Written by: Stevil
There is a huge problem in the fast food industry which most people are not aware of.
I would like to note that the problem is not incompetent employees, despite the fact that most people still think that employees spit in hamburgers. The line about fast food industries being anti-union doesn’t even begin to cover it. Fast food employees make the bare minimal. And I’m not just referring to the high schoolers that need mall money, I mean you can be a manager at one of these places for ten years and still be making below double digits (seriously, I’m not making that up). Every time minimum wage goes up – guess what, that’s your raise for the entire year (as opposed to your normal ten cent raise)! Don’t like it? Complain to someone working at your restaurants office, but I wouldn’t recommend it because complaining gets you fired, and fast food experience isn’t worth shit to other employers. You’re just a burger flipper, remember? Want hours? Too bad, you get the hours we give to you. If you want more you have to work overnights. Want to move up in the company? You can move up to crew trainer (which gives you twice the amount of work with either a ten cent raise or no raise at all), or manager (which will literally triple your workload as well as your stress levels for a 1% pay increase. But fast food’s easy right? If the job’s not hard why should they make as much money as someone working at a harder job?; If you truly believe this you’ve never worked in fast food and you’re a complete tool. Try working at the busiest McDonald’s in an entire city with a broken air conditioner and 110 degree grill area (based on real temperatures, not made up ones), with around 400 customers per hour all demanding fast service and taking their anger out on you and your co-workers as you struggle to keep up with demand by working your asses off, sweating out ten pounds, you’re short handed because a third of your co-workers are trainees and another third called off, only to come home covered in grease to a family you can’t support because your boss who wants you to work your ass off at the threat of termination won’t pay you anywhere near what you deserve. Now you just lost your apartment because you can’t pay rent and you either have to pick up two more jobs and work 60 hour weeks or apply for welfare and be thought of as a parasite to society by everyone on the planet.
When this is your job, do you give a shit that there’s mold in the asshole customers drink machines? Literally 50% of the customers are rude and 10% of them are not just rude, they’ll sit there and scream at you over a mistake you don’t remember making on their sandwhich for five minutes then demand to speak to your manager to complain about you in front of everyone else, holding up more customers who are now getting angry themselves. Once in a while you’ll get a customer that will throw hot coffee at you, tell you you’re worthless and you should get a real job (where asshole? when the economy is shit and you can’t afford to go to college you’re fucked because no one other than fast food will hire you). Occasionally your store owner will show up in his brand new sports car, wearing a thousand dollar suit, and he’ll sit there and tell you what you’re doing wrong, but god forbid he helps you out when it’s busy, or give you any extra money for working your ass off, or even just pay you what he owes you. And if you get injured at work? Don’t bother reporting it because your boss will fight your story in court if it even gets that far (which it won’t because you can’t afford a lawyer, much less the healthcare your boss won’t give you to help with the injury).
Oh and say your store runs out of a product and all your customers are bitching, whatever you do don’t agree to go to another store to pick up supplies, because your boss will give you 1/3rd of the gas money that you need to get there and back(this is McDonald’s standard rate, anyways). Want some food from the store you work at? Too bad, you still have to pay for it (oh but it’s okay we’ll give you a 30% discount – your only benefit).
So if it seems like the employees there don’t give a fuck about you – the customers, it’s because you don’t give a fuck about them either until they screw up. On top of that, their boss doesn’t give a fuck about them (they are expendable after all). Society doesn’t give a fuck about them. The government doesn’t give a fuck about them. No one thinks twice when a fast food worker gets fired for a bullshit reason, doesn’t get paid what they deserve, or picks up a massive drug addiction as the only form of relief from the constant stress.
Very well said.
I have two high School teen that work at What-a-Buger and the started at $10.00hr. Which is good for Lubbock Tx.
Where they start cop at $14.23.
I also work at Whataburger, I only get $8.25/hr. Less than 40 hours a week. Never overtime….ever. I also have 9+ years culinary experience, not that they care or are willing to pay for. I work w/ a bunch of teenage “Mini-Bosses” who think they are just TOO cool, being a team leader, making the normal $.25 extra an hour than I do. The store I work at makes up to $75,000 a WEEK! I seriously doubt those fatcats couldn’t spare a buck or 2 more an hour for each of us. Also, there is NOTHING easy about doing a mindless, soul-sucking job like that for 8 hours.
