Has anyone noticed that the intelligence level of the average fast food worker has dropped significantly over the last 5 years or so. I’d say that out of the last 20 times I’ve had fast food, 15 of them have had messed up orders. How hard is it to check the damn ticket before you put the burger and fries in my bag? How hard is it to push the little button down on the lid of the drink so you know what drink it is? I’m not talking about the mentally disabled people a lot of chains hire. I can deal with that for the good of the community. I’m talking about your average high school kid that works there. What is the deal??
“It is now proved beyond doubt that smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.”
Well, yeah on the homecooked meal thing, but you aren’t alone, Demo.
Hey, I worked gritty godawful jobs and they aren’t fun. (Well, sometimes, but only below “see level”.) But they’re still jobs. I can’t understand the “blow it off, the work’s below me” mentality. Hey, work hasn’t changed. The biggest single problem of employers is finding good workers. So those same bored-and-blowin’-it-off worker is plain deluded.
I’m sick of wrong orders, wrong change, waiting while 12 people chat and no one works the register, etc. The person who dives in and does it will be seized. adopted, cosseted, admired, encouraged, etc.
Hey, most people start at the bottom. I was raised to believe that all honest work was to be respected. Opportunity isn’t just knocking at those “nothing” jobs; it’s kicking down the damn door. (And yeah, I worked my share of 16 hour days under exactly the same laws that “protect” migrant workers. Paid my dues, and got good recommendations.)
Well…if you were being payed minimum wage for a job that you didn’t really care about at all, how much effort would you put into it?
(sounds like they’re getting smarter, actually)
“Home-cooked meal?” Is that what that big huge 4-station cigarette lighter next to the fridge is for?
Seriously, what you’re dealing with here is a good economy. In simplest terms, everyone in the country has moved one job (or more) up the ladder as employment has increased. So the former fast food worker has a job selling shoes at the new store in the mall. The shoe salesman retrained and is botching your cable modem installation. And so on. Because fast food is bottom of the barrel, they get people who are in the labor pool but incapable of getting better work. Good economy = better work = worse people stuck behind the counter.
I don’t get it either. My work philosophy has always been “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. If a job’s not worth doing, then it’s still worth doing well just so that it isn’t a total waste of time.” (The unspoken corllary of “If a job’s not worth doing, they’ll probably give it to me” is supposed to be obvious.) I have known quite a few fast-food employees in my time, and some of them are indeed morons. Some of them, on the other hand, are just too damn smart for their own good. You know the type, abnormally intelligent individuals with an underdeveloped sense of responsibility who dropped out of high school and are living with whomever will take them in, for however long until they wear their welcome thin. I am thinking of two specific individuals of my acquaintance, both of whom got fired from their jobs at Taco Bell after greeting their drive-thru customers with “Welcome to Toke-A-Bowl, how may we service you?” once too often. This doesn’t account for all fast-food incompetence afoot today, but I’ll wager it accounts for more than people realize. Service with a grimace, anyone?
An infinite number of rednecks in an infinite number of pickup trucks shooting an infinite number of shotguns at an infinite number of road signs will eventually produce all the world’s great works of literature in Braille.
You have to admit kids today have not been trained the way of past generations. They know they are not in a career position and most are working because they need gas money for the new car that dad and mom bought them so they at least have to make an effort to show up at some kind of job. Of course that’s not true of all kids…but for the most part I’d say it’s just a way for them to show a discerned effort
I can feed myself at McDonalds for about what I earn in ten or fifteen minutes. If I want to be served by a competent, motivated and efficient food server I expect to pay three or four times that much (plus a tip). I think you folks need to stop bitching, cough up the dough, and take your business elsewhere.
It’s not just taco bell, everytime I go by the Wendys by my house, it doesn’t matter what I order they either get it wrong or the thing is slopped together so that it is pretty much unrecognizable… and believe me, I am not picky… Just once I would like to see the kind of meal that Dave gets to eat on those commercials.
Ohh and Dem… I invited you for dinner, it was your choice to have chalupas instead
I really try to be good but it just isn’t in my nature!
I agree with the frustration…There are like 3 McDonalds in a ten block radius of where I work. My theory is they have to have so many because the staff at each is so damn slow and stupid. Why is it that no one seems to have any sort of work ethic any more? Not only is the order tossed together randomly, it takes forever for someone to wait on you. You take 2nd, third or fourth place behind them discussing their date from the night before, checking their beeper or fixing their hair. I didn’t put up with that crap when I was a manager and I don’t know who would run a business that way.
“You’re only calling us a cow college cos’ we were founded by a cow!”
i worked for bk for a year as crew, and another half a year as a shift co., and i admit, there are quite a few dumbasses working the till, but there are also a lot of dumbasses for customers.
imagine… it’s your first job, you’re fifteen, and some cranky old man comes along and starts crawling up your butt with toe picks because one of his fries is darker than the rest. chances are it gets to you, and you fumble for a bit.
i’ve had employees cry because customers were so harsh to them. it’s ridiculous how mean and how inconsiderate some people can be.
but hey, i’m not just standing up for the crew here. i’ve left work crying from frustration because of the morons i worked with.
i’m just saying, before freaking out at that little pimply kid behind the counter, ask yourself if you were clear enough, ask yourself if maybe that kid has had a bad day…
and if it’s so bad that your order was messed up 15/20 times, why do you keep going back?
thing is, nobody is perfect. especially not all the time.
