This is sparked by the Pit thread, but kind of unrelated.
How much cleaning does the kid-gerbil-maze get on a normal basis? I mean, kids are nasty. I ain’t going in that ball pit for any amount of money. Does the inside routinely get a swipe from a rag? Only when Junior barfs in it? Weekly? Monthly?
And who has to do it? Does it just suck for the littlest McEmployee? Does the big guy have to take the trash out alone at night and the little girl have to strain the ball pit? (Do they EVER strain the ball pit?) I know there has to be somebody here who’s had to read the Official McPolicy Manual on this specific procedure - the restrooms obviously have to be cleaned a certain number of times a day, because there’s that chart there.
What are the rules? And what’s the actual practice?
Well, when I worked at McDonalds when I was 16 years old, it was regularly cleaned on a weekly basis, and whoever was assigned had to do it (usually the night shift, the hour before closing.) I had to do it. I really don’t remember it sucking all that much. Cleaning the bathrooms was far worse.
A couple years ago I stopped at a McDonalds, a cleaning company was douching the whole play area with a cleaner/antibacterial/disinfectant. I overheard an employee telling someone that they cleaned the play area like that once a week. I watched to the 2 guys for about half an hour, they were doing a pretty thorough job, they were even cleaning the balls in the ball pit one at a time.
I didn’t work at McDonald’s, but I did work at Chuck E Cheese (actually Showbiz Pizza) for 2 years. I remember the ball crawl getting a thorough wash on two occassions. We loaded all of the dirty balls into garbage bags and ran them through the dishwasher. The empty ball crawl was scrubbed and vacuumed. Then the clean balls were loaded back in.
On occassions when someone barfed or crapped in the balls, we would pull all of the balls in the vicinity and trash them. Obviously determining the vicinity was not a scientfic process. There might have been some spray disinfectant involved too.
I always thought that the ball crawl was under-cleaned without even considering the occassional employee sex in there.
If anything prepared me for parenthood, it was that unholy work enviorment. I never knew it was possible to vomit cotton candy, but apparently it can be done continuously from the front of the store to the back.
So when you say “cleaned”, do you mean kind of swabbed at the plastic walls with a bleachy rag, or what? Did employees generally clean the harder to clean stuff, like the ball pit? On that same time schedule? Did the thing ever get a “deep clean”? How often are parts replaced?