Hey everyone 👋
I’m a current McDonald’s employee and have been for a few months.
Feel free to ask me any questions and I’ll respond in the best way I can :)
[AMA] I’m a Current McDonald's Employee
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What's the biggest 'karen' you had in store?
Haven’t really had a Karen before but has a guy complain because there was a bug in his salad. I can definitely understand this and wouldn’t want to munch on a bug myself :)
Does mcdonalds always serve drive thru orders first? Why is some staff rude to Uber eats drivers?
Drive thru orders are always served first, followed by in-store customers and then Uber.
It’s not that we don’t like Uber drivers, it’s just that some are a bit rude at times (ie shoving a phone in our face expecting us to have it ready the second they show up).
Finally we can talk amongst our selfs with out the maccas bot.
Hmmm gone to buy something at hungry maccas
What's your favourite Maccas food and do you like the fries?
Favourite burger is the chicken and cheese, and fries are also delicious
do you go home from work smelling or have had people tell you that you smell like Maccas specifically?
I knew someone once who worked at a donut shop, and it wasn't until someone else pointed out that they smelled like the glaze after a shift did i notice it myself
Not really, it goes on the apron more than the uniform
is it true that any kid who cant count gets sent to KFC?
i wear they always short change me with nuggets, chicken etcmaccas seem to be fine
Definitely, we send them all off to KFC
Then KFC send them to Red Rooter so no one ever gets the stuffing included in their meal.
Probably not your area but I've been curious about cleaning:
- Who is responsible for cleaning the dining room (tables, chairs, etc.) and how often is it supposed to be cleaned?
- Who is responsible for cleaning the toilets and how often is it supposed to be cleaned?Cleaning is the responsibility of front area employees, and as far as I know the dining room just needs to look presentable. There’s no real set time for toilet cleaning either, but I know it gets cleaned at least once every 24 hours.
I liked the good old days of the burgers sitting around keeping hot/warm and the cheese is melted, is there anyway I can request that when I order burgers for the cheese to be melted?
Not easily, as we don’t really have anything that could melt cheese easily.
The bench burgers are prepared on his heated and the area your food lands in is also heated. Cheese should be room temperature before being used.
You say you get 20/50% on/off shift discounts, but surely you just sneakily eat a few chips when no one is looking or the odd cheese burger gets accidentally made and "falls of the rack" unexpectedly and gets eaten somewhere discreet?
Typically any food that’s already been made for drive thru customers, but changed at the payment window is up for grabs.
Otherwise it’s quite difficult to sneak food because you’ll get found out in some way.
When i worked at HJ's in 08. I rock up to my shift and there was a guy crouched in a camera blind spot eating a burger. I asked about it. He said the manager doesn't care and people out the back ate nuggets and onion rings all the time. I got ripped off there with my pay though. The above stuff is probably why
the soft serve machine sucks and is always broken. no question, just a statement
What's the cleaning and maintenance schedule for your equipment - grills, deep fryers, drink and soft serve machines?
Grills are ‘steam cleaned’ with water every 2-3 hours and have regular nightly maintenance.
Fryer vats are also filtered once a day to remove excess fat/grease.
Drink and soft serve machines are not really my area and I’m not sure about their maintenance.
The cleaning schedule for a soft serve machine is whenever I want soft serve.
For a more technical answer. Grills are “recovered” quarterly which is just a more intensive clean/carbon removal. Deep fryers depending on how good the store is at manual filtering daily will need a boil out weekly/bi-weekly, post mix is contracted out and done I believe yearly, soft serve machines need to have the correct amount of mixture in them for the daily scheduled temperature treatment and if you miss enough of these (3 IIIRC) the machine will lock, otherwise this clean needs to be weekly.
Why have McDonald's stop swirling the McFlurry? It is now just a ball in a cup.
I guess swirling adds extra time that we don’t often have.
What are the constant beeping noises mean. Drives me nuts. Dined in once and couldn’t enjoy my meal cause of the constant beeping noises from the kitchen.
The beeping noises each have a specific meaning, usually alarms telling us that a product has finished cooking.
Trust me, it drives us employees all nuts too :)
Have you heard of the McDs run by the dreaded 'Tanya' in Brisbane?
I believe a more updated article says they were found guilty, but the /r/Brisbane subreddit has had discussions at length with some employees who were mistreated there, and in some cases, specifically by "Tanya".Would you say your working conditions are better than the above?
