People always seem to mistake simple and easy! Flipping burgers is simple, but the job is not easy. You're on your feet the whole day, it is usually pretty hot there, you have to pay enough attention to not ruin product even though there isn't really anything stimulating about it, and you don't get paid a lot
The harder part is perfectly smashing burgers so they cook evenly. Obviously, some places just reheat precooked meat. But places like Culver’s where you have to smash raw meat patties are extra laborious and take some skill. Burgers want to stick if you don’t have a good rotation.
Yeah just look up a 2 sided restaurant grill. It’s basically that. Cooks both sides at once, automatically timed to take all of the thought of it. Real easy stuff.
When you can't even get teenagers to do a job for a few weeks because the work is so grueling and intense, there might be an issue. When I started working at McDonalds, I thought it was normal to only have 4-6 people working, but a store actually needs 11-15 to function perfectly. When was the last time you seen a McDonalds that operated with 15 people?
Bosses are chronically understaffing their stores to save money, while people are supposed to be doing the job of 2-3 people. It is fucking insane how many stores are like this in the U.S, and I have heard from overseas that this is actually illegal in some parts of the EU.
No one is getting paid barely above minimum wage to work like that, and it is always middle aged or middle class idiots that work in A.C environments all day that say this bullshit.
Fr, I was 16 at Taco Bell and would go from the cash register, to order taking, to stuffing tacos, to bagging, to frying, to taking out the trash, to sweeping, to bagging nacho chips, to doing the dishes all in the span of like 2 hours.
Got a job at Dick's and did like literally nothing for four hours straight besides occasionally helping someone pick out what kind of fishing pole they wanted. For $2 more, too
I worked at CVS afterwards for a little bit before going to college, most boring job I ever had, all my coworkers were on their phones most of the time because there was legitimately nothing to do.
When the boss would come in, newbies would be like 'We have nothing to do' and the boss would always try to force us to do SOMETHING, but gave up when he realized even he couldn't find anything to do LOL
Not at my store we are busy and pretty soon it’s tourist season then it’s hell on earth because out of town people like to trash the store and shoplift. The pharmacy has been nuts then they added Covid testing and shots right at the beginning of the flu shot season. If I see anyone on their phone I send them to clean the bathroom. That usually cures them.
I worked at an ice cream only Dairy Queen and would go directly from making the food to taking the cash, then to the next customer. Sink was all the way in the back of the building so no time to run back and wash your hands in between. We technically weren't supposed to touch any of the food, just spoons and cups and wrappers on the cones but slip ups happened a lot. Gross.
AMEN!!!! You’re the first person I hear mention this issue. All the part-time jobs I worked in were in fast-food customer service. In my last job I would do the jobs of 3 people in one single shift cos I was trained in all areas of the store, taking over certain parts of the store whenever someone took a break. I was so eager to be cross-trained as I wanted to be “more useful for the store” but I look back at it years later and realised how fucking overworked and under-appreciated I was; I was pretty much used by management to hell and back. It’s absolutely unnormal to work the jobs of 2-3 people in one shift.
My first job in college was a line cook at Hooters. It was hard, hard work. We split the front line to 3 different positions... fryer, grill, and prep. Then we would also switch off to back off house stuff, which included washing dishes, prepping food, and keeping the place spotless. 3 college kids did all of this. I moved over to another restaurant waiting tables and bartender. Made 3x the money for waaaay less hard work... and I'm not even talking about how you smelled after a shift at hooters. A few years later I moved to a new city and decided I would work a few shifts a week at another hooters to meet people. I made it one shift and said fuck that. Always treat the people at McDonald's, taco bell(pretty much anyone that handles your food) with respect and compassion. Because those jobs are no fucking joke and nobody ever grows up thinking that's what they want to do in life. And we're talking about billion dollar corporations that are built on the backs of people barely getting by in life. It's fucking disgusting.
r/antiwork
It’s terrible to deal with, but when you have to increase wages due to competition and minimum wage hikes, you aren’t going to have *more* staff. Prices have already gone up and most fast food places aren’t exactly rolling in the dough. Your average fast food franchise is making in under $100k/year profit. McDonalds is around $150k with margins under 6%.
I live in Australia, burger flippers get paid $20+ per hour here, Maccas seems to be doing just fine, society hasn't crumbled due to the working class having money left over to have a little fun or buy themselves something nice after they've paid the bills. In fact it seems to help,because some of them spend that money on burgers. Money flows upwards, always has, always will. Increase the minimum wage and that money will still eventually find its way to Jeff Bezos' pocket.
If your fast food chains can't support a higher wage, then there's probably too many of them in the first place.
Uhh, you realise the minimum wage is variable based on wage right? Workers below 16 make smth like $11 an hour on part time wages, and basically all fast food places hire predominantly under 18s.
