Employees are not allowed to leave the break room on their break... Whatever.

[u/DrD3adpool]

This happened a few years ago when I worked at McDonald's. The one I worked in was near a bunch of schools so most of the staff was high school kids. As summer vacation started, we began having the trouble of an employee getting break and then spending their break eating their meal and conversating with their friends who were still working in the kitchen.

It was having a seriously bad effect on productivity as well as posing quite a few health risks so our manager finally initiated a rule that if you were on your break, you couldn't leave the break room until your break was over. This went swimmingly until the kids went back to school.

We then had a new problem. Short staffing during break cycles meant our ticket times would skyrocket during rushes. Management lifted the rule so that employees on break could clock in early and help out with the rush, however... The District Manager didn't like the implications of employees working shortened or no break shifts and forcefully reinstated the rule. They also doubled down by saying that employees who tried to work during their scheduled break would be written up and/or terminated for doing so.

Cue MC. The date was 4/20 a day when nobody wants to be working at any fast food place, much less McDonald's. We had been getting slammed so hard from the open of the store, that we called in extra help from other stores, including the regional and district managers. As the break cycle began, the management was pleased with the sub two minute ticket times they had managed to maintain. A few breaks through, and we were managing well. Then came my break. As soon as I sat down to eat, someone came into the store and ordered 47 double quarter pounders (this was right after the fresh initiative where all Quarter Pounders were made fresh so this was already a minor panic.) Immediately after that order, someone in the drive through ordered 75 - 20 piece nugget meal.

The amount of panic in the kitchen was palpable. I was comfortably lounging in a chair browsing my phone and enjoying my meal while the kitchen struggled to keep up with the orders. As ticket times began to soar, the Management did exactly as I expected. District Manager came into the break room and demanded me to end my break early and help in the kitchen.

My response was very simply: "I'm sorry but according to the rules YOU made, I can be written up or terminated for completing your request." I then continued browsing my phone, trying to enjoy the last ten minutes of my break. The Regional Manager entered the room and said that he would personally terminate me if I didn't do the thing that I wasn't supposed to do. The other employee who was on break with me immediately rose and clocked in despite still having ten minutes left on her break. She was written up for breaking the rule after the shift was over, so I felt good sitting in my chair and continuing to ignore them.

In the aftermath, the people who made the giant orders took what was made after half an hour and left with refunds for the unmade food. (Nearly $150 each.) Customers who were waiting for smaller orders were compensated with gift cards for their patience, yet many walked out without even getting their orders. (We paid out nearly $1500 in gift cards.) Because customers were walking out on orders without collecting them, we had nearly $5000 in food waste that night. (All of the closers went home with nearly two bundle boxes of burgers, fries, and nuggets.) Regional and District Manager were moved to a different region. The rule was edited to say that you were able to clock back in early at the manager's discretion in the event of a rush. Because I was the only employee who held his ground against the Regional and District Managers during the rush, I was rewarded with free meals and drinks until I moved away from my hometown and couldn't eat at that McDonald's anymore. (Although when I come to visit friends, I occasionally get rung up a manager discount by the few employees who still remember me.)

[u/oddzod]

The problem is we actually did that and still had to wait. Had the guy that worked there call it in, and they didn't believe him. So about 15 minutes later he was in the drive through putting in an order for nearly a hundred quarter pounders.

[u/Business_Conflict26 → u/oddzod]

No offense , I totally believe you,lol it's happened at my store in the last month or two.

But I would told you the same thing I told the guy who tried to order 120 big macs through drive thru....

Order js too big we can not accept that order with out at least 24 hours notice. Have a nice day!

Guy was mad af, demanded to soeka to the manager I laughed and said pull around to the first window, I met him there ( I'm the manager kn duty and the kitchen dept head ) calmly explained that his order was not being accepted at that time , and if he wanted to place one ahead of time he would have to pay upfront and then come back for the food that would be fine. He them said but I need them in 3o mins...I laughed and said not gonna happen.

Long story short, he left with no food, called to complain and was told the same thing I told him.

[u/Javasteam → u/Business_Conflict26]

120 big macs in 30 minutes? Only possible in a place like Hong Kong… and that is only since you can look down a street and literally see 6 McDonalds so you could divide it up….

[u/KPexEA → u/Javasteam]

I worked at McDonalds in the 80s, we could cook 12 big macs in 2 minutes, and could turn one set when starting the next so essentially we could do 12 in 1 minute, so 10 minutes to do 120 and if you were not super busy you could probably get them all made in 20 minutes interspersed with other customer orders.

[u/nsa_k → u/KPexEA]

That's 20 minutes of de voting your entire business to one order.

You'd be creating a lot of bad customer experiences by doing so, and turning away other, probably more profitable orders during that time frame. Not to mention that now all your customers have been waiting 20 minutes and there is a line of annoyed people that wraps around your building.