Never heard of that before, looks like borderline abuse for the employees
This job at my store has genuinely been the most chill in terms of managers and I would definitely quit if I had to deal with that.
sounds like kids not understanding that work isnt a time for them to go to the bathroom every 15 minutes to check their phones, if you actually read that full article honestly she's quite reasonable, considering they are paying kids to stuff around and get your order wrong 8/10 times
The message they try to quote says IF, and after that states they currently allow employees toilet breaks and drink breaks whenever they need, but people dont read past the headline and outlined box of misinformation
That has absolutely nothing to do with what is in the article you linked itself, nice try tho.
You made it very clear you didn't actually read the article you linked lol.
@Willy Beamish: I read it two years ago, my bad.
However the first article is Tantex Holdings not giving proper breaks required by law to their staff at their McDonalds Franchise businesses, and the second article is Tantex Holdings getting fined nearly $100k for not providing proper breaks as legally required to their staff at their McDonalds Franchise businesses.Seems pretty related.
@Willy Beamish: You've had all these years to read and comprehend that article and still failed to understand it on a basic level, even Bill from 3 years ago has a better understanding than you and he was most likely on the toilet
"Bill
3 years ago
This is a joke…"Chris Tantex Holdings" literally says in that post, that any of their employees based on shift length are free to take drinks breaks, toilet breaks, rest breaks whenever they want, he just says they are not on a shift ROSTER. How on earth is this treating employees like dirt? It's giving them freedom to make their own choices and take a break when they actually need it within their own workplace.
Whats wrong with saying "my phone is off after 10pm - make sick calls before that if you are opening a store the next day" (which one would assume is 6-7am?), how is that unreasonable?… Surely if youre sick enough to not attend work the next day at 6-7am, you'd have to know before 10pm the NIGHT BEFORE unless you fall down the stairs or have a bloody heart attack…
This all looks like a Union strong-arm tactic, theyve got ahold of some out of context facebook message/posts and are out to make themselves look relevant by going on a smear campaign against a business owner who seems to be trying to give the kids they've employed more freedom in the workplace. This just screams of everything that is wrong with the unions in this country."
Yes, toilet and drink breaks should be limited however it’s no excuse to break the law and not allow 10 minute breaks for employees.
Nothing in that article indicated they didn't get their breaks lol
Where were you the day the 38" dell monitor deal went down?
Probably not here :)
If someone received a Burger with half the cheese slice hanging out, stuck on the cardboard box, would it be a fair request to have it exchanged for another. And, should the front of counter staff make an issue of it (being exchanged)?
It’s totally reasonable and you should be entitled to your full burger being made properly.
I can't be the only one who understood this reference.
Were you in crypto before MCD?
toTheMoon
Luckily not that stupid…
RemindMe! 10 years.
Whats the trick to get those rare monopoly pieces? Can they be told apart from common pieces?
Unfortunately there’s no ‘truck’ or process to getting these pieces. We know as much as you guys know :)
how often do you find employees leaving their job for something else, in other words whats the churn rate?
It’s around 2-3 employees each week
Oof that's quite a lot, guess that's normal in fast food . Hhhmmm..
What's something you should avoid getting from maccs ?
Anything. It’s much more healthy to stay at home and eat your own food :)
Less work for us workers too!Thanks for that. How about this Chocolate ice cream. I had a look on the website. In Sydney; Do you know which site has them actually?
Restaurants which have 2 or more ice cream machines can make chocolate ice cream. The full list can be found here
What's the required amount of ice in drink? Last small drink I got maybe more than half cup of ice. I didn't want any ice but forgot to remove it from default setting. Didn't want to annoy the staff for getting a new cup so I walked away.
Most drinks are made using the ABS (Auto beverage system) which will give you a standard amount of ice. However some restaurants don’t have this and you’ll likely get a larger or smaller scoop of ice
Over lockdown, I ordered a Filet O Fish with 5 fish patties and 5 slices of cheese (that was the maximum allowed). My kids thought it was hilarious.
It was god like.
Anyway, would you be pissed at me for ordering that, or just laugh before making it?
I've also got photographic evidence btw. It was stunning.
EDIT - Here it is https://imgur.com/a/v606bdQ
I love that. Well played!