Dude why do you work in a burger place when you have 9+yrs culinairy experience. Ofc they don’t care or willing to pay…its a burger place
Same for me all though I clean a superstore in Canada I make min wage witch just got out to 11.00 been doing it for 3 years busting my Ass and I nearly see my boss I asked how the raise system worked she said. When they give me more money I’ll give u more. Doubt that
collage ? NEWSFLASH!!! most collage grads are working minimum wage jobs too because employers have a choice of who ever they want in a employers market and only the highest grade point average applicants get those higher paying jobs .and those are scarce .we are under siege by the tag team of our own government and corporations.
Couldn’t have said it better. Everyone creates the stereotypes that people who work in fast food restaurants are slackers and get paid for doing a bad job. Not true at all. I pity every single person who has to work in such a hellhole, luckily I was born in a financially-comfortable family and have the huge privilege to go to University. We live in such a corrupt and arrogant world that we don’t know the truth about every aspect of our lives. Secrets are kept from us that we have the right to know, only for the high-ranking individuals’ benefit. We work like slaves and what recognition do we get? “Nada.”
This sound like just about every job except for the sweating you ass of under the heat of the cookers. This is right on, the big money making corporations, job description for everybody. I went to college an now I’m going back to college because I work at a Marshalls retail store, that’s just like this. Recovering half the store your damn self, an people are pigs they throw shit around right in front of you. You recover your department alone which is one side of the place an then because so many people called off….you have to then go to another department where no one has done shit and do that too…ALONE. Not only that you have to do double the departments but you also got to be back up registers an the lazy jerks up there will call you when two people are in line, then you got to do layaway which takes up a half of your night because everybody wants shit when they can’t afford it only having to make you move FASTER to clean up the pig sty the customers left. They expect you do all that in the fucking 4 hour shifts they give you. An then if someone calls off that day they leave the department they were scheduled in completely empty. so if you come in at 6pm an we close at 930. you get the wonderful job of cleaning a days worth of shit in 3 an a half hours. Making fucking 9 dollars a hour an the store makes 60,000 that day alone, reaping the benefits of you working like a damn dog.
My mom same thing. She’s a manager at a bakeshop, at jewel. She works herself sick. If she doesn’t have the payroll well fuck you kim you got to do all that work by yourself, put the frozen load away, do set, do decoration work the counter. Do it all!! at almost 56 years old. She’s completely sick, needs a operation BUT IF SHE TAKES A LEAVE TO GET IT…Guess what the company will find a way to fire you! So it’s either her living or her health. They don’t care. An they always want MORE! MORE! MORE! MORE! WHERE’S THE WHIP?!?! MORE! DO IT! YOU ARE REPLACABLE! IF YOU CANT KEEP UP…FUCK YOU! I’LL HIRE SOMEBODY WHO CAN WORK LIKE A DOG TILL WE RUN THEM DOWN AN HAVE TO HIRE SOMEONE ELSE!!!!
That is every poor man an woman’s job in the entire god damn world.
A special thanks to everyone who read the article and those who posted replies as well. Also thanks to anonhq for publishing this. First time I’ve ever been published anywhere. I know I’m pretty much preaching to the choir, but there are plenty of people in the world that don’t seem to realize just how bad things are for the lower class and if I can just get a few people to change their tune maybe it’ll help make the world just slightly better. Hell, even if I get a few people to just see things differently I’ll consider it a good thing. Again, thanks to all the readers. I’m happy you guys like my writings.
Absolutely we do!
As you say, pity if it’s preaching to the choir – but IS it??
I would find it hard to believe there are not a considerable percentage of readers who do buy from fast-food chains.
AND… if so – no matter how strongly you may agree with this article – it makes NO DIFFERENCE, if you continue to support them with the only thing they care about: your money! Your custom!
The ONLY way tobring about change is to BE the change you want to see.
In this case, NEVER again spend one penny, cent, rupee, etc at ANY of these places!
Do not cross the thresh-hold!
Vote with your feet & your money.
I never ever buy from any of them; if we all boycotted them, maybe it would make a difference. Either way, we’d have none of their many & varied shameful practices on our conscience.
Maybe Stevil, you’d like to have a snoop around ALL their nefarious doings, & report back..?
For this: cheers! Nice one!