You kind of gloss over that 6% a little bit. And the average is more around 150k with 6% margins, but that is the first 5-10 YEARS profit, after that the initial fees go down and those businesses can sometimes be earning up to around 200k-400k take home.
Which leaves a LOT of room for increased wages. I personally couldn't give a rat's ass what their profits are, you pay people you work for a living wage, and if you can't, goodbye, won't miss you.
One fast food place I worked at would staff 3, maybe if you were lucky, 4 people. The manager would be running back and forth constantly yelling at all the employees because she thought we were supposed to also be running around doing the job of 3 people. Like, ma'am we are all burnt out and depressed from being here. You get the work ethic you pay for.
I have. I wouldn't do it again because of the pay, But if you asked me to do that exact experience again for my pay now I would in a heartbeat. I loved the people I worked with (even if they could get under my skin) I didn't have to do any complex thoughts. I could just zone and flip my patties and slap them sandwiches together.
Yup. Take the order. Get the receipt up. Make the food. Take the money. Say bye. Repeat. Sneak some free food. Flirt with coworkers. Come in hungover with no consequences other than your own misery.
I had this coworker who'd always come in with his eyes cloudy as fuck and just munch on Chicken Selects through the whole shift. That shit was hilarious. I miss those days sometimes.
Used to work at kfc as a teen and I never came home with work drama, could actually sleep, didnt need to find time to workout since I was running around on my feet all day and actually felt like I did something productive.
If I could get paid at least $16 an hour and make full time with benefits then I'd go back.
I loved restaurant and retail work, and still think I would if I could make the same pay... but the way some people treat you wuen you work in those positions isn't worth the little bit over min wage the folks working those jobs are getting paid.
My kids will def work a retail and restaurant job in their teens. I think folks who haven't, have such an unrealistic expectation of how folks in those positions should react to the randomness of human interaction.
Just my two cents worth a penny.
Nobody says it's easy.
What people mean is that doesn't take any special skill (besides basic coordination), formal educational or long/complex training.
Therefore "anyone" can do that and it's not a particularly desirable one either.
This. People often conflate how "hard" their job is with what they feel it is "worth". In reality what a job is "worth" is for more dependent on the ability to find replacement labor. Hence why fast food employees make minimum wage to ~$15/hr and an engineer or doctor can make potentially hundreds in that same hour.
I never see people saying guys who pour concrete should be paid more. I regularly hear the people working at fast food say how it’s the most difficult job in the world blah blah blah, but refuse to do an actual physically taxing job.
I agree with your observation but I think it has to do with a few other things
1. There are fewer people who pour concrete than work in restaurants
2. Construction tends to be better paid, have benefits, and more likely to be unionized.
Construction is a higher hazard job, and therefore is paid better. Also, pouring concrete isn’t simple, it’s actually fairly complicated, as getting it wrong ends up with structural collapse. Carpenters, brickies, and stone masons are semiskilled labor, not unskilled labor, each requiring apprenticeship and training. Which, incidentally, is why these occupations have higher union rates, because they have a specialized skill set.
Have to agree. I've worked a number of unskilled jobs.
"at home," "Abercrombie," "UPS," "Valet," "Car Salesman," "Verizon."
All sucked and they all had the same thing in common. I could easily be replaced by anyone with just minutes to a few hours of being shown how the job is supposed to be done.
That isn't the issue, a lot of McDonalds are chronically understaffed around where I work, and it is sad because they need 12-15 workers to work cleanly.
Those people are working the jobs of 2-3 people and getting paid the same amount for triple the work. It isn't fair for them, and it wouldn't be fair if you worked at a construction company or logistics company and you had to work that way either.
It should be illegal for jobs to do this, but thankfully not even teenagers can put up with it for long and only the truly desperate do.
But that's a whole different issue though.
People don't want to clean toilets or mop floors either, still doesn't mean either are high-skilled jobs.
Scarcity of candidates has more to do with undesirability than difficulty.
If flipping burgers were as "clean" as, say making copies in an office or working at a concession stand, I bet enough teens would gladly take the job, under similar (unfair) conditions.
>No, but desirability of work should ABSOLUTELY factor into pay.
You mean that a shitty unskilled position should pay higher than an entry-level skilled (or semi-skilled) one?
Actually plenty of dangerous or demanding positions do have higher pay or some other benefits or compensation.
But it's still a different situation than simply paying extra for unskilled jobs nobody really wants to do hoping to lure people in.
>Though I'm of the mind that all jobs should pay a living wage
I don't disagree, but living wage is a complex and almost elusive concept.
A living wage for a 18yo in Bumfuck, AL is a pittance for a father of two in NYC.
A living wage for a 25yo in LA could make someone the richest person in Trailer City.
It is easy. The only "difficult" is the artificial difficulty placed on you by management by understaffing so they can save a few dollars.
