I worked at McDonald’s when I was a sophomore in high school. I had to get up at like 4:30 every Saturday morning to work the breakfast shift. It was right next to a mall and was slammed every morning. There was this manager - he was the one that put together all of the orders - that would yell things out to rest of the employees to tell them what things to make. He would yell things like, “pull 11, pull 32, and run a b,d,c,d”. I never knew what he was talking about and figured someone must have understood this secret code.
One day when it was a little slower, I asked another manager what all those codes meant that he would yell out on Saturday mornings. She said that no one had a clue why he did that nor what he was talking about. Even as a 16 year old, I was a little shocked. One morning, during the middle of the rush, I asked him what he was saying. He told me he was telling the staff what to make, in order to stay ahead. I told him that no one knew what he was talking about. He looked at me quizzically like he already knew that. I went back to my station at the to-go window.
It took me a little while to figure out what was going on. He had been properly trained but no one else there had. He might as well have been speaking Hindi because know one knew what he was saying anyway. I worked there for about 6 months and this went on every weekend. I would almost look forward to going into work every weekend so that I could watch the absurdity unfold like a Monty Python skit.
I was still pretty new when I was asked to take over the highly esteemed drive-thru window station. I worked there with most of my best friends. In high school, we were like locusts that would migrate from job to job destroying everything in our path. My friend Kerry worked the first window and I worked the second window. So, he would take the money and ring up the orders and I would give them the food. At the time (I’m sure there have been great advances since), there was no button on the register to add cream to an order so (unknown to me) everyone just used the “nuts” button since we didn’t make sundaes in the morning). My first day at drive-thru, I see “nuts” on the order and think it’s strange, but whatever. The guy pulls up and not knowing what to do, I ask him if he “would like his nuts in a cup?” I could tell by the look on his face and by the laughter in my headset that I had just been hazed.
These were great times, in hindsight, because of how funny each day was. It was my first job and as with anything new I usually stand back and observe first before jumping in completely. The employees there were not paid much and the skills required were low, but it did highlight a problem that would I find pretty consistently throughout my career: 1) a lack of very basic understanding and, 2) a fear of asking simple questions. I’m not sure what causes this scenario, but it’s ubiquitous. It usually plays itself out like this: a business team has been asked by a project sponsor to build a bridge to a special island and they start building away. It’s a great bridge, it’s a sturdy bridge. It will probably last for centuries. The only problem is that the team either forgot or was too afraid to ask where the special island is. Months can go by without anyone noticing that the team doesn’t know where they are going. It would be like building a space ship. A ship going to the moon would be built very different than a ship going to Pluto (even it it isn’t a planet). However, in the beginning of the project it would just be obvious that the team is building a ship to go to outer space. It’s not until months pass by that it becomes obvious that this ship isn’t even going to get out of orbit because no one has understood the goals.
I’m thankful for my early experiences in business but I was hoping to leave the McDonald’s problems there in the past. Unfortunately, people are people and business is business. Whether you are an employee at McDonald’s or an executive at a Fortune 500 you will always encounter the same kind of problems. I think the key is to make sure that you have enough confidence to ask the “stupid” questions and to also make sure you don’t take yourself or your job too seriously. So, even if you mistakenly ask your CEO if he would like his nuts in a cup, you are able to laugh about it.
February 21st, 2007 at 10:54 am
Ha ha… You asked someone if they’d like their nuts in a cup.
February 23rd, 2007 at 1:31 pm
this is so funny, i laughed all through my lunch today, I love it, especially when I know both of the players
February 23rd, 2007 at 9:22 pm
It never hurts to ask the easy questions. Mansoor taught me this.
Here’s one everybody will like:
Would you please tell a KFC story?