The Rantings of a McDonalds Employee

Lately things have been rather quiet at work. I’ve been having good days, and surprisingly enough, customers have been behaving. I know it’s because of the school start, things always slow down a bit then. But it’s a pleasant and welcome change from the frustrating summer months.

I’ve been relaxing, taking it easy. Even working a bit at my other job, in a discotheque called Club 6. It’s owned by two friends of mine, and I’m a bouncer. Rather fun. Last friday, I worked the bar along with a friend, which was rather nice. A welcome change from throwing out drunk people.

It was a strange crowd that night, though. The average age must have been over 30. They didn’t drink much, but I recieved some tips. Something you certainly don’t get as a bouncer.

Well, what else. I’ve been taking pictures with my new camera, a magnificent Canon IXUS 700, with 7.1 megapixels. Really cool. I’ve taken some excellent pictures of my miniatures, and I hope to take some more when I finished my army general, the Wood Elf Waywatcher Lord.

Truly, a magnificent model. One of their best, in my opinion. I wasn’t entirely satisfied with all the new models, but that one is truly awesome.

Which brings me to a topic I haven’t discussed before, my painting. It’s something I really enjoy, and can spend hours on end doing. Only two days ago, when I finished basecoating the lord, I spent 8 hours in a row painting it. It’s almost finished, though I’m guessing there’s another three hours left, including basing. He will be Alyntir Sylandris, the waywatcher Highborn that will lead my army into battle. Equipped with the bow of Loren, and Hagbane arrows, he’s quite deadly. I look forward to using him in battle.

For those curious, here’s a short list of the calories in the various McDonalds products:

Hamburger 265
Cheeseburger 315
Double Cheeseburger 365
Quarterpounder 521
McFeast 527
Big Mac 529
Big Tasty 862
Chicken Premiere 552
McChicken 446
Chicken McNuggets (6) 306
Filet ‘o’ Fish 343
McFries (medium) 419

This information can be found at McDonalds.com. Why don’t people read up on what they are poisoning their bodies with? A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine, and a shiftleader, Kai (mentioned in earlier posts), had a minor heartattack. Or at least, that was what it seemed like. Turned out it was an artery clog. But still. The guy’s only just over 30, and skinny as shit. Yet, he’s been eating McDonalds food 4-5 times a week for the past ten years. That stuff is like putting cement in your veins. I know it scares the crap out of me, since I’m already a tad overweight, and enjoy fried food.

Everyday people order their burgers with extra cheese and/or sauce. Hey, it’s your funeral. I won’t be crying at it.

Yesterday was a first time for a rather strange experience. Now, before I continue writing, let me warn. Some of the following might be considered racism, but I assure you it is not meant that way. I am not a racist, I was born in Trinidad, where I went to a church with 2000 members, and my family was one of the 2 white families there. Almost all my childhood friends were black, and many of them still keep regular contact. Don’t be quick to judge.

Anyway, to the point. Yesterday I was working at the counter, taking orders and so on. Then these three Eastern-European women come in. None of them spoke Norwegian, apart from a few words. None of them spoke English, German or French, some of the other languages I speak. Yet, they wanted to order. Finally, after all the throaty sounds they made, I understood a word, nuggets. Then, using sign language, they pointed at the two children with them. Happy Meal with nuggets. Sure, no problem. To drink? More coughing, or I guess I should call it talking. Milkshake. What flavour? Chocolate, strawberry, vanilla. No, none of those. Turned out they wanted coke. Eventually, they called someone on a cellphone, and told him what they wanted, then let me talk to him so I could write out the order. Freaky.

Now, this is a big problem in Norway. Many of the foreigners moving into the country, don’t bother to learn the language. As for the women, I suspect it has something to do with their religion, Muslim. The women are more or less kept inside the house, being denied contact with the world outside. The men…they cheat the government of money by staying unemployed, and not bothering to learn Norwegian, rather hanging out in their 7-11’s, coughing at each other all day. The children are the only ones that show interest in learning the language spoken in the country they live. It’s happened before that a parent comes to the cashier, and doesn’t speak Norwegian, but lets their kid order everything. Shame on them.