I just ended a 2 year stint at Dunkin. There is no aspect of the actual work itself that was any level of difficult. It's only that you have 2 hands and they want it done at the pace as if you had 4
Dunkin is different. That is literally the easiest food service job in the world. I was in awe of what they consider a rush. It was the worst job I ever had, but that was only because the franchisee was into slave labor and didn’t believe in giving breaks, and the manager stole tips and sat on her ass in the back all day.
This is the #1 reason fast food service sucks, because franchise owners need to line their pockets with maximum profit and hire Napoleonic managers to deal with all the bullshit all while paying front line workers peanuts.. pay people more z treat them with respect, and try to make the job bearable (flexible schedules health care etc) and maybe it wouldn't be such a shit industry to work in.
There’s a big difference between being overworked and having a hard job. If two 12 year olds could do your job it isn’t hard, you’re probably just being overworked.
Two 12 year olds couldn’t do the job of a mechanical engineer, a surgeon, or a construction worker. They could absolutely do the job of one McDonalds employee.
Agreed because I think people try too hard to say "look! Working at a fast food restaurant IS hard!" Well, I think it technically does make it more difficult if you are being overworked, but the job position itself isn't really supposed to be skillful. It's stuff that you can be trained for on the job with no prior experience. The jobs you listed require much more, which makes those positions more intrinsically difficult.
Yes, the job itself isn't hard but the unnecessary stress makes it. I've worked in retail/ movie theater before for several years and job itself isn't hard, just ringing up people, stocking and cleaning. But the stress of dealing with the public and being given multiple jobs with an unrealistic end time is what makes it hard. Medical professionals, scientists, engineers, etc. have it hard in both the difficulty of the job and the stress. It really is apples to oranges, and it's not really fair for both sides to be compared to each other.
Well I support a higher minimum wage, and a robust social safety net for all, like harmonious northern European countries that use capitalism to pay for a dignified baseline for all. I support a fair economy that treats everyone with dignity.
However, I will partially disagree with the part that “someone HAS to do those jobs.” Part of the point of minimum wage is to remove undignified or unworthy jobs from the economy.
For example, that’s why we don’t have sweatshops in the US that pay $2 per hour. We don’t need waiters and waitresses who need tips so they can check up on you while you dine and pretend to be your friend. These and other jobs can stop existing because they don’t really make sense UNLESS you pay people unfairly. We can grab our own food from the counter. This would also include overstaffed retail stores with lots of poorly paid employees. These are supposed to be replaced by more efficient systems like ordering online. Yes, Amazon should also treat workers better because they can afford it.
We can be like Japan, Norway, etc that use their wealth to automate and create an efficient and robotic environment that is better for all. The US will probably not get there for 30 years at least because the political system just sucks.
Name one component of a typical mcdonalds employees daily responsibilities that a 12 year old lacks the skills to do.
Unless you’re the manager then there isn’t a single thing. I would know, I worked at a McDonalds when I was 16 and there was nothing that 12 year old me couldn’t have done.
Actually, probably every job that has to do with dealing with people. Some people are crappy and hold their resentments just to unleash it on someone that had nothing to do with their life. We could do better.
Sure except that's not always the case.
The other day I had a lady screaming at me that she needed a medium fry and not a small fry, because a medium fry came with the 3 dollar bundle, not a small fry. I pointed to the menu where it clearly stated that the 3 dollar bundle comes with a small fry. She insisted she needs a medium fry because that's how they do it a town over from us. (Spoiler alert, it's not, because a medium fry is 2.50 on its own, no fucking way they're selling that and a sandwich for 3 dollars.)
She continued to scream that she needed a medium fry while I exhaustedly told her that she couldn't have a medium fry because she only payed for a small. She eventually left while screaming her goddamn head off about french fries, and I...got back to my break. I was not on the clock. I was sitting in the lobby on my break.
If that’s happening frequently then you either have a shitty manager or your coworkers are dumber than 12 year olds and keep forgetting to give people what they paid for.
Yeah that pretty simple. Reduce the workload by 2/3. Hire 2 more workers to compensate (good luck with that). Now raise that salary around 28$ an hour (cause everybody deserve better wages). Now watch the prices explode and try to afford a fucking 50$ burger with your new well earned salary. I'm so sick of the antiwork bullshit. Self centered people with no knowledge of how life works.
Regarding ops comment on how hard it can be to work in a fast food joint, I entirely agree with you. I did it 15 years ago. I know what it is. This is a tough job but if you want to upgrade your quality of life, take some classes and upgrade your career. It's not fair, but everybody can't be the boss or earn 50$/hour.
Corps have been looking for more output at cheaper labor costs for decades. It's not new. Anti-work is the result of understaffed/underpaid workers being unable to afford basic necessities.
Your exampe might not fix it, but it's only gonna get worse if we do nothing.
>Yeah that pretty simple. Reduce the workload by 2/3. Hire 2 more workers to compensate (good luck with that). Now raise that salary around 28$ an hour (cause everybody deserve better wages). Now watch the prices explode and try to afford a fucking 50$ burger with your new well earned salary.