That looks pretty cool. Sure, we may be a bit annoyed but it’s a pretty good creation in the end :)
It was mind blowing. The Filet o Fish is my favourite burger, so the fact they did it made me happy :)
Do the alarms emitted from the various machines invade your sleep? I reckon the sounds would worm their way into your subconscious and pop out just as you fall asleep.
Not too much for myself however I know of people who dread these alarms and affect their sleep.
What is the most patties you have seen in one burger?
Which country are the sauces from?
Most I’ve seen is 6
I’m not part of one at the moment, however might be worth looking into
Do you actually follow the work instructions? I.e., 9 10-1 patties on grill at once only, fries fried correctly and not overloaded, not overfilling the UHC? I say this bc we did it all the time. I think I fit 16 10-1s on a grill once
Mostly yes, we follow the instructions. I think these days it’s 6 10:1 patties per platten, so it must’ve changed since then.
We often overfill the UHC though as there would not be enough product otherwise :)
KFC #1
You do you…
why are item prices different between stores?
why is the price of a meal different depending on what the main item is?
eg [burger only + nuggets as meal] cost less than [nuggets only + burger as meal] despite ending up with the same items.why is the menu different between stores?
why are the family [4 meal] deal packs gone from stores, but in menulog etc?
Great questions. Item pricing varies between stores to reflect the demographic of the store. E.g poorer areas would have lower prices to sell more product.
Menus should be relatively similar between stores and any difference would only occur due to stock not being available.
Family meals should be available after 10:30am at all stores, so I don’t know why it would only be available through menulog.On menulog there's McValue Box, McFavourites Box, McFamily Box. I used to order them in store, but I haven't seen them for a few years. It's not on https://mcdonalds.com.au/menu/ either.
As for things like the $2 burgers, and $5 mcfeast meal, seems limited to certain stores. Tho the $5 seems long gone too.
Filet-O-Fish is the one thing I've had missing from stores. Wonder why?
Is the price set by the franchise or head office? It seems weird you can drive 5min down the road and you pay different. By 30c or so total, but gone are the days you can send a kid out with exact amount to buy a meal.
That’s really strange, they’re still available in my store. Filet-o-fish should also be in all stores, really strange to hear that is missing.
Pricing (I believe) is set by head office and therefore isn’t very consistent
Genuine question.
Whenever I order and pay for extra sauces through the drive through, they are almost never put in the bag and I have to check and remind them that I ordered and paid for them.
Is there a reason for this like they're not displayed properly on the screen?
Happens at every drive thru I use in Australia.
This one is real hit and miss… my expectations are low.
It's incredibly frustrating. I don't think I'd ever even visit McDonalds if I couldn't drown it in delicious barbecue sauce, and they're 50c a pop.
Sweet mustard for me!
Honestly don’t know. The screen says the correct amount ordered and some of the staff must just be told to give a standard amount.
How many holo pikachus do you have?
Don Gorske who was in the Super Size Me - 2004 doco, just eats the Big Macs since forever. Seems to be ok… for now.
Yeah he is ok at the moment. I guess there are worse foods to eat and at least a Big Mac contains lettuce
Oh sh1t wrong Maccas thread… ha!
I was a bit confused myself…all good!
Why is a 6-pack Chicken McNugget Happy Meal cheaper than a 6-pack small Chicken McNugget meal?
Who knows :)
It also costs extra to add a shake to a regular meal but not a happy meal ;)
Any idea if they will bring the hot raspberry & custard pie back?
As far as I know, unfortunately not :(
How are your managers like ?
Most of my managers are really great people. I think I’ve just got lucky though as I’ve heard of some bad managers at other stores.
What are the burgers you would not recommend based on freshness?
Anything with a plain beef patty (no onions, salt/pepper). These are cooked in advance and are typically sitting there for quite a long time.
I usually order no pickles but sometimes I see an imprint in the cheese slice of where a pickle once lay. Are burger artists supposed to be doing this or are they cutting corners?
Most likely just cutting corners as they are too lazy to make another one
When McDonald's is running the 30 days of deals, do you pre make the promotional items and also do managers tell you to turn a blind eye if the promo items given to customers are just not fresh anymore?
We don’t pre-make any items, however yes, we will typically will be forced to use product that is not at its best because of the high demand :)
We always try to make sure everything is included, but unfortunately, with a high time pressure on us, sometimes the occasional item is missing.
I know it’s annoying but unfortunately otherwise orders will take longer to make.