My experience working at McDonalds as a teenager
I’ll never forget my brother, and I working at McDonald’s when we conversed about the future of fast food in 1999. There we were at fifteen and sixteen years old at over our first job predicting the future of fast food. We talked about how people would walk up and type in their orders themselves, and then their food would pop out like fast food vending machine. We talked about how the machines would make the food and self clean. Of course, McDonald’s doesn’t have machine or robot chefs yet, but the Wendy’s in Upper Arlington has AI taking people’s orders.
Like I said, McDonald’s was my first W2 job, but it wasn’t my first job. I caddied, and I wasn’t exactly getting the bags I wanted caddying at Glen Oak and Cantigny, so during the summer of 1998, I applied to work at McDonald’s. I don’t remember if I was hired after an on the spot interview or I was called in for an interview, but I took the job and excelled immediate. I was a Subway fan as a kid, and I remember ordering cold cut combos for $2.99 plus tax, because the flagship value and combo meals were $2.99 at McDonald’s Burger King, and Wendy’s. Speaking of which, I have no clue why Wendy’s got rid of their salad bar, but McDonald’s was definitely not my favorite fast food restaurant, but I was still excited for my first job. And as I reflect back at my behavior at sixteen compared with grown ass adults, and I’m shocked these people today are hired at all. I didn’t realize how mature and how good my manners were, but I was rock star from the start.
My brother John and I were separated from our siblings from 1989-1995, and the majority of that time passed with John and I in different homes, so working at McDonald’s from 1998-2000 was the most time we spent together during our lifetimes, and I was blessed to work a year with my sister and brother at McDonald’s. It was the most time I spent with my siblings to this day, and then I disappeared from their lives to enroll at The Ohio State University and enlist in the United States Marine Corps.
I neglected my siblings during my twenties, because learned isolation and neglect from my mother and father, but I didn’t understand how relationships worked. I still don’t. It’s a developmental deficiency I’ve been tryin to fix my entire life like smoking. I didn’t smoke when I worked at McDonald’s, but when I started driving, I started stealing cigarettes out of my foster mother Sandy’s purse until I burned a small hole in her steering wheel, because I didn’t know how to ash yet. No one ever asked me to smoke, and all the no smoking and “Smoke-free Class of 2000” propaganda combined with being smothered in smoke and surrounded by Marlboro and Camel is probably why I started smoking Marlboro in my early twenties like drowning in cans of Budweisers with Budweiser commercials is why I drank Budweiser, but didn’t drink or smoke regularly until my early twenties. I was pretty straight edge in high school, but I did have peer pressure problem with certain behaviors.
A lot of people stole from our McDonald’s, because it was ridiculously profitable, and we all validated our petty larceny as tips, because our six or seven dollars enough wasn’t enough compensation for our hard work. Some people short changed dollars and five dollar bills, which required some finagling, because whether your drawer as over five dollars or under five dollars, you were getting written up. My bosses Don and Lanette did not play around, and a lot of kids got fired, but the closers tended to get away with it. I opened, so I didn’t short change dollars and all that, but I did put nickels in the quarter slot, and short changed nickels for quarters. I don’t know why I short changed twenty cents every couple customers, but I knew no one was checking the change, so maybe one in a hundred cars actually counted their change. I didn’t really have drug and alcohol peer pressure in high school, but I was surrounded by teenage thieves, and I definitely stole Upper Deck basketball card packs and things like that, but I felt horrible about it.
I remember getting gas at a gas station on North Avenue, and I gave the old man a new twenty dollar bill, and he said, “Ooh, a new fifty,” and he gave me thirty-eight dollars back. I didn’t correct him and took the thirty-eight dollars after paying twenty for twelve dollars of gas. I felt so guilty, I stopped stealing pretty quickly thereafter. I don’t remember stealing anything since. I take that back. I acquired a lot of army gear when I was deployed, but that doesn’t count, because Marines don’t steal. Laugh out loud. Seriously though, all I can do is make amends to others, be a good person, and help out other people. It’s a part of growing up.
President Trump may think highly of the golden arches, but I don’t think highly of an organization that bribed children with toys as the company transitioned from healthier meat and potatoes to poison that doesn’t biodegrade. Sometimes I wonder how much money McDonald's spent bribing us to eat poison as children, so we would die of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. You see fast-food. I see a mosaic of 5th Generation warfare. Yeah, it's depressing, but I now see how the Disney movies and McDonald’s toys and McDonald’s promotions were used to profit from getting Americans fat and sick. Personally, I’m not okay with Americans dying so McDonald’s could make a buck, but the truth is the psychological operations went hand in hand with the chemical warfare spread through out our food and medicine.
With that said, I cannot deny I had a blast working at McDonald’s as a teenage, and despite seeing women breast-feeding in the lobby and toddlers left alone in the PlayPlace, I handled adversity and fights in the lobby well. However, despite having fun at work and learning about the service industry, I don’t see value in recommending the organization without drastic changes to McDonald’s food. Unfortunately, McDonald’s has had decades to adapt, and the company has not adapted the nutritional value of their food, so I don’t eat McDonald’s ever, which is why I was highly disappointed in President Donald J Trump and Robert F Kennedy Jr for their McDonald’s post.