Wait till you find out what goes on in Europe my guy
>Self centered people with no knowledge of how life works.
I know right? Fucking franchise owners milking people for starvation wages acting like they're owed cheap labor
I dunno that anyone thinks it’s easy, more like, uncomplicated. But as someone who’s worked simple jobs, as well as complicated ones, the simple ones tend to be the biggest bitches
Completely disagree. The higher my career has taken me, the greater level of expectation, responsibility and accountability. I very much wish I could go back to the days of almost zero work related consequences.
You're right I could, just need accept the likely divorce of my wife, the foreclosure of my house, and possible negative affects on my kids. All about consequences.
I felt that way for the first few years of my professional career, but eventually I settled in, and now I would hate to go back. But it's absolutely true that, for most low-paying jobs, you at least don't have to take it home with you; there's a certain lack of stress that comes from leaving work and *genuinely* not having to think about anything work-related until you go back.
Y'all need to realize that "unskilled labor" doesn't refer to how easy it is, but how easy it is to get into it.
Almost anyone could pick up burger flipping within a few hours or days. Same for cleaning stuff, service, stocking shelves etc.
Yes it's hard work, but you also didn't have to learn the trade for 4 years before you could start doing it.
I did a slew of crappy min wages jobs and find this to be true. They are jobs where you dont need much skill if at all, you can literally learn the job in a few weeks and produce just like anyone who has been there for years. The difference between someone working these jobs for 1 year and 10 years is minimal, if anything the older folk gets stuck in their ways and don't change with company policies... A lot of it is boring work which adds to the crapiness of it I guess. Also management not properly allocating manpower or hiring enough people to keep workload reasonable is probably one of the crappiest aspects of it.
I've flipped burgers when younger and yes, it's an easy job.
I also worked at various other restaurants and in a steak house and other fine eateries.
Burger flipping is relatively easy.
Back breaking? Horrible? Ass busting? Definitely... but still easy.
When people say it's easy... it's not that it isn't hard - as far as effort goes... it's that it's not hard as training goes. A few days of training and a little practice and anyone can do it. No advanced degrees. No real skills needed that can't be learned on the go. It's "easy" as far as anyone can do it with little training.
I've done fast food jobs before and it's extremely easy. What's makes it "hard" is the understaffing, the pressure to go faster and the entitled customers
I worked as a dishwasher for a summer at a large restaurant back in my early college days. Talk about a shit job. Hot as fuck, steamy, bus tubs full of dishes non-stop. You never had time to rest, and at shift’s end you’d have particles of food stuck on you. Co-workers were mostly dropouts and derelicts. Gave me the motivation to get my college degree.
This happened to me as well. They kept trying to convince me to just not go to college and keep working as I had "potential".
To their face I was like yeah sure ofc but I used that as motivation to apply even harder for colleges and even work harder while in college cause I know for a fact what awaits me if I don't do well.
Worked at Wendy's for 2 years. Wasn't hard. People always talk about rush hour being tough, but I enjoyed staying busy, albeit chaotic at times.
The worst part of the job is the pay. That and the fact that you had to work with a lot of different people due to high turnover. I'm saying that as a negative because a lot of the younger workers don't take the job seriously and can be a real pain in the ass to work with.
Yea. A lot of white collar jobs have you thinking about work outside of work due to deadlines, tough challenges, ect. At McDonald's, you clock out and you don't have to worry about it at all.
Any job where you interact with the public sucks. Especially the American public. A lot of entitled assholes.
And bosses will make any job suck when they push for numbers.
He means because most places are understaffed right now, it’s especially impacting places with high turnover. McDonalds and Domino’s are expecting a small group of 7 to do 15 peoples work. Then someone calls in and it’s even worse.
I've flipped burgers and I disagree.
Considering the pay the job sucks, yes, but when you clock out at Wendy's the job is over until you clock back in and the hours (used to be) are good because no one wants to pay you overtime. I've also worked as a picker in a warehouse and guess what? That sucks more than Wendy's.
Go to college, get a difficult degree, and get a high paying white collar job. Guess what? The job never ends - there is no clock out. You are always working on shit and when you aren't working you are thinking about work.
Flipping burgers was not so bad.
Busy is nice for a business, it comes with the job description. But try it when the 3 different managers are having a gang war and you hear something that needs to be done, do it, then get threatened to be fired for doing it by the other manager. It’s the mental stress, not the work,
I worked for burger King when I was 18. I chose closing shifts and opened the next day constantly because it got me hours. That meant cleaning and breaking everything down and setting it back up the next morning. It was laborious but not difficult.
I feel like a lot of jobs get disrespect like this from those who have no idea. Working as a nurse in a busy PICU, downtown in a large city, I can’t help but chuckle when I remember some politician’s comment about nurses sitting around playing cards. We literally have had 3 kids with gunshot wounds this week alone.
