Reposted for posterity:
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Originally Posted by lio45
Given his first-hand experience, it would be great if we could put MolsonEx in charge of teaching Oxbridge College’s “How To Pour Very Hot Used Cooking Oil In The Waste Oil Container Without Pouring It On Yourself, for dummies” class.
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Originally Posted by MolsonExport
I've got some stories about this. Maybe I shared them on here, because lemme tell you, I've got some stories. Here is one of them.
The Waste oil container was 3 feet off the ground, presumably to keep out (some) pests (it was always filled with thousands of maggots, of which each generation was fried...which will become clear in a moment). This required you to hoist the waste oil (which was in a square trolley, piping hot for at least an hour after discharging) up, well past your waistline. Naturally, it was easy to spill some under the circumstances. So you are hoisting this metal bin (weighs 18 pounds empty) filled with waste oil (50 pounds, as each bin held a box of shortening that weighed such, which was topped off many times a day to compensate to losses from coating fries/nuggets/whathaveyou). You can easily slip. One poor guy slipped backwards, and the piping hot grease covered his chest, torso, neck, and legs/feet. He was found unconscious, passed-out from the pain, about 20 minutes after going outside. 3rd degree burns on 30% of his body, 2nd degree burns on another 30%. His acrylic uniform top was partly melted to his body.
There were consequences.
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Originally Posted by Gresto
I can see that happening. Do you remember McPizza, McD Canada's abortive early-'90s attempt at a pizza pie? (They weren't bad, but eventually went the way of the Dodo due to nigh-nonexistent sales.) The charred pizza racks were cleaned in a metal container full of powerful degreaser that was placed onto one of the breakfast plancher grills. Full, it weighed about 150 lbs. I remember lifting it onto the grill by myself a few times, slipping and sliding on the perpetually greasy floors. Gives me chills to consider it now.
Also, a coworker told me a story of an incident that occurred at another outlet. McDs likes to hire intellectually handicapped folk because it can pay them less (I don't know if that is still true). At any rate, one of these poor clods was huge and strong. A guy in the kitchen was ridiculing him, so this big dude took the other's hands and dunked them for several seconds in the chicken fryer.
Another lovely memory you and I have shared in the past was the periodical emptying/cleaning of the sink's grease trap. By Jove, if there's a worse stench known to man (perhaps a decomposing corpse), I prefer to remain ignorant of it!
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Originally Posted by MolsonExport
ah the grease trap, aka the sump pump. Horrors of cleaning that thing out. A dimwitted manager once told an employee to dump the drained fry vat oil into the sink (she was running late, and wanted to gtf home after a long night as closing manager). Well the oil congealed and set. And "backwash" could not happen, as the sinks all overflowed. The mess was epic...it cost a lot of money to bring in Mr. Rooter.
Man, that hands in the chicken vat story is unnerving. We also had a number of intellectually handicapped people working at my McD's...one of which featured in a commercial for McD's. A lot of people made fun of this guy behind his back (he had some strange eating habits...ordered THE SAME MEAL every single day, 5 days a week, for at least three years: two 'plain ham' [no condiments], + Fries, + Strawberry Sunday) but mostly we were protective of him. I recall a big fight in the lobby between us managers (and a few senior employees) and a gang of shithead teens who were taunting the employee with the "r" word. When we asked them to leave, they laughed and suggested that we were also "r-ds". Back in the day, we didn't exactly hold back. It got physical, but that was a regular occurrence in the McD lobby.
I saw a guy leaning on the fry vat while chatting to a fellow crew member. His foot suddenly slipped out (the floors were always greasy, despite Baldanus's screams of "time to lean, time to clean!!"). His arm instinctively went out to protect his fall...right into the fry vat (425F), all the way past his elbow. The shriek...was bloodcurdling. He withdrew his arm, instinctively trying shake off the 425F oil coating it...and off came his fingernails and the top layers of his skin.
I know all about McD pizza. there were four of us chosen to be the first trainees of McDs pizza for western Montreal. I was one of them. We drove down to Cornwall, spending two days at one of the outlets that had the pizza rolled out (Cornwall was the first city in Eastern Canada to launch pizza). We came back to train managers/employees at different locations in Montreal, and within a month, the product was launched in Montreal.
I know all about that heavy duty degreaser soaking for the pizza grills. They'd go in all covered in grit. They'd come out pristine. We had a big plastic tub where the degreaser was kept along with the grills. I wouldn't want to lift it...yeah about 150 lbs sounds about right.
I got burned a zillion times while in the kitchen, nothing major. I once broke a bone in my foot while doing "Brower" (long story...I also worked at Brower for 6 months as a forklift driver). Got a really bad electric shock from a frayed vat machine cable. Another bad shock from a loose wire in the McNugget Cabinet. Good times.
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Originally Posted by Wigs
These McD's stories are something else. The deep fried maggots and fryer/grease burns, electric shocks, teenage brawls or brawls with teens, slips, trips and falls which is employment safety 101 etc. I hope things have much improved for the employees from 3 decades or more ago.
