The Surprising Number of Americans who have actually Worked at Mcdonalds
Working at McDonald's is something you have either done, or something someone you know has done. Informal estimates from the McDonald's corporation put the number of Americans who have worked at one of the many corporate or franchise stores at roughly 20% of the total population.
That's 60 million people.
That might seem like a lot, until you consider there seems to be a set of McDonald's golden arches every mile along any busy street, and at every interstate highway exit you come upon. With more than 30,000 outlets, and 52 million people served every single day, it is easy to see how it takes hundreds of thousands working at McDonald's to keep this massive company going.
McDonald's celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2005, opening what it calls its "flagship" restaurant in Chicago, just a few miles from the very first corporate McDonald's restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois.
When I worked at McDonald's way back in the 1970s, the founder of McDonald's, Ray Kroc, was still alive, still living in Chicagoland, and still doing unannounced, personal inspections of the restaurants. He actually fired the entire staff at one restaurant in the area I was working, and I and two of my co-workers were assigned to "get that mess cleaned up" along with one of the assistant managers. Overnight. Staff members from the restaurant where I worked were called in to hire and train an entire new staff.
McDonald's once took incredible pride in its customer service and its cleanliness. That was when Ray Kroc was still around, and shutting down any place that did meet the stringent guidelines that every single employee had to learn before being allowed to step foot on the service line or in the cooking area.
Some of that care for customer service and quality seems to have been reinstated, but it was obvious during the 1990s that McDonald's became more concerned with growth, than with customer service or quality control. It used to make me sad, remembering how the restaurants in which I worked (three different ones) had been run.
No smile on your face? Fired. Your counter a mess? Fired. No "please" or "thank you?" Fired. Of course, this was during the era of the Baby Boom, when corporations that hired teenagers and young adults had their pick of teens and young 20-somethings to work for them.
Kroc took the business personally. Very personally. Every employee was expected to reflect his values for the business, which were (as I recall) friendly customer service, high quality product, and cleanliness. In that order.
Perhaps McDonald's should get back to those basics, now that there are so many of us who remember what it used to be like to go to McDonald's with the family, after a football game, or while shopping for a quick and tasty meal, served with a smile.
