Fast food restaurant

Been there, done that. I could set my watch to the Muzak tape that played at my old Arby's...

My first job was at the now nonexistant BurgerChef. in the mid 70s. I worked there for about two years. I was in high school and college. it was so so. the pay started out back then at two dollars an hour. I can sympathize with the fast food workers today. During the rushes you can work you behind off. rush rush to get that food out. I worked front line so I got to deal with the customers. the bad part is we were the ones who got hollered at if the food was not out right away. when sometimes it was the backline who was screwing up. It was greasy work and sometimes hot. We got discounts on food during breaks. as for a first job as a teen it was okay.It was not awful but not wonderful either.

I hated the job. Worked at Mickey Dee's when I was 15. The manager's can be a pain in the ass. I got fired after head-butting my manager; well I worked hard but he refused to raise my salary.

My first job was at a fast food hamburger restaurant in the 1970's. It taught me a lot about attention to detail and hard work. When I left there I went on to manage a restaurant at the age of 18. Although my career path has completely changed I think I learned a lot during those early years.

Back in college I would take almost any part time job available to make ends meet. Ive done some restaurant work banquets at a large hotel and, for a short time, I worked as a short order cook in a trendy little bar and grill (except for the grease, I really liked this one). But, grease, sore feet and the occasional obnoxious patron aside, I had a picnic compared to the kids who schlep burgers and fries. First of all, the places start out by humiliating their employees by making them wear a dopey looking hat (it was once much worse than now). Geez, you know, if youre only going to pay minimum wage at least leave the person a little dignity. Then, theres the clientele descending on you in never ending hordes like wolves on a downed buffalo. Anyone who has ever worked in a mall knows that retail clerks get their share of flack, but it seems there is some unwritten rule which states that, when it involves food service, people have the automatic right to treat you like dirt. That a... Read more

I remember working at the Dairy Queen, and I always enjoyed it. Of course it is pretty much like every fast food job out there, you get underpaid, you sweat a great deal and you are normally very much underappreciated. But I was just a teen so I didn't care I guess...

I was quite interested to see that Molfan used to work for Burger Chef in the 1970s. I did too - it was my freshman year of college. It's also the only job I ever got dismissed from. I've done a great job in every other occupation but just wasn't cut out for fast-food restaurant work. For one thing, Burger Chef insisted that everything had to be made to order, with nothing made up in advance - quality, they called it. But the people in our city weren't coming to Burger Chef for quality. They wanted speed, so McDonalds (with many sandwiches made up ahead of time) got most of our business. I can still see impatient customers waiting in line wondering what is taking so long. Also, the boss didn't allow us to write down any orders. We had to memorize everything, add up the price in our heads, and not make mistakes. I did pretty well at that, but again, it slowed things down. We were also required to use silly-sounding code words and expressions. For instance, we couldn't just c... Read more