I walked through the doors under the great golden arches. It was my first day on the job, and I was really anxious. I had heard from plenty of other people that working in the fast food industry was dreadful. Still, I was ready for anything that the customers were gonna throw at me. I put on my new outfit and clocked in. I was greeted by the girl that was going to be training me, Rosie, and we put our headsets on and got to work. Before I knew it, my shift was over. It really wasn’t that bad. 

   Recently, I asked some of my friends to work at McDonalds with me. To my surprise, most of them said no. Their reason: Working at fast food really sucks.

   Contrary to common belief, working in fast food can actually be fun a lot of the time. People tend to think that fast food is mostly just dealing with bitter customers. It’s quite the opposite actually. At least from my experience, there are plenty of really friendly customers that even joke around with me. Customers in a bad mood do come, but it’s rare. 

   In addition to working with customers, the labor can be fun as well. Some of the fun positions are: Making specialty drinks (like macchiatos, lattes, frappes, mcflurries, shakes), bagging orders (when you have a good person on fries), and handing out orders.

   The money is a plus, but there is another satisfying thing about working in fast food. At least at McDonald’s, there is a screen that shows all of the times that the other McDonald’s are getting. The leaderboard incentivizes competition, but it also turns work into a game. Getting your restaurant in first place is very satisfying. Not only the approval from the boss is nice, but you also have a huge feeling of accomplishment because all of your organization and hard work has paid off.

   McDonald’s doesn’t have a very huge staff. That doesn’t sound like a plus, but you have opportunities to form deeper relationships with some of your co-workers. Some co-workers can be a pain, but the deep relationships make working a lot more enjoyable.

   Although there are a lot of pros to working at fast food, there are also negatives (as there are at any job). For starters, backcash. Everyone’s least favorite position. Back cash is the position as the cashier in the drive thru, taking money and giving people their receipts. Although counting the money is fun, cashing out orders gets repetitive fast. Constantly doing the same thing for the entire shift is really boring. Especially with a slow person at the window handing out food, the cashier is left to sit there and wait until the cars move. Unless sitting there and doing nothing sounds fun, back cash is not recommended.

   The only plus to this position is talking to customers. Talking to them and starting conversations can be very interesting. Another con is the people who aren’t very nice. This one is an obvious reason, but working in services means that you have to deal with hundreds of people every shift. There are people that are either grumpy, or having a bad day. The best thing you can try and do is to cheer the customers up which honestly feels really good when you can get a grumpy customer to smile. If you are kind and greet customers with a smile, very rarely will you get customers that treat you bad or disrespect you.

   Treating customers with kindness and greeting them with a smile is important because you might be able to make their day better. Another negative can be the pacing. Going fast is stressful. Especially when you have someone who gets orders wrong a lot or a new/slow person that you are working with. Getting fast times is satisfying, but tough. This is where leadership skills come in. When working with a slow person, you need to accommodate by sending other people to different positions to help that person. After the rush is over, a gratifying feeling washes over you when you come to realize that you lead everyone your crew out of that mess.

   Despite all of the negative things, there is good that comes from it all. At the end of the day, the pay is good, and there are a lot of fun times to be had working at McDonald’s. It’s not as bad as most people think. If you are considering working at McDonald’s. We’re always hiring. Just make sure you let the boss know that Joshua Louks sent you. I hope to see you at work someday.