IamA Experienced Crew Member at McDonalds UK AMA!

What kind of approach does McDonald's take for whipping slow-performing employees into shape? Is it different from what you may have seen to be effective? Thanks!

Well whipping some people would really seem like fun however we can't anymore which is a shame haha.

I've dealt with a few employees who are slower on stations and generally they are given support and training if they aren't showing any progress.

Although personally, just creating a connection with them and chatting to them while on the station can slowly increase their confidence in what they're doing. Once that confidence is up there, they're work speed increase exponentially.

Finally, there are some employees that just aren't possible to deal with generally due to a lack of the right attitude. Therefore we give them all we can to try and help them but if it fails our management seeks termination of their employment.

Is there such a thing as the secret menu?

No we have no secret menu. Although we will cater to your needs as a customer where possible.

Thank you! When I had a friend who worked at a McDonalds 10 plus years ago he used to make Big Macs using quarter pounder burgers. Was amazing, was hoping to get another one somehow!

That sounds amazing honestly but procedures and all makes it impossible to do things like that.

"Although we will cater to your needs as a customer where possible."

Apparently not.

At the McDonald's I work at you can substitute anything in the burger. Be it regular 10:1 patties, 4:1 or even chicken

How does that work with the tills and pricing?

And the answer here is, most stores may not due to the cost and the only way to find out is to ask a manager :)

It'd just have to be entered as Big mac without reg meat, add quarter meat x2.

That isn't an option on a till, we can't change what size patty is on there. It just lets us add or remove a meat patty with no size.

Oh, figured they'd use the same software everywhere.

I believe we all do?

I know on all the stores I worked at we could do that.

I thought we used the same too, the same as on the training game on ourlounge?

Although we will cater to your needs as a customer where possible.

Apparently not. Thanks for making sure we don't get any misinformation.

where possible.

How is that not possible though?

It's not a product we sell so it is up to management to choose whether to do that and I truly believe they will say no.

My Mrs. can't eat brown bread or seeds due to health issues. So when I go my local McDonald's and ask for her burger on a breakfast roll they're more than willing to do it.

But out of the last 6 different restaurants we've visited only two were accommodating.

Is the whole catering for a customers needs company wide? Or is it at the restaurants discretion?

Each manager has the final decision on these types of things so anything that a Crew Member is not sure about should go be forwarded.

The major thing about your request though is breakfast rolls cost more than our regular or quarter buns. As well as generally there may be none out or are defrosting for the next day.

Edit: Noticed some naughty spelling and grammar mistakes!

When are you going to bring that Szechuan sauce back?

Who say's its not already back ;)

You are playing with fire saying that m8.

Well get schwifty then my friend

Show me what you got.

I'm more of a teaser unfortunately

What is the nicest thing you've seen one person do for another at your job?

There is so much compassion that never gets paid attention to within jobs like ours. Although the one thing that really stands out is with new starters. They're all sweaty and nervous its their first day at a job with all these people who know what they're doing. And just by everything saying hello like they've known them forever and getting on with their job it calms them.

Alas, I have a story. So our staff are either part timers between 16-22 or full time staff. Therefore we have half of us who drive and half who don't. Late shifts means that people have to get taxi's if they live further away than they can walk. So I was working and I missed my last bus and with no money was attempting to ring around people for a lift when our lovely Dining Area lady called Nancy joked about me still being around. To which I obviously replied I was waiting for a lift. And you can guess, she offered to take me and I accepted but found myself with a relative coming to pick me up.

Everyone at this type of job just gets along or you don't enjoy your job much.

Have you ever tampered with the food and given it to a rude customer?

Also, wtf is going on with the mcflurry machine?!

Well all food is made so the opportunity to tamper with it is possible. However, when the front counter gets you your food, you see it the entire time. There is no possibility to contaminate food even if a customer is rude.

The soft-serve machine in my store is the same as the shake machine. But let's just focus on soft-serve for the purpose of your question. Each day I am going to create an imaginary number of 10 McFlurry's per hour being pulled. That makes 240 per day.

Years	Amount Served	Running Total
1	87,600	87,600
2	87,600	175,200
3	87,600	262,800
4	87,600	350,400
5	87,600	438,000
10	87,600	876,000
15	87,600	1,314,000

As you can see it has alot of use over the years. Most of our equipment is only replaced when it is broken beyond repair or upon a special request by our management.

