Post by Charisma69 on Oct 22, 2006 19:42:05 GMT -5
Okay, this is basically going to be one ginormous rantfest about last night at work. Feel free to back away slowly - actually, you might want to RUN AWAY!
Last night sucked some serious ass. I mean serious ass. It was really the night from hell. We've been having crappy days thanks to the stupid $1 Big Macs lately but this night really, really sucked.
It really was one of the worst - if not the worst - nights I've ever worked there. We were way too busy all freakin' night and we were way too short handed.
We've actually been working short handed quite alot here lately. For the last two months actually. Part of it is that we don't really have enough people, and part of it is they are trying to force us to cut labor by purposely not schedulling enough people.
It's really not that bad if you only work short for an hour or two - but every freakin' day for the last two months, well it's getting really, really old. Especially with the $1 Big Mac promotion. See, for every day that the Cardinal play in the playoffs - and now the stupid World Series - we have $1 Big Macs.
$1 Big Macs suck because we make each sandwich to order, you can only put so many buns in the toaster at a time, and people absolutely love them. I mean really, really love them. They go freakin' nuts over this promotion.
So, we're shorthanded anyway and then we are getting nailed with tons of extra customers on $1 Big Mac days. This is why I haven't gotten off work on time in two months. This is why I've gotten overtime the past two weeks. This is also why we have people quitting right and left which is adding to our staffing problems. They are so stressed out right now.
It doesn't help that when some managers get stressed out they tend to yell at the crew. I'm so glad they weren't working last night or it would have been even worse than it already was.
I know some of you don't get the whole labor hour thing so let me take a moment to explain - in case someone actually reads this. The labor percent is the percentage of the stores profits that go towards paying the employees. The goal is usually somewhere between 20% - 24%. If you are running 15% labor hours you don't have enough people and you're basically getting killed.
If you do that several hours in a row it's much worse since you're not getting time to get caught up after your rushes. So when I say we were running between 11.79% -12.27% labor hours between4 and 7 I want you to understand how much that really sucks.
It means we had nowhere near enough people to work the floor much less to help get breaks out. We tried calling people in but everyone said no - and I can't say I blame them. I would have said no too.
We didn't have enough people to open the middle window in drive-thru - but then they wouldn't have been able to get an order if we had enough people anyway. They didn't have enough help in grill to get the food up. It didn't help that some of the guys we do have aren't really that fast.
So, it was taking 3 - 5 minutes per order for them to send up the food. The times in grill are usually around 30 seconds per order. We started out around that but around 5:00 people were getting worn down and just couldn't keep up.
So, I was picking up my food and handing it out the window- which is two seperate jobs - and sometimes I was even running back to grill to make my drive-thru orders since they had several counter orders ahead of my orders.
So my drive-thru times sucked ass. Between 5:00 and 6:00 it was taking people 4 minutes to get there food in drive-thru after they ordered it. Between 6 and 7 the time jumped to 5 minutes, and then it went to over 7 minutes per order between 7 and 8.
7 freakin' minutes. I have NEVER had drive-thru times that bad - ever. The whole time I've worked there drive-thru has never worked that slow.
Someone I know - that used to work with us several years ago - went through during that last hour and he said it took him 40 minutes to get through the line. 40 minutes. This was from the highway all the way through the line of course. We were wrapped all the way around the building all night.
I told him I was really, really sorry but we were insanely short handed and I was doing the best I could under the circumstances. I just can't believe people were waiting in line that freakin' long. We have another McDonald's in town. I wonder if they were getting killed just as badly?
I just can't believe people want the freakin' Big Macs so badly that they are willing to wait in line that long. There is no way I'd do it.
So, while all this was going on I realized that there was no way the closers were going to get their breaks out if I took mine too. I decided to try to help Jackie out by skipping my break so we could get the closers breaks out. I figured I could eat something while I counted drawers later and maybe I could get out on time.
I decided this around 4:45 or so and things hadn't gone from bad to worse yet.
