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I’m an Australian overnight McDonalds Manager of 5+ years and have seen it all. AMA!
My short bio: Hi Reddit! I’m John, a McDonald’s overnight manager of 5+ years. I feel like I have seen all the craziest things you would expect and more. Feel free to ask me anything.
My Proof: http://i.imgur.com/S8Foxje.jpg
fraydaysteam2496 karma
Unfortunately in most fast food franchises there really isn't any incentive for a manager to go the extra effort to make employees enjoy their work.
I'd consider myself a pretty banterous lad though, so I always tried to make things fun- a happy employee is a hard working employee.
whales-are-assholes349 karma
I work overnights in Back of House for a McDonalds, and I agree wholeheartedly that continuous flow of solid banter can make an ON shift so much more fun. Also, working mostly weeknights, it's generally only my ON manager and myself - so being able to have a solid connection between the two of us is a must - but obviously it can't always be like that.
I've had a couple of managers where they'd ask me to do something, I'd say yes, and that was practically the extent of our dialogue throughout the night.
My last manager and I clicked on so many levels. From humour to music to just general shooting the shit whilst we had that much needed cigarette before we did food safety at 4am for breakfast.
fraydaysteam318 karma
Exactly- the times we spent making sweet music by banging on things in the middle of the night always meant a good shift. And there was always the other funny thing..
fraydaysteam123 karma
Unfortunately there isn't really much incentive. When I was on the floor I'd always try make things interesting for the crew- I consider myself to be a banterous lad anyway. Happy employees are hard working employees!
Pyronic_Chaos1634 karma
have seen it all.
Well the obvious question then. How many customers' dicks have you seen?
fraydaysteam2440 karma
Yeah I was waiting before someone finally asked the real stuff!
But to answer your question, two.
fraydaysteam1845 karma
Some sort of gay event/festival was on, had no issue with any of the folk- they were all great guys, but some were in drag, and one guy had a wardrobe malfunction..
UnfortunanteDuck706 karma
Wait, one guy had a wardrobe malfunction and youve seen two dicks?
.../u/doubledickdude that you man?
xDalexx534 karma
Ok, that's cool and all but then the question becomes: how many tits have seen?
PM_ME_UR_TRAINS63 karma
Not true, my SO's breasts are different sizes, only slightly because it took me 3 months into the relationship to notice but still...
fraydaysteam406 karma
Bigger than the guy that was getting a cheeky wristy from a girl I served in drive thru.
And that was dick numero duo.
fraydaysteam1031 karma
I've seen people ask for a "pack of chips" who had a chip on their shoulder because we only sold "fries"?
TheOlRedditWhileIPoo829 karma
Have you ever had to deal with a drive thru worker shoving 2 chicken mcnuggets up their ass because customer wanted a 4 piece chicken mcnugget, but they only come in 6 or 12 pieces?
fraydaysteam1143 karma
It's happened a couple of times, you get a number from a girl every now and then as well ahah
atlaspowderco89 karma
Wait. You said earlier that you only saw two titties.... "a couple of times" would be at least 4 titties. The titty math just isn't adding up here.
fraydaysteam1166 karma
Nuggets/fries. Those two items must always be constantly produced to meet demand.
TheLurkerSpeaks619 karma
Do you ever put on High Voltage really loud so that everyone can listen to Acca Dacca at Maccas?
Frank-Stallone561 karma
Have you ever seen or had to stop an employee from tampering with someone's food?
(I'm perpetually afraid of eating booger-burgers)
fraydaysteam892 karma
Never, not once in 5 and a bit years did I ever see an employee do something like spit in a burger
Nasa1225499 karma
Are you using the force to manipulate my mind? Since I started reading this thread, I am really craving McDonalds now.
Forestman88491 karma
Assuming you want to stay in the McD corporation, what are your job aspirations? Seriously, where would you be if you stayed with McD for 30 years?
But, if you want to do something else eventually, what are your life goals?
fraydaysteam751 karma
Generally speaking, if you're good enough you can become Restaurant Manager and run the store. From there you can go on to work in head office.
That wasn't really my thing, so I used the experience I had at Macca's and got a job at a bank.
Forestman88275 karma
It certainly seems like reaching the Restaurant Manager level would make you valuable in several other companies. I can't imagine that position is for the weak at heart.
fraydaysteam408 karma
Correct, manager itself valued pretty highly, Restaurant Manager (RM) even more so. I wouldn't say it's worth it though, I could've stayed and got to the RM position after 3 or 4 years, for a modest pay rise. What I chose to do was use my experience as a manager to land the bank gig which pay better than both anyway.
fraydaysteam723 karma
HECK, nah not a litre, but I've sold a sundae cup full of it on a few occasions.
fraydaysteam1360 karma
Would probably have been the time a guy I served at 3am- who I thought went home, crawled out of the playground at 730am after spending the night there.