Why do you make 87,000 flurries the first year and 438,000 flurries the fifth year?

Ah damn I done goofed

Edit: This has been rectified thank you for reminding me to correct the mistake. I began calculating certain days of a year but realised that was too small a range to show real use.

Is it true that the company that supply your burgers is called " 100% beef " that's how the advertising gets the public to believe mc Donald's is a reputable company ? Also the same deal with "real chicken "

All our burgers are 100% real beef ... I think it's very clever

Absolutely true. Also, the chicken nuggets are actually made from a lab grown protein called ch1cken, but cleverly they use a font which makes the 1 look like an i.

I don't get the downvotes this is good satire.

If it says "made with 100% beef" there's the chance that 1% of your burger is 100% beef. It's a common marketing trick to make people think something is something else.

That is a hot topic actually about the with. People will never know unless they specifically ask the company who supplies our meat.

I don't get company names as I'm not a manager but I do know that all our meats are checked to make sure they're safe for human consumption by the company before actually being a vendor for us. So whatever their name would be, it wouldn't matter.

I'm old, so I remember good ol' days when maccys food was cooked right before serving, and now it's kept in a humidifier which keeps it warm for extended periods of time.

So when I walk into a McDonalds and ask for a double-cheeseburger "straight off the grill", and when the counter person passes that on to the kitchen, the kitchen says "Nah" and just makes it from the humidifier.

Why is that?

Well there's two types of ways to make grill products now. We have EOTF and Direct.

Direct is where the food is cooked and then held in a production bin.

EOTF is where the meat is cooked and put into a UHC tray upon which the buns can be toasted, dressed and then given to a customer.

If we get a special request such as a 'fresh' burger we will cook it as fresh as possible because if we don't we're neglecting our service responsibilities to our customers.

The problem for me is that 30 years ago, McDonalds was all about quality. Meat quality was amazing (McDonalds owned all their own farms), they had the best fries in the business thanks to cooking them in beef/cottonseed oil, real chocolate solids & real strawberries in the shakes, and their advertising was all about this. Now they've just given up. Chocolate shake tastes like nesquik chocolate (caramel), the fries taste of nothing, Meat bought from anywhere they can get it cheap in the UK, and "UHC" tray is the humidifier I was talking about.

That humidifier is the death of McDonalds being No 1 in the fast food business. They cook the meat, then put it in a tray in a steam environment. So all the juice (aka flavour) drips out of the meat and it's replaced by water from the vapour. So, it's tasteless brown cardboard. Also, meat fresh off the grill is 200-300 degrees (grill is 330-345 degrees) which is great. The hottest a humidifier can get is 100 degrees, so the meat is hopefully 70 degrees (just hot enough to prevent e-coli). The problem is that 70 degrees isn't hot enough to melt the cheese in my double-cheeseburger. Put it in a big mac, or a big tasty, where there is chilled salad, and that meat is cold in no time.

I've not had a hot fresh burger in a UK McDonalds in over 10 years.

Not even when I ask for it.

And I agree with you the complete freshness is gone because its so expensive to do and hardly anyone can afford that.

In my store the beef meat isn't in a humidifier we cook it all fresh and then place it into a production bin that keeps it at a temperature to keep it safe and then it is wasted at a certain period of time.

Grills aren't that hot for us. 250 degrees is the maximum I've ever seen my grill at. As I am trained in the DPSC which is our legal document. I know that our beef products coming off are rarely that hot. It'd burn instantly. The highest temperature reading I've gotten off of meat that has immediately been transferred has been 95 and that was a little burnt so we were careful and checking it.

The salad should not be chilled. It should be tempered to the correct temperatures to be able to not interfere with the heat of the actual patty itself.

Apologise for how you feel about our procedures but as employees there is little we can do.

Is Im loving it still the slogan?

It sure is!

What are your hobbies outside of work and school?

I like to attempt to develop video games (going nowhere) and I do a project in school that has web development which I am definitely not taking up as hobby at the moment haha.

Going somewhere if you enjoy doing it.

I'm slowly learning which is the nice thing.

I've noticed in a few McDonald's that I've been in to, the staff are really up tight in ensuring the breakfast menu ends dead on time and seem generally quite unaccommodating around this menu. Is there any particular reason for this?