I have been living in Norway for 4 years now. It took me 2 months to learn the language. Most of these people have been living here for over a decade. Yet only their children speak Norwegian. In my opinion, there should be a law on that issue. They should have to take courses or something to learn Norwegian, to be able to communicate with the inhabitants of the country that granted them refuge.

Criminality. You don’t see Norwegian organised crime, it’s non-existant. Instead, the Asian refugees in the major cities make their gangs and mafia. As do the Pakistanian and others like that. Why? You’d think they could show a modicum of respect for a country that allows them to have a safe home. But no, they don’t.

A law states that refugees starting a company get the first two years tax-free. The result of that law, is that all companies mysteriously go bankrupt after two years, and a new one is started, preferably by a relative. This way they can avoid tax as long as they want. Result of that is, that my taxes go up. Less money to use in the community, resulting in bad roads, less police, and so on. It really is a pain.

I say all this at the risk of being stamped racist. But bear in mind, that despite my opinion, I have no problem with the people as a nationality. I simply don’t like what they do. And I can’t say it goes for all of them either. It’s just the few rotten apples that give the entire basket a bad name. A shame really.

I really am getting fed up of this job of late. When you get annoyed with a customer because he/she orders milkshake instead of soda, something’s not right. I need a vacation.

I’m not in the mood for writing about McDonalds, I decided its time I start treating this thing like a real blog, not just about McDonalds, but about other stuff. Not like you all care.

I recently found a nice description of myself: perpetually pessimistic.

Why? Because I am. I like it, and so should you. Of course you won’t…no one will.

It’s 2 AM at the moment, and I’m listening to some old Dutch music. Guus Meeuwis to be precise. Sappy love songs from an era long gone. Well, not quite long gone, but I feel old.

Perhaps that’s my cause for grumpiness and pessimism. I feel old. People my age are single/girlfriend, happily pursuing their college degree or university diploma, and I’m working at McDonalds, selling recycled lard to overweight Norwegians. Apart from that, I’m married, and have an 11-month-old daughter.

Now, I won’t complain about that, but still. Not quite normal for someone my age. 22, if you’re curious. Ah well.

A good friend of mine (he was best man at my wedding) asked me why I hate it when customers order grills. For the ignorant amongst us, grills are when you order a product different from the usual product. Like say, a Big Mac without pickles.

Yes, I get annoyed. People are too fussy. And they lie to get what they want. Just the other day, a customer wanted a Big Mac without pickles and onions. I asked him if he was allergic. He said yes. I told him then he shouldn’t eat the sauce, because it contains both pickles and onion. There was a brief silence, then a reply. Well, it went well before, so it probably would fine now too. Liar!

Then there’s the complainers. No matter the situation, there’s always a reason to complain. There were two of us at the counter, two in the kitchen and two in the drivethrough. Very much understaffed, considering the amount of customers. Yet, some bitch has the nerve to come and complain that there are dirty trays in the lobby. She didn’t stand in line to do so, but came to the register while I was busy with another customer, and started complaining. When I told her in less-than-polite terms to go screw herself, she left in a huff, and the customer I was helping laughed. Turned out he sympathised with me. Now that’s something that doesn’t happen everyday, so I gave him a free ice cream. Hah.

A night of drunk people and chaos in Fredrikstad.

Once a year, each restaurant has a Christmas party. That means we get people from the other restaurants to work for us. Of course, it works both ways. Sooo, this one saturday night, we had to work in Fredrikstad, the neighbouring restaurant. A night that’ll haunt me forever.

I worked first in my own restaurant, from 16-24. Then, me and a colleague drove the 20 km to fredrikstad, and started there. Saturday night, middle of town = lot of drunk people.

Drunk people can be annoying, or they can be easy. These were mostly annoying. Complaining because they couldn’t use the bathroom (which is closed because we don’t want people falling asleep there or puking all over the place), wanting their various burgers, only cheese, without pickles, etc. then complaining because they have to wait. And of course its always busy.