PainMatrix349 karma
Did he sleep in the ballpit? I could imagine getting pretty cozy in that thing.
fraydaysteam2069 karma
He slept in one of those tube playground things we have. No ball pits at Australian Macca's, but I did see 3 guys go into the disabled toilet one night and not return for 30mins. So one night we did have a ball pit for a while...
lildavo87296 karma
I used to be a maccas manager about 5 years ago. We used to lock the play equipment up with these things that cover the tubes up so people didn't get into them late at night. One morning when unlocking them so they could be used for the day a small aboriginal boy that would of been less than 10 years old popped out of the equipment and just ran off after spending the entire night in there. Poor kid really, where the fuck were his parents?
fraydaysteam187 karma
That's pretty crazy, never had to lock them up like that.
I guess the pissheads in my area were well behaved
wheresmypurplekitten55 karma
Makes me think a couple of pillows and sleeping bags in there wouldn't go astray. It's not like kids are playing there midnight - 6am. Imagine if every Maccas did that.
fraydaysteam176 karma
Lol, I have spent some time up there. But I'm a Vic lad (drive) thru and thru
whales-are-assholes389 karma
I literally just finished my ON shift at my local Maccas, (to quote Abe from The Walking Dead) we were up shit creek with our mouths open.
We had a ON no-show, and the one guy who came in to cover was an absolute fucking idiot. He had everyone pissed off a quarter way through the shift.
Taking over half an hour to fill shake and sundae. Stacked the bun crates to an almost impossible, dangerous height.
While waiting for buns to toast or steam, he'd pick out the 10:1/4:1 patties (hamburger/cheese burger, quarter pounded patties respectively) from the UHC trays and put the fucking condiments onto them - all the while I'm fucking initiating and doing the exact same thing, so he'd end up scraping the shit off the patties and whatever.
Since they've started advertising the crispy/angus clubhouses on TV, every day feels like a friday/saturday night.
I was 4 orders deep at one point. It's 1:30am, I hadn't even begun pulling apart the line (didn't manage to even clean the line till 2:30am) and he's in wash up. I yell out for him to come help. No response. I yell again. No response. A third time. Finally.
He says he'll help out. All good. Puts his gloves on, then spots a co-worker whom had just come in to the counter. That fucker walks straight past me, and goes to the counter to talk to him.
I was livid. I'm generally one of the only cogs in the wheel during ON shifts that wont be rebuked by the ON manager if I swear or yell near the counter - depending who them customer is.
I went at him. I tore him a new god damn asshole.
It gets better. I tell him to jump on initiator (bun toasting, condiments etc) and help me out while I did the nuggets/patties/wrapping ETc.
The dickhead puts the buns in, waits till they pop out at the bottom of the toaster then walks off back to dish.
How, as someone with 5 years ON management experience, have you not killed a fellow co-worker for being utterly stupid?
fraydaysteam329 karma
We used to have a guy like that, the first thing he'd ask anyone he met was "do you smoke weed?"
The Guy was blazed like 24/7
Had some good bants though but
Knight12ify350 karma
Yo so how do you address rumors that the X-Men come to your McDonalds to buy fatty foods in secret for Hugh Jackman?
fraydaysteam699 karma
The X-Men?? Hugh just comes in himself, the bloke's got no shame at all mate!
fraydaysteam905 karma
A "ghetto McFlurry"
Ask for 3 ice cream comes in a lid ($1.50) And then ask for M&Ms in a lid ($0.50) Then ask for a McFlurry cup.
The logic here is that you put all that together in the McFlurry cup and you have a de-facto McFlurry for $2 instead of $5
agustelupiniii240 karma
hi, I'm a manager who does overnights AND does the end of month counts (and no I'm neither the gm or first manager). how hard is it to get someone to fill in for the manager who is counting that night and what are your qcr numbers generally?
fraydaysteam213 karma
End of month counts?? That rough. Generally speaking, it's super hard to get a manager's shift covered, bcause of the limited number of people who are able/willing to do an 8 hour shift.
QCR numbers? We might call them a different thing over here, what do they refer to?
agustelupiniii85 karma
our store call it the spread. it's the difference between the base food numbers and p&l. when you go to the isp type in qcr. you need some numbers like total food costs before that number gets calculated. ours generally runs anywhere from 3.5 to 3.7.