I do recall McPizza. It tasted cheap but had a unique sauce with a tiny bit of spiciness. It was served on a tray/stand like an actual pizzeria. I think my mom took us to get it 5 or so times. The advertising campaign probably cost more than they ever made in sales.
Novelty factor more than anything else.
lio, Hamberder University can be the first meme-versity with a fat head cartoon Bolanis on the logo. The diploma can be NFTs that the students pay extra for.
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Originally Posted by Gresto
Sorry for the dilatory reply and the renewed digression of this thread, but the car's Wifi (I'm at the cottage ) was achingly slow yesterday. Good grief, you have more nightmarish stories than I do.
Don't remind me of Brower, the worst shift a kid could be sentenced to. Here, let's destroy your body for three hours by blasting 50-60 lb boxes down a wooden chute at your child-sized arms and torso, and in exchange you get $12. Sounds fair. One time, another kid and I finished early because of diligence, a little over 2 hours in, and this bitch of a manager (one of the only managers I ever disliked; she had the affect of a sociopath, and always refused to drive home "closing" kids, which was her duty, occupational and moral) told us to clock out. We demurred, demanding to be paid for the full three hours we were scheduled. Other coworkers chimed in and gathered around incensed, one saying his dad was a lawyer and would have the virago fired, etc. I don't recollect what happened (she faced no consequences), but I'm sure we were paid for the full three. Miniscule victories.
McDonald's and its fast-food brethren can rot. It's evident you still resent it as much as I do after all these years. I'm only fortunate in that I never worked under or with someone as vile as Baldanus.
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Originally Posted by Loco101
Maybe just a general fast food thread would be good.
This discussion has reminded me how much I hated doing the Brower shifts in Winter.
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Originally Posted by MolsonExport
Brower = Martin Brower = Distribution/Wholesaler for McDonalds = unloading trucks full of McD's products
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Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere
Y'all seem to have some horror stories from your McDs days man - mine was a bit more positive than that. I mean minimum wage aside, it was a relatively positive experience outside of crappy customers. The employer was generally fair to me in the context of a minimum wage job
It probably helped that our McDs did blockbuster sales to the owner-operator had some decent margins to throw around and didn't really need to count pennies..
I also never had to do Brower loads, for some reason.
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Originally Posted by Marty_Mcfly
Same. I did two short'ish stints at McDs when I was younger and don't really have any horror stories to share. There was always one mid-aged manager who was power tripping, but other than that everyone else was good to work with. No horror stories on the food either, QC was so strict that nothing bad was making into the kitchen.
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Originally Posted by MolsonExport
5+ years McD's veteran here, worked at three stores (same ownership, West Island of Montreal) and also at Martin Brower (Warehouse, also West Island) , mostly full time during these 5+ years (it paid the bills while I went to CEGEP then University). My McD's years were the 1980s and early 90s. I imagine much has changed since the wild west days.
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Originally Posted by MolsonExport
I was a manager at McD's for more than 4 of my 5+ years.
Yeah, as a manager, you see it all.
In the end, however, and perhaps like a stint in the military, I did learn a lot, and the experience did shape my personality.
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Originally Posted by Gresto
Like Molson, I also worked there for more than five years. Talk about squandering one's existence! Only really worth it for the persiflage with coworkers. It wouldn't happen in today's oversensitive climate, but at the time there was much ribaldry and tomfoolery in the back (kitchen, mostly populated by young males), and reciprocal flirtation with the cashiers (mostly young females). Regrettably, I missed out on dating opportunities with a few fine fillies. I was far too shy to make a move, and didn't pick up on their interest, though I recognize it in hindsight.
As to your comment, it's true, as I mentioned earlier, the crew chiefs and entry-level managers were paid only marginally more than us rock-bottom plebeians, and that with much more responsibility. I was told more than once that "McDonald's Manager" was actually considered a substantial asset on one's resume. My conscientiousness and hard work led to the proffering of promotion on a few occasions, but I had zero, zilch, nada intention of investing more of myself in that shitty company. The only reason I was there for 5-6 years was because of my confounded inveterate indecision and inertia, which persists to this day.
Back then, early-'90s, entry-level managers made $7-8/hr, the next level up made a salary of circa $25,000, the third level about $35,000, and store managers about $45,000.
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Originally Posted by Loco101
My time was during the mid-1990s. I worked at the main Timmins location as well as at the Walmart one which had the same franchise owner. I really enjoyed the Walmart location as it was much less chaotic and didn't have a drive-thru.
My brother was a McD's manager for about 4 years during that time but they never allowed us to work together which was a wise move lol.
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Originally Posted by MolsonExport
je vais prendre deux cheeseburgers, par exemple, avec des frites, et un milkshake vanille.
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"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."-President Lyndon B. Johnson Donald Trump is a poor man's idea of a rich man, a weak man's idea of a strong man, and a stupid man's idea of a smart man. Am I an Asseau?
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