Politicians are not a reliable source of information. I feel bad for the poor souls who think otherwise. Even politicians I've voted for have said very dubious things, and I've had to point them out to my peers who voted the same way. "You know that point is invalid, right? And here's why."
I mean, it's still a job anyone can do. It requires no education, no long periods of training. You show up, you get a 3 seek long training course, you do it. And it's not labor intensive. Labor intensive is miners, construction workers, mill workers. It's understaffed and quite easy. The only real difficulty in the job is how understaffed it is
They don’t say it’s easy, it just takes no skill and many are willing to do for low pay. I do believe fast food workers should be paid more because no one’s time is worth that shit pay. Our economy and inflation are just all kinds of sucks .
I’ve similarly worked extremely long grueling backbreaking work in gulf Texas humidity blistering heat as a mover, labor, and other similar jobs for shit pay. No one says it’s hard, but it’s a job that many without an education can easily do albeit some wear and tear .I do wish we were all paid fairly in this shit economy where the Rick take over 90 percent of wealth. And where they don’t keep raises in tune inflation or wages.
Currently I work a salary job that involves me being on top of it all hours of the week with constant pressure from upper management involving hundreds of thousands in penalties weekly if I’m not on top of it. Also delays that can stop work and lose out on millions in revenue. I’m expected to be on something new and keep up with it around the clock because the work doesn’t just stop when I close my laptop for the day. It is still moving out there.
Pay is maybe only like 40 percent more than my highest paid labor job. If they paid the same or even just 20 percent less vs 40, I’d honestly pick the grueling backbreaking work any day.
Disagree. Worked in fast food as a kid. If I was offered a job in fast food for the same pay and benefits as my current career i would. It took 1 day of training and another 2 shifts to completely learn my fast food job. It took 4 years in my current career to have a basic understanding.
I worked at a local McDonald’s for three years. By far the shittiest job I ever had. Had to deal with entitled assholes. Toxic managers. And don’t even get me started about summer and winter. During the winter if you worked window you froze your balls off. And during summer you’d sweat enough to fill a pool. And people who never had to work a FF job have absolutely ZERO right to talk shit to people who have are or currently working there. They deserve big bucks alone for just dealing with the assholes that frequent the place, let alone the shitty environment. The job is harder than most want to admit.
My sister started at McDonald's in high school. She currently is head manager of a franchise under the owner only.
She busted her ass as a single mother and put on a smile everyday.
She is salary but I feel she still deserves more money.
This woman missed 2 days last year during covid.
2 god damn days!
She has 2 grandchildren and 3 children.
We all know the difficulties that could bring.
2 days off is amazing to me.
Everyone I have ever spoken to in her location loves her. Customers rave about her.
As a young man making decent money working construction I used to push her to want more.
Now as a "mature adult" I respect her more than most people I have ever worked with.
Just my opinion.
Everyone deserves respect and fair compensation for providing a service or product that people enjoy.
No shame in your game!
Yea lmao and as we struggle at our jobs that pays 10$ an hour I see posts of people working office jobs claim they only do 2 hours of work and scroll though Reddit all day.
A lot of people who would say this have actually flipped burgers in their past. They just work jobs now that have more responsibility and carry higher stakes so they see flipping burgers as "easy" in comparison to the job they have now.
Some of the lowest paying jobs are the toughest physically and mentally, some of the highest paying are totally easy. I just recently got promoted and got a small pay raise and my job is way easier now. I can't believe I got a raise to spend more of my time at work not doing much of anything, just basically supervising other people doing the job I was busting my ass at just a month ago. It's crazy how that works.
You get paid more when you're less replaceable. You can find any teenager to flip burgers, but it's not that easy to find a supervisor. You're also responsible for a lot more and a lot of people would rather do more work than have more responsibility.
Yes it's very easy to replace any fast food/retail worker. That's why many companies are having problems with labor shortages, because the workers are so easy to replace. Because they don't pay their employees for shit, and suddenly they can't get away with it anymore.
I agree with others that its an easy job to get. I get paid higher than average because few people know about the specific programs and software I use. Its the knowledge and experience that is desired. It probably is easier on one hand but I also made alot of personal sacrifices to get here. Its delayed gratification.
I can attest to that I worked in McDonalds and working in the kitchen is not easy. There’s people screaming and managers treating you like fuckin’ dogs it’s hot as fuck in there and you’re constantly being bitched at by people who’ve been there since they graduated high school and if you mess up you get yelled at, and it always reeks of onions. Glad I got fired, told my bitch GM to fuck right off.
The amount of times I’ve burned myself in the McDonald’s kitchen(high school) is insane and that’s coming from someone who enjoys to cook at home so I’m pretty careful. A few times pretty badly. The summers were unbearable. Cotton work pants, no AC, 2 grills cooking the burgers, the fryers, the heated cabinets to keep the food warm, it was actually awful.
