Why do people think working fast food is easy?

[BCLG100]

Also a story that may put you off, 3 employees at the local Maccy D's were caught doing something into the mayonaise (you guess what) by security camera, all though they were fired soon after kinda shows the standard of people working around here, may be different elsewhere though.

 

[punkbass2000]

BTW, in my experience, people with Down's Syndrome are very happy people.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

People think my job is easy, and when you get a sh!t load of customers, it gets extremely difficult. I also watch the workers at McDonald's or wherever when I'm ordering food (especially around lunch hour and that) and to be able to work that fast and still get the orders right 98% of the time is outstanding. I disagree that that field of work is easy.

 

[Drewcifer]

Well, I don't know that I technically qualify for fast food at the moment. I worked at "McDonald's" for a while. I then worked at "Curry in a Hurry" for the past two years, which would appear to be a "real" restauratn to the casual observer, insomuch as there is wait staff, but I would call it fast food from my kitchen perspective, since almost everything was in little containers that you simply microwave and put on a plate. I now work at a "legitimate" "real" restaurant, with both wait staff as well as things like oven, pots and pans, etc. I think it still qualifies as a "McJob" as defined by Coupland, who I believe coined the term.

If the stress doesn't affect you and you find the work interesting it may not be a bad career option. Most people who are really good at it started off in a Mc Job but are smart adrenelin junkies. Most people who work food service even at the management level are morons. If you are smart but get off on the rush of "the rush" and can keep a calm head in it you are already light years ahead of the people you are in competition with for jobs. I am a natural procrastinator, the fact that deadlines in a kitchen are generally of the 20 second or 30 minute variety works in my favor because procrastination just isn't possible.

You just need to put yourself in positions where you can learn the high end fine dinning skills, preferably in your 20s. I am by no means the best chef in the Twin Cities but just by the fact that I have a brain that works and spent 10 years as a fine dinning line cook I am far beyond most of the people I compete with for jobs. In my 20s I didn't make much money but was focused on learning everything I could about cooking. And I worked really hard. Now I run a mid to high end kitchen with 23 cooks, sous chefs and dishwashers. I don't cook the line evey day or even regularly, I just coach mostly, which is good because I am becomming too old to cook the line every day (though I am still the fastest and most "on it" saute cook in my kitchen I swear. just don't ask me to do it for more than 2 hours a day). The thing is though, once you get to that level (like all the others) you are competing against fools, mostly, and your job is always secure and generally well paying by that time because of it. Like I said I am not even close to being the best chef in the Twin Cities even, at the same time I've been written about in the daily papers and have a pretty comfortable life and job, I'm probably in the top 50 locally (and still hope to go much higher, though I have to improve my manegement skills and my cook's cooking skills for that) and it wasn't really that hard to do. Cracking the top 15 in the Twin Cities will take some more work but it is my next goal. If you have an aptitude for cooking, an ability to multitask on the fly, a brain that works, a good sense of organization and an appreciation of adreneline it is not a bad career beacuse you can generally outcompete the other idiots and get payed a lot of money to do it (once you get to that point). You don't even have to be a jerk to pull it off, though a bit of pointed sarcasm helps.

How do you feel about your cuts, burns and scars? Do they piss you off or are they a badge of honor? That is the real question.

By the time you are done with that you are generally in a good position to work for one of the high end food or wine wholesalers or know how to do well owning your own place.

 

[Sidhe]

BTW, in my experience, people with Down's Syndrome are very happy people.

Lucky bstrds, ignorance is bliss

 

[punkbass2000]

If the stress doesn't affect you and you find the work interesting it may not be a bad career option. Most people who are really good at it started off in a Mc Job but are smart adrenelin junkies. Most people who work food service even at the management level are morons. If you are smart but get off on the rush of "the rush" and can keep a calm head in it you are already light years ahead of the people you are in competition with for jobs. I am a natural procrastinator, the fact that deadlines in a kitchen are generally of the 20 second or 30 minute variety works in my favor because procrastination just isn't possible.

I don't find it stressful at all and I find it reasonably interesting work. I wouldn't say I get off on the adrenaline, since I don't find myself to be affected by any. That is true, that the impossibility of procrastination works for me, I think. When I worked at McDonald's back in high school, it seems to me I was putting a lot of energy into not working (ironically), though I didn't realize it. At a job like that, you can get away with not doing a lot of **** if you're clever and know how to be manipulative. But at "Curry in a Hurry", there were only a half dozen employees total, and only two or three working at a time (this includes both front and back staff), so dodging work was almost impossible and generally tended towards being detrimental. So I learned that it's usually easier to just do it.

You just need to put yourself in positions where you can learn the high end fine dinning skills, preferably in your 20s. I am by no means the best chef in the Twin Cities but just by the fact that I have a brain that works and spent 10 years as a fine dinning line cook I am far beyond most of the people I compete with for jobs. In my 20s I didn't make much money but was focused on learning everything I could about cooking. And I worked really hard. Now I run a mid to high end kitchen with 23 cooks, sous chefs and dishwashers. I don't cook the line evey day or even regularly, I just coach mostly, which is good because I am becomming too old to cook the line every day (though I am still the fastest and most "on it" saute cook in my kitchen I swear. just don't ask me to do it for more than 2 hours a day). The thing is though, once you get to that level (like all the others) you are competing against fools, mostly, and your job is always secure and generally well paying by that time because of it. Like I said I am not even close to being the best chef in the Twin Cities even, at the same time I've been written about in the daily papers and have a pretty comfortable life and job, I'm probably in the top 50 locally (and still hope to go much higher, though I have to improve my manegement skills and my cook's cooking skills for that) and it wasn't really that hard to do. Cracking the top 15 in the Twin Cities will take some more work but it is my next goal. If you have an aptitude for cooking, an ability to multitask on the fly, a brain that works, a good sense of organization and an appreciation of adreneline it is not a bad career beacuse you can generally outcompete the other idiots and get payed a lot of money to do it (once you get to that point). You don't even have to be a jerk to pull it off, though a bit of pointed sarcasm helps.

Yeah, it does seem like it's not hard to do well. I've apparently already skipped past "dishwasher" (possibly because of my past at "Curry in a Hurry", which I don't think they realize was only pseudo-kitchen work). I'm still close to the bottom (salad preparer), but the people training have both been working there for months, apparently, and spent the majority of their time as dishwashers, only recently becoming salad preparers. I have a vague impression I will be becoming line cook, though I'm not certain. Anyway, I've been there only two days and the chef says he "loves me", so I do feel secure. That and I was offered quite a few jobs when I was looking for work.

How do you feel about your cuts, burns and scars? Do they piss you off or are they a badge of honor? That is the real question.

Neither, really. They certainly don't piss me off, but I'm not proud either. They're just things that happened.

 

[punkbass2000]

Lucky bstrds, ignorance is bliss

Close. Thinking you know things is despair