& only the tip of the iceberg… 😉
No guarantees on more fast food articles. I’ve been fortunate enough in my time since then to pick up a job at K-Mart. Which doesn’t solve all the problems, especially the pay, but it’s a much lower amount of stress and I haven’t gotten to the point of straight up hating the company yet, which is good.
I’ll totally agree with your boycott. I have no desire to pay these companies money. I think we should make it a point to keep it clear why we boycott them though. Send them letters/etc. Not that I actually think it’ll do any good. I’m a realist, after all. However if we’re gonna do something, we should at least do it right.
During my time in the industry I’ve actually become a non-carnivore, boycotting the entire meat industry. I don’t like the term ‘vegetarian’ as it has a negative connotation rightly associated with it that is derived from the ‘I’m better than everyone else and I want to force my beliefs on you’ attitude most vegetarians possess, so I don’t like to tell people I’m a vegetarian. Sadly though, regardless of the attitude they have, I still think they have the right idea. Animals don’t need to suffer anymore than humans do and yet they have it the worst – especially in regards to the fast food industry.
But enough of my babbling. Hope I haven’t just alienated everyone lol. Thanks again for reading the article.
I have to say this was on of the better articles I’ve read. Why? because I think everyone can relate 110%. You welcome. Hopefully we will be seeing more articles by you. Thank you!
Might be a bit before I can think of a good enough topic, but I have tons of things to complain about – especially in regards to corporate-America. So I’m sure it won’t be too long before you get to read another one of my rants. I’m really happy anonhq gave me the opportunity to publish this and also that the feedback’s been so positive (not that I mind negative criticism, as it keeps me on my toes). It’s nice to work with Anonymous as a whole too, because I agree with a lot of their principles and mostly support their efforts. Plus, having an overwhelming love for Linux, I enjoy reading about their hacking techniques and learning how things are done. Though most of their attacks are just DDOS, which really isn’t hard to do at all.
Again, I’m babbling lol. Thanks again for the read.
It is happening the world over. The working poor are told to tighten their belts while the wealthy get richer at a faster rate. The polticans create a large pool of unemployed so that the fat cats can hire them on min wage that in real terms get smaller every year because of imaginary inflation.
Nothing will change.all the lies slavery in this country is still at work.specially in KY people and the state are cheap in this state.the whole country.only a revolution will change all injustice and lies starting with this fake government that’s full of deception
I recently was hired for a part time job. When I applied for the ASSISTANT MANAGER position, this auto parts company informed me that the position I was applying for, was filled. Problem is, it was never “filled”, in fact, it’s still vacant. Even though I am qualified, experienced and ASE certified. Why didn’t they give the position to me? Because it’s a new store. That’s the only response I get. 15-25 hours a week at 8.25 and hour, from what I was told was MORE than what my other co-workers make, based on my experience. Since I’ve been out of work for a month, I need SOMETHING coming into the bank account.
Very unfortunate. But don’t give up hope. I usually have to put in around 50-100 applications during my unemployment streaks before I get a job. Takes a couple months usually. The key is persistence. It’s incredibly shitty we live in a world like this, but this is a tip from a guy who’s never been unemployed for very long (never as in since I turned 16. I’m now 27).
This country is made up of self made men. Get off your ass and change.
Mythology. You have no evidence of this.
Minimum wage minimum effort. Not saying you’re lazy, just not creative or an out of the box thinker. Planned happenstance. Look it up
I am a shift manager at McDonald’s. Ive been with the company for 6 years and I make 9 an hour to basically do my work and then the work of about 5 other people because my store is always short handed I get called in early almost everyday and since last Friday I havent worked under 8 1/2 hours on a shift. And when it comes down to the end of the work week ill get cut the hours needed to keep me from getting any overtime pay but ill be expected to get the same amount of work done. I hate when people look down on people who work in fast food honestly some of us actually do care about our job and try to go the extra mile for the customer but its hard when you dont have enough crew and its busy and then you have people yelling at you when you arent fast enough to their expectations. Be kind to your fast food workers they do work hard! Great article!!!