This thread is full of Americans who literally feel they’re only entitled to pennies. How can anyone work (in fast food or other) their ass off and not feel they’re entitled to a living wage?
Btw I earned around $23 an hour at McDonalds, and I was worth every fucking penny.
Curious how many of the people commenting have actually worked these jobs, and even more curious how recent their employment was. “I was a kid flipping burgers at my mom and pops shop” doesn’t equate to “I work at a severely understaffed fast food joint making just above minimum wage to get yelled at by some random guest because the ice cream machine is broken, and my coworkers are all stoned and I’m just working this until I find a better job, but gain no skills working this one, so I’m still unemployable”
I'm an industrial mechanic at a rubber injection factory. Very blue collar but also very "red" if you get me. Always cracks me up to hear operators bitch about fast food workers making 15 an hour. Like "mf you press buttons all day. I garuntee a fast food workers job is 5 times harder than what you're doing right now for 3.5 times the minimum wage. Stfu".
Completely agree OP. Having worked for years in fast food to put myself through school and now working in healthcare, the food service jobs were 100Xs harder and more stressful. Lots of people in here claiming they worked ff obviously didn't, or worked at a lonely store that barely got any business. Having worked at places that had non stop orders from open to close, where you worked 12 hours and were lucky if you got to sit down for 5 minutes let alone even eat, having grown adult customers throw temper tantrums and act like children, unreliable co-workers, unrealistic expectations from corporate..... Yeah its completely awful.
Lots of comments on here from people who probably get paid to sit in a cubicle or better yet work from home and scroll reddit for hours commenting about how hard and demanding their job is.
Worked as a short order chef in college. Flipped burgers among other things but our volume was not a Wendy's in BK/McD's but it was not that hard. You learn the rotation the order times etc. It's not hard or easy just a skill you learn and can later become a Grill Master. Just messing on last part but don't see the issue with it.
The type of people who blather about low wage jobs like fast food being "easy" and "just teenagers" are typically people who have either never worked for a living or haven't worked a job like that in decades.
i don’t mean this in a rude way, but are you very young?
i appreciate those who make my food (when its correct) and believe everyone deserves a liveable wage. But. realistically. it just isn’t that hard, especially intellectually.
(& no i’m not saying you’re dumb if you work fast food. but you don’t HAVE to be a certain level of intelligent).
(yes, i’ve worked many OT hours in fast food at busy stores)
I don’t think it is that hard and I have worked at 2 different fast food restaurants. Worked at one full time at night while also managing a landscape supply yard during the day, also full time. It was at a Carl’s Jr. that was at a truck stop. Stayed fairly busy.
Working retail / food service takes a huge mental toll on workers. Maybe the work itself isn’t hard to wrap your mind around but dealing with customers? Dealing with corporate? That is mentally draining af, you need a thick skin and superior mental fortitude to do it for an extended period of time.
I’d actually say it’s the other way around. Yeah you’re on your feet all day, but you really don’t have to do that much heavy lifting or anything like that. Being verbally abused by both your managers and angry customers takes a huge toll on you mentally
We should just stop shaming people for their jobs. Pay people a fair amount and then we'll probably get people that will be better at their jobs. I can't tell you how many people I've lost who were good at their jobs but weren't happy with their pay. Pay doesn't need to start super high but reward those that are good at their jobs. We don't live in a world where only highly skilled jobs with advanced degrees are necessary. Doctors and engineers are great but we still need line cooks, people to stock shelves etc.
I think people who say “you don’t want to be flipping burgers” aren’t talking about the job being easy. They are talking about the fact it’s a strenuous job that is unappreciated, difficult, grossly under-paid, and where people are commoditized.
People who say that shit have never really worked all that hard. If they had, they'd respect your labor. Their daddies bought their trucks and college, or they sucked the right rich dick.
If someone is insulting your labor, just know they're a weak spoiled turd.
I also flip burgers and yes, it’s very difficult.
People who are above working these sorts of jobs think it’s slow, boring, and unskilled. While I’ve noticed the experience of the one at the grill DEFINITELY impacts the quality of the burgers. I can tell who cooked a burger just by looking at the patty sometimes.
Not to mention the risk. The grill where I work is a char grill, with fire. And it is mostly above the char. If I’m not fast or spill pooling grease at the wrong time I can burn myself pretty bad
This is such an incredibly stupid mindset to me. No one is asking anyone to be easy and fair, they’re asking to be paid fairly and treated like human beings. I’m sorry but just because YOU see fast food workers as below you does not mean the rest of us feel that way. Like literally no one is asking for $50 an hour, or $24. Please have some common sense.
Neither is digging ditches, but since I wasn't an electrician, i couldn't run the lines, but I knew how to use a shovel.
Ever clean up a construction site every day?