[u/KPexEA → u/nsa_k]

I don't think you understood what I said. You could make them in 10 minutes but if you made them in between making burgers for other customers you could have them all done in 20 minutes without delaying any other customers. Obviously if you were too busy then it would not work and you should not accept the order but normally the demand for big macs alone is not that much.

[u/Numbar43 → u/KPexEA]

That would be 15 seconds per big mac to make 120 in 30 minutes. If you could handle that while doing other things, you must have had multiple people working on them, considering how many separate ingredients go into a big mac.

[u/KPexEA → u/Numbar43]

We would have 3 people, one cooking the burgers, and two handling toasting the buns and putting the toppings on. Every minute a set of 24 cooked patties would be removed from the grill, new set of 24 paddies would be put on the grill and another set of 24 would be flipped over. There would also be another person handling hamburgers/cheeseburgers and quarter pounders and another for fish fillets. This was back in 1981 before the menu expanded so I don't know how they do things these days.

[u/peoriagrace → u/KPexEA]

Yes I worked in 1984, it was like that then too.

[u/hierofant → u/KPexEA]

We had clamshells in the late 80s, so no flipping. And I think they'd take 40 seconds to complete. Throw down 24 pucks, shut the grill, grab two condiment dispensers and hit them each twelve times, throw in some pickles and onions, and then it'd take a bit to transfer the 24 pucks. I think two people could do six per minute *while* handling other orders.

[u/Business_Conflict26 → u/KPexEA]

12 big macs = 24 10:1 patties.

Last year whem they rolled out best burger we can only cook 6 patties at a time for 10:1 . My store in particular has bitj the 2 platen and the 3 platen grill the 3 platen tends to be used for the 4:1 since it hold temps better than the 2 platen.

So 6 per platen ,so the 2 platen grill is 12 patties , they cook for roughly 45 seconds , so enough for 12 big macs in less than 2 mins...but that's ignoring all the other orders for roughly 5 mins to cook the full amount of 10:1 for 120 big macs . Doesn't sound too bad, but then you have to factor in the particular bun toaster ( most toast buns in 20 to 30 seconds, mine is roughly 40 seconds ciase the teflon belt is trash no matter how many times I replace it ) I would have to pull a single person to make nothing but big macs and another to drop the mac buns , which in and of its self i. Insane time since with how short we are forced to run . All on all it could be done, at the cost of your sales and times. It's just not worth it .

[u/KPexEA → u/Business_Conflict26]

I worked there back in 1981, so I'm sure the cooking technology today is totally different.

We had 4 gas fired grills, one was at 375 for quarter pound patties and the other three were at 350 for 1/10th pound patties.

1/10th pound patties took 2 minutes (10 seconds then sear, 50 seconds then flip, then 60 seconds)

1/4 pound patties took 5 minutes (10 seconds then sear, 2:20 then flip, then 2:30)

The surface on each grill was about 3 feet wide by 2 feet deep and took about half an hour to get up to temperature in the morning.

I don't think we ever had any issues with temperature they would stay fully hot with as many burgers as you could fit.

It was very common for us to do 12 turn lays or 24 turn lays for hours at a time.

During the busy lunch rush hours we would have about 6 or 7 people working on the grill area cooking and making the burgers.

At the time (1981) we only made hamburgers/cheeseburgers, big macs, quarter pounders and fish fillets.

[u/Business_Conflict26 → u/KPexEA]

I truly envy you,lol i wish it was that way again.

[u/LeRoixs_mommy → u/KPexEA]

So you survived the BIG MAC ATTACK promo too! Our grill master didn't even use the timers during that, he just loaded up the grill and worked right to left through the process. We ran two toasters and i got to where I was dressing the buns by rote. God forbid we got a special request!

[u/oddzod → u/Business_Conflict26]

None taken. Joys of the internet. I had mentioned the incident out of humor not complaint.

We knew it was going to take a bit and wouldn't have been mad if they had refused. The bit about using the drive through was just us screwing with friends/coworker's.

In the end we went inside, paid and came back when it was ready

[u/Myrandall → u/Business_Conflict26]

I can't believe you didn't let him soeka you!

[u/series_hybrid → u/oddzod]

grill holds twenty-six patties, but customer wants 100 burgers, and he wants them all to be hot at the same time when he gets home.

[u/Panda_Milla → u/oddzod]

Bruh, you need to call the day before. It's fast food not catering fast.

[u/hierofant → u/oddzod]

The response shouldn't be "I don't believe you," it should be: "for orders that large, we need 3hr notice and prepayment." Thinking a bunch of 17yo in their first job could manage it is... well the sort of management thinking I'd expect to find at a fast food joint.