There’s a reason that McDonald’s is considered the dredge, last stop, dead end hub of employment for all of the drug addict, unschooled, crackpots of the world.
It is.

I have worked for the golden arches for the better part of four years and as a boss of most of these self described bottom of the ladder types, I have a perspective unique as to the way these people think, act and react to what is expected of them in the working world.

It’s important to realize that not every employee of Mcdonald’s fits the above description. The reason for this is that there are a small percentage of people that are good, solid employees. I’d hate to have one of very few persons I actually respect from my years spent in that draconian pit of souls read this and perceive my retrospective malice as an assault on his or her character.

I’ll put it simply. Let’s say you are a nineteen year old, recently finished with high school, possibly in college, possibly not. Most likely in. You may have had a decent job in High School, you may just be leaving the umbrella of your parents. You have little work experience, at most a crappy stint in a grocery store or fast food restaurant from high school. So, you end up at McDonald’s. Because your parents are better than most, you grew up with a certain ethic in regards to your work habits. You go to work each day, do your best, and due to a moderate allocation of brainpower, do a decent job. Of course, you’re pretty young and probably not entirely happy with your new role as a fry slinger. I give you at most six months before you realize how incredibly under appreciated you are at your new job.

At this point, you will need the benefit of some elaboration in regards to the persons working above our young hero or heroine. Who calls the shots in the recently initiated journey of life for the new “crew member”.

Fast Food Crap-erarchy: The Fast Food crap-erarchy. Don't get stuck at the bottom
From the above diagram you can see a few basic things. At the very top you have the big cheese, the boss supreme. This person is most often always awful at their job. It doesn’t matter how well the store operates, what kind of money comes in, or how many awards their crew receives. From whatever backwater Montana school they barely eked out their shitty BA in business they come from, they never learned the basics of human interaction and business operations. It’s ridiculous sometimes the levels of ineptitude you’ll witness at the upper echelons of fast food management. I worked for 7 separate store managers throughout my 4 years of fast food time, and only one was even a little apt at what they did. He however was a jackass. Moving down the shit ladder, you’ll notice two supposed assistants to the manager. Ah yes, the unfortunate divide in management. The assistant is essentially everyone’s boss. This person does the scheduling. This person does the stock reordering. This person deals with most crew problems, and works most every shift, sometimes 60 hours a week. Oh, yeah that’s right, even in fast food you can reach the joyous phase of salary pay. Only two do and the top guy (or gal) will not, and I can almost always guarantee this, work more than 40 hours in a week. Of course, you have to include the meetings at the franchise offices and phone calls at home. I think I could handle that. Work 35 hours a week, get a company car, and have to go to a few stupid meetings a week and answer an occasional late night distress call from some poor night shift manager. Anyways, the assistant is the person you’ll be dealing with almost always. And they’ll usually be great at their job. This is the shit stop that creates the store managers. The overworking, petty squabbling, and childish bullshit that the assistant puts up with en masse creates the overwhelming urge to hide behind paperwork and push the same crap off on an underling when they are so lucky to ascend the ladder one final time. Next up of course is my favorite stop; the second assistant. Wow, now here’s a dead end, crap job if I ever saw one. This is pretty much a back up for if the assistant is ever sick or gone, a buffer to keep people away from the store manager. A glorified shift manager, who nine times out of ten fails to understand the basic tenets of human functioning that allowed our ancestors to stand upright for the first time more than a million years ago. Those are the three levels of management that more or less run the numbers and operational crap of the store. It’s never that simple of course. These things will of course trickle down said ladder into the laps of the next level more often than not. Enter the phase I remember best, having spent 3 years in it myself, that of Shift Management. You may think me a bit hypocritical for my bald judgment in these paragraphs, especially in light of the following, but bear in mind, only certain people reach certain levels in this kind of work. It’s a peculiar world and pretending otherwise lends it the faced of an officious business that I wouldn’t allow near it on the end of a fishing lure if I were baiting it out to club over the head.

The shift management of a fast food restaurant has an entirely different hierarchy of its own. One built on peculiar bits and pieces such as age, education, language, and ass-kissery. No doubt, these factors are all familiar to you in whichever job you spend your weekdays praying for an earthquake or a category 5 tornado to reduce the building to rubble. These are folks that didn’t necessarily do amazingly well at their jobs in the first place. These are folks that just didn’t leave after those initial 6 months. Usually that’s all it takes. You must be intelligible and well spoken enough to argue down a half drunk father of two in the drive thru who swears on the oil dripping from his 96 sedan that he didn’t get his large fries to tell 10 slightly dumber persons what to do 5 days a week. I dare you to envision any of your friends or family who actually don’t fit this description. The hard part is finding someone like this willing to spend more than 6 months of their life working for the hell hole I’ve described to you thus far. The final piece of the puzzle is simple necessity. It’s shocking and often times disgusting the depths a store manager will lower themselves to find a shift manager when they truly need one. If you find yourself lucky enough to be working for a fast food restaurant at a time when they are mercilessly short of this under appreciated, over worked middle ground worker, you may find yourself the next day in a tie and without that greasy baseball cap.

So, it’s not hard to be a shift manager then? So how can I lay them out and explain how they work. It’s not as hard as all that really. Let’s pretend the management staff is like a distant family. You’ve got Uncle Bill; nice, full of great stories and always bringing a small gift, but fat and lazy as fuck. Just try and get his fat ass off the couch during a football game. Next is Cousin Willie; this little shit head’s in and out of trouble, filching money from his mom’s purse, and swearing at her when she tells him to take the trash out. Little Cousin Susie is a classic kiss ass. She always knows what to say and when to say it to the grown ups. She doesn’t talk much with the other kids because they know she’ll just run to her mommy and get a candy. There’s the newest member of the family too, little Timmy, just big enough to visit, shy-eyed and always knocking over your favorite vase. He doesn’t quite understand things like pulling on the dog’s tail will get him bit. You’ll need to be extra patient with him. Last but not least is Aunt Laura. She holds it all together. Fast working, quick on her feet, and always watching the other four, she’s the only person you can actually stand, the cool aunt who can barely stand her own children so she’s extra nice to you. This is the shift management in a fast food restaurant.

I know none of you ever want to end up in a fast food restaurant under this ridiculous hierarchy of ineptitude, but keep in mind, bad things happen to all of. This is your reminder to do well at whatever job you have, have some savings, and never screw up so much as to be stuck in this hell hole. (If you’re a teenager then it’s a right of passage. Suck it up and do your job)