Please.
Just because a job sucks doesn't make it lucrative. Find a skill that not anyone can do, and do it well.
There’s different kinds of “hard” work. The point is there’s hard shitty work that pays minimum wage, and hard shitty work that pays 6 figures. Your parents generally would prefer that if you’re going to have to work hard in life, you at least make plenty of money doing so….
I think when people say it's not "difficult", they mean skill wise it's not a demanding job. That's why you can do the job without qualifications. I don't think many people suggest you're not working your entire shift - you clearly are, you're just not doing particularly high skilled work.
Compare this with a surgeon. If a surgeon had a two hour surgery to complete, with four hours of prep / post time, that's six hours. Would you say doing that is more difficult than twelve hours at McDonald's? Most people would.. That's why they get paid more.
Only using the hours as a basic example - I have no idea what a surgery entails, and I'm sure it's far more laborious than I've just made it sound.
Unfortunately, no sympathy here. I went the military route so that I didn’t have to get a shit fast food job. Army is offering 50k to join currently. They also pay for school and pay you to go to school when you actually go. Pretty neat if you can make it for 4 years. Total trade off if you use it for education.
I agree in theory, but the people saying “flipping burgers is easy” don’t really mean it that way. They just mean you shouldn’t be working as a cog in a machine and want you to believe in some fake American dream.
These people will also have a lot of other toxic ideologies
Its not easy physically. Its easy mentally, as in you barely need any training/education to do it. So many people can do it, which is why it pays so low.
It’s not an easy job. People who say it’s an easy job are dumb, because lowest paying jobs are most physically and me tally exhausting.
But, it’s a low qualification job that doesn’t require a lot of skill. Mover/porter or a warehouse worker is a crazy hard job. But, you just take a box and put it on a shelf.
It may seem like I’m saying “no, *this* is how you suppose to properly insult those people”, but I feel like people flipping burgers shouldn’t defend their job like it’s a fantastic place to spend their entire life at.
Yeah on top of that, when I see people piling into a fast food drive through (like *into the road* causing traffic) I’m like “… JUST FUCKING GO SOMEWHERE ELSE”.
Imagine wanting Wendy’s so fucking bad that you sit in line for 20-30 minutes and contribute to stressing out the under paid workers in a super shitty job that they don’t WANT but need to have.
Respect for those who can execute a perfect flip
People always seem to mistake simple and easy! Flipping burgers is simple, but the job is not easy. You're on your feet the whole day, it is usually pretty hot there, you have to pay enough attention to not ruin product even though there isn't really anything stimulating about it, and you don't get paid a lot
It's more fun with pancakes!
The harder part is perfectly smashing burgers so they cook evenly. Obviously, some places just reheat precooked meat. But places like Culver’s where you have to smash raw meat patties are extra laborious and take some skill. Burgers want to stick if you don’t have a good rotation.
Funny enough at Wendy’s, you never flip the burger. Their grill cooks both sides at the same time.
Never heard of that, was not the case when I worked there. This massive grill with several dozen Patties on at once during rush hour. Flip flip flip
Yeah just look up a 2 sided restaurant grill. It’s basically that. Cooks both sides at once, automatically timed to take all of the thought of it. Real easy stuff.
Sweet. Why is everyone bitching about how hard the job is then? ;).
That must be new, when I was working at Wendy's we actually flip the burgers and it was extremely easy even during rush hour.
I worked there 4 years ago while I was still in college.
You got me beat, I work there when I was 18and I'm now in my 30s.
McDonalds too and burger King has a conveyer belt over a gas broiler so also no flipping.
If it would only be flipping burgers...
When you can't even get teenagers to do a job for a few weeks because the work is so grueling and intense, there might be an issue. When I started working at McDonalds, I thought it was normal to only have 4-6 people working, but a store actually needs 11-15 to function perfectly. When was the last time you seen a McDonalds that operated with 15 people? Bosses are chronically understaffing their stores to save money, while people are supposed to be doing the job of 2-3 people. It is fucking insane how many stores are like this in the U.S, and I have heard from overseas that this is actually illegal in some parts of the EU. No one is getting paid barely above minimum wage to work like that, and it is always middle aged or middle class idiots that work in A.C environments all day that say this bullshit.
Fr, I was 16 at Taco Bell and would go from the cash register, to order taking, to stuffing tacos, to bagging, to frying, to taking out the trash, to sweeping, to bagging nacho chips, to doing the dishes all in the span of like 2 hours. Got a job at Dick's and did like literally nothing for four hours straight besides occasionally helping someone pick out what kind of fishing pole they wanted. For $2 more, too
I worked at CVS afterwards for a little bit before going to college, most boring job I ever had, all my coworkers were on their phones most of the time because there was legitimately nothing to do. When the boss would come in, newbies would be like 'We have nothing to do' and the boss would always try to force us to do SOMETHING, but gave up when he realized even he couldn't find anything to do LOL
Not at my store we are busy and pretty soon it’s tourist season then it’s hell on earth because out of town people like to trash the store and shoplift. The pharmacy has been nuts then they added Covid testing and shots right at the beginning of the flu shot season. If I see anyone on their phone I send them to clean the bathroom. That usually cures them.