But that’s not the worst. It’s the restaurant it self. In my opinion, McDonalds Fredrikstad should be burned to the ground, and asphalted, and made into a parking spot. Everything is wrong there. The grills are black, when they should be shiny. That was after we washed them. The teflons on the upper grill are old, and either too long or too short. The “shower” for washing the various equipment was broken, so I had to use the torn end of the rubber hose.

This meant I had to squeeze it together to get some pressure, and this is with extremely hot water. At least they had that, but there were no gloves, so I had blisters at the end of the shift. Besides all that, I made the mistake of looking inside the smoghog, the ventilation system. These are big filters above the grills and deepfryers. It looked like something from a Star Trek series, I’m thinking Borg here. Twisted veins of grease and fat were strung around the bloated metal clump, it looked like a small bio-system. It was almost scary.

Finally, after a lot of drunk customers, and a minor fight outside the restaurant, we locked the doors, and began cleaning. One guy took the tip of the soda dispenser off, we put these in a bucket of soap water to rinse them. Apparently, this hadn’t been done the past 8 years, so it cracked, and a fountain of Coca Cola started spraying out over the front disk and registers.

Chaos. Coke syrup is really sticky btw.

We had to find the main water valve, so we could cut that off, but no one knew where it was. It wasn’t our restaurant after all. No one that worked there normally was answering their phones, which was of course normal, they were all out being drunk and partying. So Kai (yes, poor Kai) opened the top of the dispenser, in an attempt to turn it off manually. Two seconds later he got shocked, and decided not to try that again. Now we began getting worried for short circuiting. I mean, I know I would like nothing better than to see the restaurant burn down, but I don’t want to be in it when the fire starts.

Luckily, we finally got a hold of the restaurant manager, and he came and turned off the water. Turns out they never wash the tips, so we shouldn’t worry about that. Ew. I drank coke from the dispenser. I though I was going to be sick.

After all that chaos, we finally were done. It was about 5 am, and the two guys driving went out to start their cars. Both came back with a nice 500 kr fine. Turns out there’s some crazy old lady that doesn’t like people to park on the parking place behind the restaurant, and she called the police. Now, McDonalds has several parking places there, but no one told us that. So those two guys, after 5 hours of hell, had apparently earned nothing, because of the fine.

It turned out okay, Fredrikstad paid the fines, and we got to go home. I haven’t been back there yet, and I have no plans of doing so. That place is evil.

Life has been slow of late. I’ve been sick, and haven’t been working. I have on the other hand discovered that my office wall has no stains, but a weird stripy kind of texture. I’ve been playing a lot of World of Warcraft. Now, I am bored.

I can write a little story, which happened a long time ago, but people still talk about it work. It was late in the evening, and we’d had some tourists coming to eat. They were drunk, and noisy. Anyway, it was time to close, and they had gone. Kai, whom I’ve mentioned before in other blogs, was shiftleader, and the last one to leave. He made a quick rounds through the lobby, and almost got a heart attack when a huge German guy emerged from the toilets. His first thought was: “I’m going to die.”

Then he realized the guy was drunk, and had undoubtably fallen asleep in the bathroom. Possibly after being sick there, I don’t know. Now, Kai, as I have mentioned before, is a small guy. Something like 60 kg, if not less. This German was reported to be more my size, I’m 1.91 and weigh 119 kg. Yes, I’m a big guy. Imagine the little guy when this drunk giant comes staggering out of the bathroom, after midnight, all doors are locked, speaking a foreign language and Kai is the only guy in the restaurant. I’d have panicked.

It ended well, I believe. The drunk was removed, and Kai went home.

Another mementuous (is that a word?) occasion was when some other foreigners came to eat. Now, I must add this was in a period just after September 11th, and people wearing turbans were looked upon suspiciously, to say the least. Also, there had been various bomb threats at McDonalds restaurants in Norway, because, well, McDonalds is American. Yes, people are that stupid.

