I worked in a Sonic Drive-In in college and we had to clock orders. All orders except certain fried things had to be out in less than 3 minutes. Surprisingly, the average time would end up around 3 minutes unless a lot of orders for chicken sandwiches came in that night.
We also had a stupid timer that told our curbs (carhops) to take out a “courtesy tray” and see if anyone wanted more condiments. That one ended up in the trash more than once because everyone thought it was stupid.
I don’t remember any kinds of lines or picture instructions, I think because a lot of what Sonic did would be difficult for people with mental handicaps to do (the curbs had to be able to count back change if they didn’t have the ticket.)
And just to get it off my chest, I hated our manager. We were allowed to use the cups to drink water, but we weren’t allowed free soft drinks. So the more cynical of us would get a Route 44 cup for everything, because it cost more than the beverage we would have gotten. Oh and he had a camera set up in the front, not to protect us, but to make sure no one stole free drinks or ice cream. Or so he said. In truth, he was embezzling money and wanted to be able to see if anyone noticed anything.
We do pay better that our competitors. We have a wage program in effect based on employee’s hours** AND** our staff get tips. When I was working full time in the stores I was bringing home on average $150.00 a week, or more, in tip money.
When you work this out that puts a full time minimum wage employee at about $4.00 an hour ABOVE minimum wage.
We also do a number of staff incentives, RRSP programs, health benefits…and much more.
Angkins, where the hell’s your store? ‘Cause when I worked at McD’s, I got like fifty cents over minimum wage (which was then $3.35, if memory serves) and we all thanked god that we worked for the franchise store in town, because all they paid was minimum wage! Do you guys advertise what you pay in your help wanted ads? Because none of the ones around here have any notifications saying that they pay anything like that. If the ones around here pay that, I may have to go back to workin’ at McD’s. (All I did was party and get laid. )
::Sigh:: I’m not even with Mcd’s anymore, and I’m still responding to these threads…
You’d be amazed at how many people didn’t bother to fold those stupid bags, just shoved them out the window with the top scrunched up. The dotted line was an attempt to have the crew people fold up the bags before presenting. It rarely worked.
The handwashing timer was usefull, but annoying. It’s amazing how easily an hour can go by when you’re doing other things, and you forget to wash your hands hourly. That was a way of pleasing the B.O.H…they though we washed our hands regularly, they didn’t bitch. There was also a little spot in the Food Safety book for us to initial after everyone working washed their hands. I usually signed for all my hours while I was waiting for the computer to close.
There’s signs for everything…along the registers were little stickers telling you how long it should take to take the order, and the steps in the process. “1. Greet the customer. 2.Take the order. 3. Suggestive sell. 4.State the total. 5.Instruct customer to the window.”, etc. It was ridiculous. And those training videos? I was in charge of orientations for a while…I saw all those videos at least 20 times…::shudder::
Hey, Pammipoo! They still using the Filet O’ Fish with the two buddies where the one is on the swim team and the other’s working at McD’s? I remember back when I was working there I swiped a bunch of the videos and played at friend’s party where we were all screwed up on acid, booze, pot, and whatever else we could get our grubby little mitts on that night. Never made it through the birthday video. We watched about 10 seconds of it and were laughing so hysterically that we had to turn it off for fear of injuring ourselves. God, those were good times!
McDonald’s has always amazed me. And this is not because of their high quality food. McD’s is the epitomy of perfecting the business of making fast food. They invented half the stuff used in most fast food joints. I’m amazed to look at some the gadgets they use these days. Making food is almost becoming automatic for them. Soon they won’t need employees.
They have a tool or guideline for everything from making fries automatically to how to wash your hands and change the trash. Now if they could only figure out how to make good juicy hamburger that I actually wanted to eat more than once a year.
)