Well these are stores we sometimes envy as employees of stores that don't follow this.

The front counter is set up for all day whereas in the kitchen it is completely different during breakfast. When we do changeover which is supposed to be at half 10 many people are sent on breaks especially in my store. So this lowers our staff count and means all the legal checks and cleaning that we must do before we have to also do breakfast at the same time which is incredibly difficult.

just jumpin in here. in the u.s they are doing breakfast all day now. is that something that might happen there?

Its doubtful over in the UK just because of how difficult it is to do breakfast singularly it'd mean a complete new infrastructure and procedures.

I was at a McDonalds regularly when they started Breakfast all day. It's apparently just as bad as you're imagining it (manager was saying how he'd quit if they did the full breakfast menu), so don't be surprised when it starts in the UK

I hope not. Well no current plans from the sounds of it thankfully!

Is the McGangBang (McDouble with a McChicken paddy in the middle) as popular in the UK as they are in the US?

We don't have one of those over here. I remember when I first joined though there was a poster warning us that doing that on our breaks would get us a disciplinary.

Why can't I get a milkshake at 5am to drink with my sausage and egg mcmuffin?

Why are they never serving shakes at that time?

This seems like a restaurant dependent issue as our store does have them available however no one orders them. I know many 24 hour stores use breakfast as its maintenance time.

Do you know where I can find a Mayfair or a Bond Street sticker?

But seriously, how strict are the rules around how the Monopoly stickers are handled?

They are somewhere we just don't know where!

The rules in regards to customers I wouldn't know as I'm primarily kitchen staff so I just check with a manager if I'm not sure.

Although in relation to employees playing Monopoly which is a strict violation of the rules and can lead to the termination of the employment of that person.

How many dangerwanks have taken place on your premises?

My answer for here is 2.

Has anyone died in your restaurant?

No dangerwanks from what I've been told but apparently some naughty goings in the stock room (rumours are never true lol)

No ones died, yet.

How often are you on reddit and what are your favorite subreddits?

I used to be a very avid user but not so much not a days. Although I am a big fan of thathappened, writingprompts, tipofmytongue. They all sorta have their own genius of them apart from That Happened. Because come on, that really did happen.

What are the stars for? Do they mean you're some kind of grimefood general?

Each star represents one important thing about our job. Called QS&C

Quality - Creating a high standard of food to ensure a customer is left satisfied by them.

Service - To create the best impression on our customers and ensure that they're willing to come back.

Cleanliness - Keeping a great level of hygiene to ensure both health & safety standards and reached but that the store looks amazing.

Vital Ingredients - All the qualities that make up an employee are in this person (its a happy face badge)

What do you plan to study in university?

Now that my friend is a problem for future me haha

It definitely is a problem for a lot of us lol.

I have another year of A Level's left as of September and then its worry about that. I'm not prepared.

Stupid auto mods removed my question because I forgot a? Moving over there from the states soon, what's special on a U.K. Menu?

That's the problem with automation!

Well after a few weeks to a couple of months promotional items change so its hard to say what there will be when you arrive.

At the moment there are the Big Tasty (with Bacon optional) and Mozzarella Dippers.

Although these are changing soon which I know that I can't talk about them due to it not being released.

Here you can see the current information on our products: http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/ukhome.html

How does the Big Tasty sauce differ from Big Mac sauce? As far as I'm aware, here in the US, the Big Tasty isn't offered. When I look at the descriptions on the U.K. site it seems the Big Mac has Big Mac sauce, and Big Tasty has Big Tasty sauce, so I assume they are different.

A user somewhere here or in another thread commented that its more a cheese sauce however I know it tastes sweeter and looks more cheesy than Big Mac sauce.

What's the most frustrating customer experience you've dealt with?

Oh I have a good one for you.

So back when I was trained but not very confident on the front counter we had a customer come in. Now let me describe her to begin with, short hair but yet still feminine. She had a very aggressive posture immediately coming to the counter so I knew it was going to be a difficult one.

I give her my two-part welcome and she asks for a "double meal, coke". Now as the Double Cheeseburger is part of our Saver Menu it doesn't come available as a meal. I explained this to her and that I could put it through separate. She then argued the fact that you can get it as a meal to both me, two of my colleagues, a manager and every customer while she waiting for her meal.