Winterplatypus205 karma
What's the store policy when someone shitfaced drunk goes through the drive through in the middle of the night?
I only ask because drink driving pisses me off and I was in the car behind some guy in the drive through. He was so drunk he dropped his change then fell out of his car trying to pick it up, then he got back in and drove off. The staff didn't seem to care.
fraydaysteam251 karma
Generally speaking there isn't much we can do about drunk drivers- it's rare anyway, but when it did happen I'd ask if they were ok to drive.
If they kept coming in drunk I'd tell them to get lost.
Smokeyroom_goodbooks195 karma
McDonalds worker here, anytime I've dealt with someone in drivethru who seems too intoxicated to drive, or in some cases when I've even spotted open containers of alcohol in the cup holder the first thing I do is write down the license plate number and give it to my manager. Then they call the police and give them a statement. This is pretty common, my sister who also worked at Mcdonalds had a girl come through and literally say, "I'm sorry I'm having such a hard time with my change but I'm sooooo drunk right now." My sister told her to park in a parking spot while her food was being made fresh and called the police, they came to the parking lot and did a field sobriety test, after which the girl was taken away in handcuffs.
fraydaysteam339 karma
This one time these group of lads in the back of an uber gave me half a bottle of Jack Daniels.
I stashed it in a cupboard and when they came in two weeks later I gave it back to them.
They were pretty happy with that
Imadejust4this99 karma
dead set ledge cunt I'd've been beamin after you pulled it out the second time round
PUTINsTiTs166 karma
How many times have you had to go to the bathroom to break up the kangaroo orgies ?
fraydaysteam175 karma
Just used to getting up for gym before work during the week- had an early one yesterday as well.
jerimiahf145 karma
So what do you serve in Aus that we don't have here in the US? Also what's the weirdest request for an order you've seen?
fraydaysteam457 karma
As far as I know we serve the McOz burger, although it's seasonal. I think we're one of the few countries that still do Apple Pies, but I could be wrong.
One of the weirdest would have to be the Double Pounder some guy ordered once- not Double Quarter Pounder, Double Pounder, so 8 meat patties.
We had to serve it in a Happy Meal box.
fraydaysteam203 karma
Not that great tbh, it has:
mustard ketchup mayo onion pickle lettuce tomato cheese beef beetroot
jerimiahf208 karma
Beetroot? oh lord. I Google'd it and found out that in New Zealand they put an egg on it and call it some Kiwi shit...
Edit: so what DOES beetroot taste like?
HonestlyBot32 karma
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wheresmypurplekitten1 karma
What idiot thought mustard and pickle belong anywhere near an Aussie burger? Urgh.
fraydaysteam3 karma
my thoughts as well, but you can always ask the store to take them out
fraydaysteam554 karma
Would probably have to be the lactose intolerant guy.
This was only when I was starting out, but some guy who was lactose intolerant would come in and order a Cheeseburger- with a dozen extra cheese slices. He'd eat the whole thing and then proceed to have violent diarrhea.
He'd then smear the whole sordid mess over the cubicle. He did this about 3 or 4 times I think.
Brudaks169 karma
Wait, what, you allowed him to repeat that after having to clean up that mess the first time?
fraydaysteam176 karma
I was pretty new at the time, but I think there were different employees each time. So the shitting bandit sneaked by each time
dgillz140 karma
Why do you call it "Maccas" down there? How did that ever come about? Is it called that anywhere else to your knowledge?
fraydaysteam300 karma
I'm not gay, but a promotion is a promotion...
But it did take me longer than I wanted, on account of an old Restaurant Manager playing favorites with the promotion of new managers
Temwazhere119 karma
Why is the soft serve machine always 'broken' at night? Is it just being cleaned or refilled?
fraydaysteam202 karma
Yeah, probably the biggest headache - its sometimes both.
EDIT: Let me clarify, its not broken, every night it had to go into its nightly cleaning cycle.
Yes, it's very annoying. No, we can't do anything about it, we do it at night because its the quietest time.
FubarFuturist91 karma
Yeah, I generally only want a sundae at 2am... always gets me with the bloody cleaning cycle.
fraydaysteam248 karma
yeah- when you get so tired that you start running solely on caffeine and adrenaline
Crumpette76 karma
This may be a dumb question, but does this mean your sleeping rhythm is all turned around? Like have you been working nights for years or is it an on for a while, off for a while kind of thing?
fraydaysteam181 karma
Yep, sleeping patterns can be crazy. I remember having to stay up all night one shift, finishing at 7am and going straight to my university exams ;(
Error__Loading74 karma
Have you seen any guns throughout your time there? Also, what does kangaroo taste like?
fraydaysteam208 karma
The security guard who carried the cash to the bank every day carried of course, but nothing other than on the cops who'd come in.