We managed to get Kelcey's break out - but then she took her time coming back which really didn't help out. I really wanted to have a talk with her about it but I didn't have the time to stop long enough for that.
The boys in the back were nice. They got upset when they found out I was skipping my break. I told them it would be okay, I'd eat when I did drawers.
They were very nice and they worked their tales off trying to keep up. Then we ran out of Big Macs buns in the hallway - they didn't pull enough out of the freezer and the travel path manager didn't catch that - so we had to use frozen buns which is part of the reason things sucked so badly.
And all I could see was more and more and more people coming. They kept piling inside and going through drive-thru. It wasn't stopping at all.
I told Jackie I really wished we could just lock the doors so we'd only have drive-thru to deal with. Then we could have a full drive-thru team and have someone to help them in grill too.
Unfortunately you can't do that.
I think one of the customers called the owner and complained because he called the store and talked to Jackie. He just told her that we should do the best we could. I'm sure he pulled up the hourly and labor reports and saw we were getting slammed too hard so that's why he didn't yell.
We finally decided to go ahead and call Tammy to come back in and help us. She had told us to call if we needed her but she was sick and had already worked 9 hours so we really wanted to try to do it ourselves.
So, she came in and helped us get caught up. We slowed down a little bit, and we were finally able to get some more breaks out.
Lobby looked like a disaster area since we didn't have enough people to send someone out there all night. Counter was pretty much out of everything so we had to restock. It was terrible.
We were talking about it at work today. We all agreed that it was the worst night ever. The boys told me how thankful they were that I never - not even one time - yelled at them because we were holding on food.
I knew they were stressed enough and there was no point to yell. It wouldn't help the food get done any faster and it might make someone walk out.
Brock was about ready to walk out as it was. He said he was so tired of working short handed. I talked him into staying. I think it helped that he knew I gave up my break for them.
I just can't wait till $1 Big Macs are over. I really, really hope I never work another night like that.
Whoa. I really needed to get that off my chest. I'm feeling much better now. ;D
Today was a cakewalk compared to the suckfest of last night. Oh, and Tammy gave me a paid break today. She didn't specify why but I'm guessing it's because I skipped my break last night.
Last night sucked some serious ass. I mean serious ass. It was really the night from hell. We've been having crappy days thanks to the stupid $1 Big Macs lately but this night really, really sucked.
It really was one of the worst - if not the worst - nights I've ever worked there. We were way too busy all freakin' night and we were way too short handed.
We've actually been working short handed quite alot here lately. For the last two months actually. Part of it is that we don't really have enough people, and part of it is they are trying to force us to cut labor by purposely not schedulling enough people.
It's really not that bad if you only work short for an hour or two - but every freakin' day for the last two months, well it's getting really, really old. Especially with the $1 Big Mac promotion. See, for every day that the Cardinal play in the playoffs - and now the stupid World Series - we have $1 Big Macs.
$1 Big Macs suck because we make each sandwich to order, you can only put so many buns in the toaster at a time, and people absolutely love them. I mean really, really love them. They go freakin' nuts over this promotion.
So, we're shorthanded anyway and then we are getting nailed with tons of extra customers on $1 Big Mac days. This is why I haven't gotten off work on time in two months. This is why I've gotten overtime the past two weeks. This is also why we have people quitting right and left which is adding to our staffing problems. They are so stressed out right now.
It doesn't help that when some managers get stressed out they tend to yell at the crew. I'm so glad they weren't working last night or it would have been even worse than it already was.
I know some of you don't get the whole labor hour thing so let me take a moment to explain - in case someone actually reads this. The labor percent is the percentage of the stores profits that go towards paying the employees. The goal is usually somewhere between 20% - 24%. If you are running 15% labor hours you don't have enough people and you're basically getting killed.
If you do that several hours in a row it's much worse since you're not getting time to get caught up after your rushes. So when I say we were running between 11.79% -12.27% labor hours between4 and 7 I want you to understand how much that really sucks.
It means we had nowhere near enough people to work the floor much less to help get breaks out. We tried calling people in but everyone said no - and I can't say I blame them. I would have said no too.