I worked at a new walmart that was put up about a year ago(I began when it was barely 3 months old). I was making $8.60/hr and working in the electronics department. I thought that at the time it wasn’t going to be too bad of a job…I was wrong, when the put me on the floor after 1 day of actual training, I felt lost because the guy who was training me wasn’t even in my department and he was transferring over to one in grocery. So I had to learn almost completely on my own. When we were understaffed (which was all the time and walmart made it that way on purpose, I watched a documentary on netflix about how corrupt and terrible walmart was to ALL its employees) I had to work in both hardware and apparel (which are both super crowded with people) on top of my normal take care of carts full of stuff people brought back AND help new employees learn the ropes of electronics. Then they also had me learn how to use the photo counter (that pays WAY more than any other department besides pharmacy) and I actually felt comfortable with phot but I ONLY wanted to do electronics and photo. But my department manager at the time told me that it was only going to be a one time thing… He was so wrong there… I had to work in ALL departments because they were understaffed. And they don’t give any employees full time until AFTER 2 years, same with benefits. Also NOBODY would answer the phones in the store so everytime the front was suppose to answer the phone either I answered it in my electronics department or another really cool associate that worked in my department did… The customer service didn’t do shit and I felt that I or someone else had to help their customers understand why they weren’t getting the service like the people in the walmart commercials did. I had a customer come up to me one day and asked me if I could get her son an AT&T phone plan and I told her that I am the only one in electronics today my department manager and my assistant manager were gone for the day…even though it wasn’t even 8pm yet. So I told her the I was new and didn’t know how to make contracts yet and she smiled and told me that it fine she will come back tomorrow at an earlier time. She did and I was STILL the only employee in electronics. She asked me again and when I told her that there was no one else here she got SO pissed that she started saying how I should know everything because I work at a walmart and I can help her I just choose not to and she just kept ranting so I couldn’t tell her to leave (that would get me fired) I could tell her to calm down (I would get fired for that too) I couldn’t just walk away…I had to stand there with a stupid grin on my face until she stopped insulting me…even though I have worked there for about a month or two. After I got a manager to tell her that there is no one else in today that can do contracts she left still freaking out…and the manager told me that she knows her and that lady is ALWAYS like that…she didn’t asked if I was okay after that lady went on a bitching frenzy, she just told me to get back to what I was doing and then help in her department…the FROZEN department, which my husband was working in. He quit as soon as he could because he was being discriminated against by that very same manager. I stayed because we have a puppy to feed and we had to get out of his mother’s house (which we still live in because the cost of living is so damn high in almost every state) so anyways I had to stay to buy food and gas for us. After about 4 months of supposedly easy labor (which was really hard, I don’t know how many miles I walked in that fucked up store but I have a lot of socks that have holes in them now) I heard that we are getting a female employee in our department, I was happy that we were I mean I was the only female employee in electronics at the time so being able to get another woman in this department was awesome. Turns out it was the exact opposite. She had to be the sluttiest woman I have ever seen. First off she wore looooooooooow cut shirts that REALLY pronounced her boobs, she had this odor that didn’t go away until two hours after she was already gone, and she didn’t do ANYTHING for the department, she probably did about half a job and then leave to flirt with every guy in the store. And the worst part was that she got paid more than the department manager got paid…AND SHE WAS ONLY AN ASSOCIATE. So when I asked my new department manager (the other one got fired for doing something that he was probably told to do but suffered the consequences) to please tell her to do something because the other employees and I are working our asses off while she just stands around puffing out her chest for EVERYONE to see. He told me that he will try but he has to talk to his manager first about the issue. She probably still works there still and probably is making more money than even the salaried managers are making. So before I quit walmart I was having a hard time with two managers harassing me for no reason, I told the store manager about the incidents and she said that she will “do an investigation” and of course that means have no one investigate until you have corporate breathing down our neck till you actually do what you said you would do. By even though there were cameras posted around every corner in that fucking store still she said she couldn’t “see the problem” that I was seeing so she told me that she couldn’t talk to the managers who were harassing me because that would be disturbing the investigation even though she told me that the investigation was over. I HAD IT after that I handed her the things that I used for work and I walked out the door. They didn’t do anything for the employees. And now I just got a job working for Sears as a cashier makes 7.25 but I get commission if I sell credit cards too. So not too bad but it totally beats walmart.
I just started working at Fuddrucker’s recently as a second part time job and was told that I would start at 20+ hours a week and be moved to full time soon after. So far, the most I have worked is 15 hours and they cut them down even more. The training has been almost none existing and expect me to still do the job as expected by the company. The assistant managers are assholes and the best benefit I get is 50% off burgers. My only other complaint is that law enforcement gets 50% off while military only gets 10% ( I would much rather give 50% off to a soldier than the cops here who have a tendency to shot first and ask question never).