...So she had that "can I speak to your manager?" Haircut?

Shorter than that surprisingly.

Shit. I've ordered a double cheeseburger meal, large with a coke and I've never been told it's not available as a meal. Why's that?

Its all up to the employee whether they inform you but if a customer asks me for a meal I won't pretend. Our POS (till) system won't allow us to put it through as a meal although if you are willing to pay the price thats okay!

Are you a lady or man?

A m'lady.

Do you folks still wear those horrible mustard yellow uniforms that I saw when I was there a few years ago? Those were pretty bad. Also, you need to know how lucky you are that you have the deep fried pies. Those things are awesome. We went baked decades ago, and they're pretty bland.

Thankfully not we have all been converted over to the new uniforms which are alot more smarter and nicer to wear.

My partner loves the apple pies and personally I hate them but glad to know people appreciate them apart from monopoly winners and the rare person.

What's your favorite kind of cheese?

I have to be a boring man and say Camembert its sort of my favourite thing to indulge in.

How is that boring?

Its a very common cheese, people expect interesting!

I had to Google that cheese.

Its quite a common one around my area especially in little bites

How do you keeping vegetables fresh? Do you know how much of salad or tomatoes do you need for a day and you order precisely that amount? Or can you order fresh one during the day? And if you do not use all veggies in one day, after how long is considerate unusable and it's thrown away?

In the UK we use walk-in chillers to keep all our dressings for our products fresh as we can. These boxes all have a use by date and if these are reached they are thrown away.

We don't calculate how much we need no we generally have a stockpile and before every delivery a count of our stock is done and the correct amount can be ordered to ensure we have stock.

No we can't order fresh however we can try to get boxes of stock from other stores.

If they have been out in the open then each product takes a different amount of time to become out of date. These are all calculated by a machine we use to date each bag of product that we take out of the storage areas.

How many hours a day and week do you work?

Anywhere from 5-8 hours a day probably 15-20 hours a week.

How do you have time to go to school and work?

On my work weekdays, I wake up at 7am and get home anytime before midnight. Weekends I go in, work and go home to do my work. It's tiring but I enjoy what I do.

Is the 3 second rule true? A friend of my told me if you drop a hamburger on the floor, and pick it up within 3 seconds, they will still serve it.

Negative my friend. Anything that touches the floor is put in its corresponding bin. If its hands then they have to be washed using the five-step method to make sure hygiene is the best.

What are your career goals?

Well McDonald's will not be my job for the future honestly but my aims while I am here? I'd like to be promoted to Crew Trainer and thats as far as I'd go. As for being a Shift Manager that would be alot of responsibility for me unless I change my mind in the future.

However, in the future I want to go into Software or Web Development.

How does a typical McDo employee feel? OK or not?

Depends on the day, pretty meh in UK with the weather and all

Is your store made for you or grill direct?

UK crew trainer here!

Grill Direct, where I was born into the kitchen!

What are the procedures to deal with anti-social behaviour?

In my store Management will ask them to leave to begin with and if they don't comply the Police are called. Although sometimes there have been some dangerous situations one where assault is involved that the Police took an hour and a half to arrive at the store.

The response is the same going by previous jobs i've had in the service sector. Thankfully i've never witnessed any assault! Thanks for answering.

No problems, its a rough area but most customers even the violent ones are pretty civil with us

Favorite items on the menu to eat?

I didn't like them at first but I really got into Bacon Tasty's now their promotion is back on.

Are you able to tell me the ingredients in the Big Tasty sauce? If not, where do I buy it in bulk, thanks :D

Unfortunately, I don't know the ingredients and your best bet to find the sauce in bulk is to set up a raid on your local McDonalds!

Roughly how many people live in the city your McDonald's is in?

I'd say around 300,000.

What have you heard about McDonald's in the USA?

It sounds much more interesting than over here y'all.

which other restaurant do most mcdonald's crew usually leave for?

Our store generally doesn't lose staff to other store mostly due to leaving. Quite alot of us are part time students that leave due to university.

What have you learned about yourself working there?

That I'm decisive, quick on my feet and a valuable team player.

Do you have any pets?

No, I don't.

Favorite limited time menu items and why?

Big Tasty with Bacon (affectionately called Bacon Tasty) its just so tasty!