Anyway, these guys in their dresses and turbans order their fish burgers (why the heck not chicken? The Filet ‘o’ Fish is really not a nice burger…), and eat. They had some bags with them, and after they were done eating, forgot one.

Now, in the meanwhile, we’d been joking about how they could be terrorists and so on, but none of us really took it seriously. Then we noticed the bag. Panic. No one dared to touch it, the general opinion was to rather run. Fortunately, before any rash decisions were made, one of the guys in dresses came back in, and got his forgotten bag. But I’ll admit, for a few seconds, I was scared. Just goes to show the power of a man in a turban. *cough*

One last story, not from my restaurant, but from a restaurant some friends of mine used to work. One of the employees had accidentally pushed the silent alarm button, which sends an alarm to the police. They call to check if its a mistake, and if we say the correct password, nothing happens.

Now, this happened at a rather busy moment in the restaurant, and no one had time to answer the phone. Hehe. So, suddenly the guy on the drivethrough looks out his window, and spots a policeman with a gun. Oh shit. What the heck is going on. After a little more observation, he finds out the restaurant is surrounded by armed policemen, waiting for the robbers to come out.

It ended up with a rather large fine for the restaurant, and the police went home. I wish something like that would happen in our restaurant. I wouldn’t want to be the one pressing the button though. My boss, a really nice lady, is very scary when she’s angry. And I mean scary. If you know she’s angry, you’re afraid to even talk to her on the phone. Its as if she’ll come out of the speaker and strangle you. She’s small, smaller than Kai even, but if she’s mad at me (happens occasionally), I am scared. It doesn’t help when you’re almost two metres tall, when there’s a screaming person in front of you, who looks quite capable of chopping you into burgers, and serving you to the next customer.

Fortunately, that works both ways. Customers that are making trouble have also gotten the full fury of her wrath, always a sight worth watching. Heh.

OMGIamsosick…

I officially hate swedish youth. Especially when they come in busses, like 5-6 at a time. Today, there were busses from 6 pm to 10 pm. Four hours of hell. And the damn kids don’t even bother to clear away their junk. Gah.

The other day, a customer comes to the disk.

“I want a new big tasty, there was too little sauce on the one I got.”

The shiftleader replies: “Ok, give me the old one, and I’ll get you a new one.”

“Er, I ate that one.”

Duh. You stupid or what? The shiftleader, a great guy, Marthin, told him in less friendly words to go fuck himself. Some customers are just so rude. Who the hell do they think they are?

Another time, some Scottish men came. They wanted to complain. They had come last week, at 6:30 AM, and ordered a big amount of menu’s, but hadn’t gotten it all. So, they’d settle for 20 Bigmac menu’s, and it was ok.

Big mistake. Why?

1. We’re not open at 6:30 am. We open at 10 AM, and close at 23:30.
2. If you order food, and sit in the restaurant, I’m sure you’ll notice that some food is missing, if it is. How can you not notice 20 menu’s missing? And how the hell is an employee going to forget 20 menu’s?
3. If they took away, wouldn’t they realize something was wrong when they only got 1 bag of food? You order 20 menu’s, and you get one paper bag. Oh well, I guess everything’s in there. How stupid can you get?

In the end, they tried to get 5 menu’s. “Er…no. You can pay for your food, or get the hell out of here.”

When you order something, and it tastes bad, why eat it all, then come back and ask for a new one? People eat most of their french fries, and come back and complain it was cold. Or course its cold after 15 minutes. You stupid or what?

Now, we have people ordering Big Mac’s without pickles, because they’re “allergic” to them. Well, unfortunately, the sauce also has pickles in it. So, I guess that allergy wasn’t so bad then, since you didn’t notice anything? Damn these worms. Too lazy too take the pickles off yourself.

A friend of mine suggested that next time a customer asks for that, I just take a burger, open it, take the pickle off, and give it to him. I just might do that.

As the title says, its been a while since I wrote anything. I’ve been busy. My wife and I separated, and World of Warcraft has been taking a lot of my time.

Work is the same, stupid customers, etc. I’ll write more next time, I’m too tired atm.