“human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust; we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.” - albert einstein
Well, think of it this way…
Working in the foodservice industry SUCKS.
So, all the smart kids work in the mall or at the video store or somewhere else where the term “grease trap” is non-existent. So it just makes sense that every fast food joint is a veritable font of mutants and mental midgets.
My advice in this situation is this: Don’t get upset. If you want a good meal and good service, go to a nice restaurant. If I was some pimply faced loser making $1.50 an hour after taxes, I would give fcuk-all about that job too.
“And on the eighth day, God Created beer
to prevent the Irish from taking over
the Earth.” ~SNOOGANS~
I had a high school job stint in a fast food place, and did the job honorably. That said, I avoid eating that food whenever possible. If you don’t care for the external manifestations of dissatisfied workers, who knows what the hell has been dropped into the chalupas? At the assembly point, but also at the point(s) of origin.
i can’t disagree with what you said, but i can tell you that where i worked those kids were trained very thoroughly.
thing is… some of them just don’t care, but not all of them.
next time you go, pay attention to the things these kids are doing right instead of what they’re doing wrong. or if there’s a bunch standing around talking about their weekends, look for the one that’s taking the orders and doing their job.
if all you can do is criticize you’ll never be able to appreciate what’s done correctly. you’ll never be able to tell the person that took your order that they did a good job and maybe make their day go a little better.
i had a family i’d never met before, go through drive thru on friendship day. the man, before driving away handed me a dozen red roses. he told me that they’d been looking around all day for people who deserved them and until me, hadn’t found anyone. he then, asked that i not give any of them away because i deserved every one of them.
the way i was beaming after that made not only mine, but the whole staff’s night fly by. and although you may not believe it, just a smile and a ‘good job’ would have resulted in the same.
“human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust; we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.” - albert einstein
If my wife is with me at the drive through, I don’t stand a chance in hell of getting our order right. I have three kids, and she special orders everything!
Me ordering at the drive thru: I’ll have five number 1’s with Coke for the drink.
Wife ordering at the drive thru: I’ll a number 1 with pickles, lettuce and tomato with orange for the drink, super sized, and I want onion rings instead of fries, then I want another number 2 the same way, but instead of pickles lettuce and tomato, I want it dry with cheese and pickles and mayo, and I want to substitute tator tots for the onion rings…"
If my wife’s with me… we go INSIDE and order. I give her money to order her special way, and I take five bucks and order off the menu, the way God intended!
I am a store manager with Tim Horton’s, which is a donut shop franchise with a booming lunch business, so I think that I may be able to help answer this question.
I have worked for this company for 10 years now. When I started we only had coffee, donuts and a few other ‘unimportant’ menu items. We now own 30 stores, as opposed to 8 when I started, drive thru service takes up the majority of our sales. Customers have become more and more demanding. Face it, as a consumer you expect to be served quickly and efficiently in a friendly manner; and I expect no less, as a matter of fact I probably expect more than most because I’m ‘in the business’.
The average age of the staff in our stores has dropped by 10 years over the last 5 years!
People are not coming into any fastfood outlet to stay for life…it’s a stepping stone until something bigger and better comes along. Unemployment is extremely low and finding qualified staff is an increasing challenge, the result is often we have to settle for second best and unfortunately it is the service that suffers. These younger employees don’t care about their jobs or care if they are giving exceptional customer service; hell they don’t even care if their service is adequate!!
Turnover rates are way up, and alot of newer staff also effects the level of service and acuracy that customers receive.A good economy means more and more people are spending , more people are working and there are more customers to serve. The stress levels are much higher than they used to be and the younger staff are not equiped to deal with it.
Also staff will do by example and if management doesn’t give a shit …then the staff won’t either. As an employer I try and set an example and give the service I expect ALL my staff to give and if they aren’t willing to give the best service that they can then I can’t afford to keep them, and sometimes I can’t really afford to lose them because they are better than the available alternatives.
If I had a dollar for every person who has made a ‘sucks to be you guys,you don’t make enough money’ comment I’d be able to retire when I turn 30!!
I love my job and I am fortunate to have a great staff.
There are alot of really good workers out there and alot of bad ones too.
If someone has a complaint they tell 10 people.Of every 10 people that have complaints only 1 might complain to the establishment…Praise on the other hand is given sparingly.
My best advice is complain to where you got bad service or a wrong order and complain to the highest level of management that you can and then at least there is a better chance that your problem will get dealt with.
Our best asset is our customer service and those who can deliver great service will get and keep the business and those who don’t will bury themselves.
I hope I have contributed another aspect for you to consider.
Manhattan and Angkins made some good points. I work in city government, and we are in the process of eliminating seasonal and temporaray work for the simple reason that we can’t get good workers.
Before this results in flames, it’s sorta good news/bad news. Unemployment is down around 4% (and this is in the ag belt, rust belt). This sounds purely awful, but some folks are unemployable because they don’t want to work.
That in no way implies that beginning workers can’t be great, motivated and pure gold. But there’s a differnce between “hate the job but gonna do it” and “lowball the performance 'cause I don’t give a shit”. The first you can help, encourage, groom etc. The latter ya can’t do nuthin’ with, no matter how empowering, well intentioned and high minded you toss at it. You can break your heart trying to show/prove/cheer people on that yucky jobs can lead to pride, security and independence.