Is the bacon tasty really a limited time item? It always seems to be on the menu no matter what time of year it is, good thing too as its what I always get

It is a promotion so you must come at the right time. Although they are on the menu quite alot.

Have you ever been to a McDonald's in another country? If so where?

Me and partner went over to her native country, Poland and tried the Double over there it was very fluffy the bun.

Ever drop or burn food? If so how often?

You drop food all the time mistakes happen. Burning is common too, I left a basket of nuggets in a vat for a few minutes extra by accident and they were very very burnt.

How often? Do you get yelled at for it?

Occasionally. No its usually something that gets laughed off.

Roughy how many menu items are on the menu?

I have no idea buddy

How are your co workers and bosses? Smart, annoying, friendly, jerks, rude, pushy...?

Its a demanding job and sometimes fatigue affects your mood. Most are friendly but some managerial figures have to be strict.

Do you like your uniform?

The new one is definitely comfier and more sleeker.

What have you learned about people from working there?

People try their hardest and honestly its easy to make friends while in this job.

How much time do you have for breaks?

That all depends on the shift length. Either 30 or 45 minutes usually.

Are you friends with any co workers?

Yes, nearly all of my colleagues are friends too. You bond after working so close with eachother.

What type of discounts do you get?

Meals for a discounted price as well as free meals on breaks.

Why are you guys so cheap with the ketchup packets?

Hey in most stores we have ketchup dispensers so you can get as much as you want.

Why do uk chicken nuggets taste nasty compared to American ones?

I can honestly not tell you that unfortunately, I'm not a nugget guy.

Favorite soda from the soda fountains and why?

We don't have them over here?

Which menu item do wish was a lower cost to customers?

Anything I don't have to make lol.

Which temporary menu item do you wish would be permanent?

None, its nice to have the chance especially for us employees.

Busiest hour at work and slowest hour at work?

Busiest? We break our record hours for amount taken in sales constantly so its nearly all the time.

Slowest? Most recently we had 4 customers come through drivethru in one hour and I was on Window 1. So I had fun cleaning up and sorting out our back area.

If you want to get out of doing work, can you tell them that you're a Muslim? So if they fire you, you can say it was because you are Muslim ?

I'm not a lawyer my friend its a question for them

Why are the veggie burgers so small and overpriced? Also, are they really vegetarian? I mean, are they handled completely separate from the meat products?

Well they are bought in smaller quantities I would believe. If it says vegetarian than they are.

We handle them on an assembly line where only the suitable tongs touch the products they are for. So meat product should never ever touch and all surfaces they touch should be cleaned if they do.

How do you de-stress after work?

Spend time with my partner, video games, netflix and sleep.

Do you ever ask other people questions on AMA's? If so what do you ask?

I did a long time ago, just a general question about their life I believe but it was a very long time ago.

Can I get free McChicken Sandwiches?

Serious question:

Where are you based? Birmingham? London?

That's three McChicken Sandwiches, anything else?

Based in Yorkshire apart from that, can't narrow down further due to safety :)

Can I get free McChicken Sandwiches?

Free or three, sir?

[Insert Big Smokes order]

An old reference, nostalgia man

Really? Its become a meme...

Look at my other comment?

Edit: Actually I will type it.

Where are you based?

I answered that buddy in your other comment :)

Busiest day of the week at work and slowest day of the week at work?

Busiest day? Always Saturdays we have the most customers due to the nature of a general working week.

Slowest day? I am not sure to be exact.

My go to is the fish sandwich

well done (and I know when this has not happened)

add shredded lettuce (you have to say shredded or they will try to put leaf on that shit)

add tomato

My question is:

Do you like me?

The Filet is very popular. We don't choose how done are products are a timer goes off and remove it. Yes we have various types of lettuce depending on the promotions.

We like all customers :)

Then when the timer goes off, you simply put the fillet patty back down for an additional amount of time.

Thats where an employee forgets about it and you complain about it being burnt.

Why do you work for such a shitty company that's destroying our Earth not to mention doing it for probably near minimum wage?

You do understand how the world works?

You earn money, you buy things. Loop until death.

In addition to your point though, I work for a franchise not the company therefore some standards that are on company stores are not the same for us.

Minimum wage is £4.60. Which was my wage before the new payrise that went up a couple of months ago.

If I get to the point to get promoted I will be earning alot more than I do at the moment however :)