30 "2011-06-21T06:07:05Z")
Did you get a lot of “over qualified” applicants? Explain. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127/31 "2011-06-21T06:16:41Z")
Something I always wondered about drive throughs: it seems that everytime I go through one the cars ahead of me are at the windows for 5 minutes each. I get to the window and I’m there for 15 seconds. What gives? What are your ultimate pet peeves with fast food customers? ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127/32 "2011-06-21T06:31:10Z")
In my experience, drive thru times often were based on how long it took food to cook. The guy ahead of you orders the chicken sandwhich that is frozen and needs to be fried for 5 minutes. While it is frying, your hamburger is made and they get done at the same time. Or you and the guy ahead of you both order fries. So then they make fries and wait for them to cook. When you get up to the window the fries are already done. Not very efficient but I worked at night and it was not very busy. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127/33 "2011-06-21T06:39:33Z")
Have you read [Fast Food Nation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Food_Nation)? If so, how do you feel about it and are there any reports or claims that stood out as particularly notable for being correct or false? How would you rank Jack in the Box relative to the other major franchises? Are there ones you strongly prefer the food at? Any that you wouldn’t touch? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127/34 "2011-06-21T08:32:16Z")
[QUOTE=aceplace57] With your experience as a fast food GM. Is it difficult to get a similar job with another company, like Sonic, Wendys etc.? [/QUOTE] Jack is the only restaurant I ever worked at as a manager, but from conversations with employees who’d worked at other restaurants the principles are the same in most places. I looked for another management position after I was laid off and had a few interviews, but the fish weren’t biting and I ended up taking a job at a grocery store. [QUOTE=Bearflag70] Did you get a lot of “over qualified” applicants? Explain. [/QUOTE] At the store level we only took applications for entry-level positions, so I was a bit skeptical with applications from people who’ve had management experience or are looking for a management job. The difficulty becomes that someone who’s been a manager in the past may be of a mindset where they think they _know_ how things should be done, and don’t take well to coaching and training. [QUOTE=Sampiro] Something I always wondered about drive throughs: it seems that everytime I go through one the cars ahead of me are at the windows for 5 minutes each. I get to the window and I’m there for 15 seconds. What gives? [/QUOTE] Bad luck? Seriously, though, it may be either that the person ahead of you has ordered a buttload of food, or that they’ve ordered one particular product which is taking a long time to prepare for whatever reason. Maybe the restaurant is out of prepped salads and they need to assemble one from scratch, or they want a special order which is taking longer to make than a standard sandwich, or they changed their order at the window. While this is going on, the rest of the crew is working on making the next order, which is why it’s ready to go when you get up there. Some restaurants are allowed to have a car pull into the parking lot and wait if they have a complicated order - Jack fluctuated back and forth on this one, but when I left it wasn’t allowed under any circumstances. [QUOTE=Sampiro] What are your ultimate pet peeves with fast food customers? [/QUOTE] Drunks. People who change their orders at the window. People who order a product without understanding what it is, and then complaining that they got exactly what they asked for. (You’d be surprised how many people order the “Chorizo sausage burrito” expecting it to be stuffed with Jimmy Dean patties.) Drunks. People who answer a multiple-choice question with “yes”. People who want to let their very young children place their own orders even though they don’t know how/can’t speak up properly/are shy and afraid of the order-taker. People who don’t bus their own tables after finishing their meal. Panhandlers, beggars, and moochers. Drunks. People who get upset when the special order they want is something it’s not possible for us to make, like a taco without meat (they come with the meat already in them), or a medium rare burger (we weren’t allowed to serve anything other than well-done.) Did I mention drunks? [QUOTE=Omniscient] Have you read Fast Food Nation? If so, how do you feel about it and are there any reports or claims that stood out as particularly notable for being correct or false? [/QUOTE] I have not. I’ve heard summaries of its content and i’d say it’s probably not far off from the truth. [QUOTE=Omniscient] How would you rank Jack in the Box relative to the other major franchises? Are there ones you strongly prefer the food at? Any that you wouldn’t touch? [/QUOTE] I haven’t eaten at Jack since I was laid off, but that has more to do with my personal bitterness. Among hamburger restaurants, i’d say Jack is better than McDonald’s or Burger King, and their fries are the best of any of the major chains. Carl’s Jr. has better burgers, but they’re more expensive. I also prefer In-n-Out, but they don’t exist in this state. The only fast food restaurants I really avoid are Arby’s (I just don’t like any of their food), Taco Time (bland and overpriced), and Chik-Fil-A (because they’re fundamentalist jackholes). ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127/35 "2011-06-21T09:24:58Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Expired product I am amazed you have such a thing. You guys know roughly how many tacos you are going to sell. Shouldn’t the supply chain be pretty good at giving you what you need when you need it by now? Speaking of tacos, why on earth did they kill the Super Taco? The regular tacos don’t cut it. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127/36 "2011-06-21T09:50:57Z")
> [@Stan\_Shmenge](#): > > I am amazed you have such a thing. You guys know roughly how many tacos you are going to sell. Shouldn’t the supply chain be pretty good at giving you what you need when you need it by now? Ordering is done at the store level based on the restaurant’s specific product mix. The computer generates the order based on what’s been sold and the sales projection for the upcoming days, and the manager tweaks it before it’s emailed to the DC. Unexpected spikes or drop-offs in sales can throw off the projections, as can inventory errors, theft, marketing events, or just a sudden spike in popularity for a given product. > [@](#): > > Speaking of tacos, why on earth did they kill the Super Taco? The regular tacos don’t cut it. Efficiency purposes. The monster taco took up more space in the fryer than the regular tacos and a cooking rack of its own, and took up more space in the point-of-use fridge next to the taco fryer. Eliminating it made it possible to cook more regular tacos at once and keep more staged in the fridge for cooking, which made things a lot easier when you consider that in peak times we could be selling more than 100 tacos an hour. Side note; my personal favorite experience at Jack was when we had “free taco day” last year, where we were giving away two free tacos to every customer. I manned the taco station personally that day since I could assemble them faster than anyone else in the store, and yet even with a second person constantly dropping them in and pulling them out of the fryer, 16 at a time, we could still barely keep up. During the 10 hours the promotion ran for (2 PM to midnight), our location gave away about 1200 tacos. ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127/37 "2011-06-21T22:10:59Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Efficiency purposes. Must everything be sacrificed on that alter? ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127/38 "2011-06-22T02:34:08Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > People who don’t bus their own tables after finishing their meal. I used to bus my own table religiously. I don’t anymore because it gives the hourly employees more to do and keeps the manager from cutting into their hours. You haven’t answered the question about slippin’ the chorizo to an employee yet. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127/39 "2011-06-22T03:09:14Z")
I love Jack in the Box but all the ones near me have horrid service. I don’t care if you have someone who barely speaks English working there. I really don’t. But why do they keep putting them on the radio for drive thrus? And is it a Corporate policy to have them ask if you want to try the new whatever new thing as soon as you pull up? I understand why my local store does it, but it annoys me to no end to have them ask if I also want to try two tacos after I complete my order. No I don’t want two tacos. If I wanted them I would have ordered them. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127/40 "2011-06-22T08:15:32Z")
[QUOTE=RandMcnally] And is it a Corporate policy to have them ask if you want to try the new whatever new thing as soon as you pull up? I understand why my local store does it, but it annoys me to no end to have them ask if I also want to try two tacos after I complete my order. No I don’t want two tacos. If I wanted them I would have ordered them. [/QUOTE] It is, in fact. Employees are expected to “smart-sell” on every single order, and it’s one of the 30 points that mystery shoppers check on their weekly visits. [QUOTE=Washoe] You haven’t answered the question about slippin’ the chorizo to an employee yet. [/QUOTE] I made out with an employee once. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127/41 "2011-06-22T14:31:41Z")
Sucks you were laid off after years of faithful (it seems) service **Smapti**. Do you have any idea where the new owners are going to find people who can do a better job than you? I wonder why it so often happens that new owners like to get rid of current staff? Sometimes it’s like they saw a business that was doing well, decided to buy it, and then run it under a completely new system (yeah, it might work - good luck). But these people are buying a franchise so they have to keep using the same system right? So why get rid of someone who knows the system and the local clientele? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-former-fast-food-gm/586127.md?page=3)