We didn't have enough people to open the middle window in drive-thru - but then they wouldn't have been able to get an order if we had enough people anyway. They didn't have enough help in grill to get the food up. It didn't help that some of the guys we do have aren't really that fast.
So, it was taking 3 - 5 minutes per order for them to send up the food. The times in grill are usually around 30 seconds per order. We started out around that but around 5:00 people were getting worn down and just couldn't keep up.
So, I was picking up my food and handing it out the window- which is two seperate jobs - and sometimes I was even running back to grill to make my drive-thru orders since they had several counter orders ahead of my orders.
So my drive-thru times sucked ass. Between 5:00 and 6:00 it was taking people 4 minutes to get there food in drive-thru after they ordered it. Between 6 and 7 the time jumped to 5 minutes, and then it went to over 7 minutes per order between 7 and 8.
7 freakin' minutes. I have NEVER had drive-thru times that bad - ever. The whole time I've worked there drive-thru has never worked that slow.
Someone I know - that used to work with us several years ago - went through during that last hour and he said it took him 40 minutes to get through the line. 40 minutes. This was from the highway all the way through the line of course. We were wrapped all the way around the building all night.
I told him I was really, really sorry but we were insanely short handed and I was doing the best I could under the circumstances. I just can't believe people were waiting in line that freakin' long. We have another McDonald's in town. I wonder if they were getting killed just as badly?
I just can't believe people want the freakin' Big Macs so badly that they are willing to wait in line that long. There is no way I'd do it.
So, while all this was going on I realized that there was no way the closers were going to get their breaks out if I took mine too. I decided to try to help Jackie out by skipping my break so we could get the closers breaks out. I figured I could eat something while I counted drawers later and maybe I could get out on time.
I decided this around 4:45 or so and things hadn't gone from bad to worse yet.
We managed to get Kelcey's break out - but then she took her time coming back which really didn't help out. I really wanted to have a talk with her about it but I didn't have the time to stop long enough for that.
The boys in the back were nice. They got upset when they found out I was skipping my break. I told them it would be okay, I'd eat when I did drawers.
They were very nice and they worked their tales off trying to keep up. Then we ran out of Big Macs buns in the hallway - they didn't pull enough out of the freezer and the travel path manager didn't catch that - so we had to use frozen buns which is part of the reason things sucked so badly.
And all I could see was more and more and more people coming. They kept piling inside and going through drive-thru. It wasn't stopping at all.
I told Jackie I really wished we could just lock the doors so we'd only have drive-thru to deal with. Then we could have a full drive-thru team and have someone to help them in grill too.
Unfortunately you can't do that.
I think one of the customers called the owner and complained because he called the store and talked to Jackie. He just told her that we should do the best we could. I'm sure he pulled up the hourly and labor reports and saw we were getting slammed too hard so that's why he didn't yell.
We finally decided to go ahead and call Tammy to come back in and help us. She had told us to call if we needed her but she was sick and had already worked 9 hours so we really wanted to try to do it ourselves.
So, she came in and helped us get caught up. We slowed down a little bit, and we were finally able to get some more breaks out.
Lobby looked like a disaster area since we didn't have enough people to send someone out there all night. Counter was pretty much out of everything so we had to restock. It was terrible.
We were talking about it at work today. We all agreed that it was the worst night ever. The boys told me how thankful they were that I never - not even one time - yelled at them because we were holding on food.
I knew they were stressed enough and there was no point to yell. It wouldn't help the food get done any faster and it might make someone walk out.
Brock was about ready to walk out as it was. He said he was so tired of working short handed. I talked him into staying. I think it helped that he knew I gave up my break for them.
I just can't wait till $1 Big Macs are over. I really, really hope I never work another night like that.
Whoa. I really needed to get that off my chest. I'm feeling much better now. ;D
Today was a cakewalk compared to the suckfest of last night. Oh, and Tammy gave me a paid break today. She didn't specify why but I'm guessing it's because I skipped my break last night.
Let's just pray they win the next few games so it'll be over faster. 