Kangaroo is great- very lean.
fraydaysteam145 karma
Not enough, simply put, I wasn't doing it for the pay, but the experience and the fact that it looked good on a resume- it's since helped me land an even better job elsewhere.
butterplan135 karma
Not enough, simply put, I wasn't doing it for the pay, but the experience and the fact that it looked good on a resume- it's since helped me land an even better job elsewhere.
You worked for McDonalds for 5 years because it looks good on your resume and didn't care for the pay? WTF? Is McDonalds like Goldman Sacs in Australia?
fraydaysteam157 karma
The pay wasn't TERRIBLE, was around $21.50/hr, but yeah, it does look really good here- mainly because of how strict the whole system is.
__nothingtoseehere43 karma
did the scariest night in your memory involve a person or an animal?
i'm wary of the beasts down under.
fraydaysteam191 karma
Scariest nights were always involving people who behaved like animals.
insert-username1229 karma
Why can't you serve people walking up the drive through? It's annoying especially when a location is open 24 hrs but the night hours are drive through only!
fraydaysteam52 karma
Legal liability - mainly the risk of someone getting hit by another car coming in the drive thru. But your definitely right, annoying for customers when drive thru is only option.
RRettig25 karma
How is this anymore crazy than working at any average mcdonalds where I live? People get stabbed at the mcdonalds here on an average Tuesday lunch hour.
fraydaysteam66 karma
I run Gym Supplements Box. We make boxes of full-sized gym supplements, giving everything necessary for muscle and cardio workouts. Although yes, running a Gym Supplements business while working at McDonald's is very ironic...
Edit: Few people pm'ing if they can have a discount, absoutely, here's a code: 05FREEGSX
fraydaysteam50 karma
Worked there during high school and uni, when i finished uni I used my degree and McExperience to get a better job
sicurri7 karma
Other than that 2 lb burger, what's the most exotic off the menu item you've seen or heard of being served?
fraydaysteam29 karma
The "Macca's Donut", two buns, with jam in the middle and deep fried :)
sighcology6 karma
i swear to god you better not work at the smith st maccas cuz i will kill you
sapientquanta2 karma
Right. Ever get over to the Princess? You're an overnight so I think the drive home has been interesting. Got anything to say about the bay?
You have seen a lot. An entire country, and lurking Canadians, want to read what you really have to say.
Spit it out man. You've seen some shite. Get on with the telling.
fraydaysteam10 karma
The Princess Hwy, nah not out that way.
I seen boys start working and grow into men. I seen the sun rise over an empty car park.
A_whaler_on_the_moon2 karma
I studied at Uni Sydney for a bit and remember cokes being wildly expensive compared to the US. Are they any cheaper at Maccas?
fraydaysteam5 karma
Frozen cokes are pretty cheap here, you get the $1 deals which Hungry Jacks started. However the machine breaks down all the time, its become a running joke in Australia
ProudToBePinoy2 karma
Have u caugth some of your crews doing some gross stuffs also called "adding secret ingredients" to rude customers? (some gross stuffs, if you know what i mean)
jackson239162 karma
Is mcdonalds down there still popular as they are in other countries? or do the go "down under" the competion
fraydaysteam5 karma
We tend to do pretty well when it comes to competition- Hungry Jack's got nothing on us
baronmad1 karma
What is the most violent situation you have encounterd while working there?
RedDawg441 karma
Is there nights when its more busy than usual? I expect weekends would probably be busier, and what about rushes? Is there usually a time you guys expect to get busy?
fraydaysteam3 karma
Yeah, Fri/Sat night are the most hectic, and 12am-1am during that is when it gets really busy
fraydaysteam8 karma
The guy was so shitfaced he could barely get the food in his mouth, let alone a pouch
PenelopePeril2307 karma
There's a Taco Bell in my area that has the best night staff of any fast food restaurant I've ever been to. They're always super happy and joke around with us.
A new Taco Bell opened up closer to my house, but I still go out of my way to buy from the "fun" one.
I asked the drive through guy at my Taco Bell how he liked his job and he said it was amazing. He said his manager tries to keep the employees happy and that's how they're always in such a good mood. Is there any incentive for a manager to treat his/her employees well?
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