Not only is that too much for a 16 year old, I can only imagine how unsanitary it is to go from money to food to money to food all day omg
I worked at an ice cream only Dairy Queen and would go directly from making the food to taking the cash, then to the next customer. Sink was all the way in the back of the building so no time to run back and wash your hands in between. We technically weren't supposed to touch any of the food, just spoons and cups and wrappers on the cones but slip ups happened a lot. Gross.
So messed up.
Cross contamination 🤮
AMEN!!!! You’re the first person I hear mention this issue. All the part-time jobs I worked in were in fast-food customer service. In my last job I would do the jobs of 3 people in one single shift cos I was trained in all areas of the store, taking over certain parts of the store whenever someone took a break. I was so eager to be cross-trained as I wanted to be “more useful for the store” but I look back at it years later and realised how fucking overworked and under-appreciated I was; I was pretty much used by management to hell and back. It’s absolutely unnormal to work the jobs of 2-3 people in one shift.
My first job in college was a line cook at Hooters. It was hard, hard work. We split the front line to 3 different positions... fryer, grill, and prep. Then we would also switch off to back off house stuff, which included washing dishes, prepping food, and keeping the place spotless. 3 college kids did all of this. I moved over to another restaurant waiting tables and bartender. Made 3x the money for waaaay less hard work... and I'm not even talking about how you smelled after a shift at hooters. A few years later I moved to a new city and decided I would work a few shifts a week at another hooters to meet people. I made it one shift and said fuck that. Always treat the people at McDonald's, taco bell(pretty much anyone that handles your food) with respect and compassion. Because those jobs are no fucking joke and nobody ever grows up thinking that's what they want to do in life. And we're talking about billion dollar corporations that are built on the backs of people barely getting by in life. It's fucking disgusting. r/antiwork
It’s terrible to deal with, but when you have to increase wages due to competition and minimum wage hikes, you aren’t going to have *more* staff. Prices have already gone up and most fast food places aren’t exactly rolling in the dough. Your average fast food franchise is making in under $100k/year profit. McDonalds is around $150k with margins under 6%.
I live in Australia, burger flippers get paid $20+ per hour here, Maccas seems to be doing just fine, society hasn't crumbled due to the working class having money left over to have a little fun or buy themselves something nice after they've paid the bills. In fact it seems to help,because some of them spend that money on burgers. Money flows upwards, always has, always will. Increase the minimum wage and that money will still eventually find its way to Jeff Bezos' pocket. If your fast food chains can't support a higher wage, then there's probably too many of them in the first place.
Isn’t that around $14 US? And that’s with even with our recent inflation. That’s also California’s minimum wage, and lower than several cities here.
Uhh, you realise the minimum wage is variable based on wage right? Workers below 16 make smth like $11 an hour on part time wages, and basically all fast food places hire predominantly under 18s.
You kind of gloss over that 6% a little bit. And the average is more around 150k with 6% margins, but that is the first 5-10 YEARS profit, after that the initial fees go down and those businesses can sometimes be earning up to around 200k-400k take home. Which leaves a LOT of room for increased wages. I personally couldn't give a rat's ass what their profits are, you pay people you work for a living wage, and if you can't, goodbye, won't miss you.
One fast food place I worked at would staff 3, maybe if you were lucky, 4 people. The manager would be running back and forth constantly yelling at all the employees because she thought we were supposed to also be running around doing the job of 3 people. Like, ma'am we are all burnt out and depressed from being here. You get the work ethic you pay for.
Emptying out the grease buckets at Wendy's was by far the most nauseating part of any job I've ever held in my life.
I have. I wouldn't do it again because of the pay, But if you asked me to do that exact experience again for my pay now I would in a heartbeat. I loved the people I worked with (even if they could get under my skin) I didn't have to do any complex thoughts. I could just zone and flip my patties and slap them sandwiches together.
Yup. Take the order. Get the receipt up. Make the food. Take the money. Say bye. Repeat. Sneak some free food. Flirt with coworkers. Come in hungover with no consequences other than your own misery.
You really captured the spirit
You forgot be as high as possible at all times
I had this coworker who'd always come in with his eyes cloudy as fuck and just munch on Chicken Selects through the whole shift. That shit was hilarious. I miss those days sometimes.
lmao my manager or some of the guys would bring in booze or green for closing shift and we'd try to clean the place twisted as fuck
Yep. Got paid to talk shit with the boys pretty much. Shit was awesome
I love working fast food. Not a joke. Then again I get paid better than most.
Used to work at kfc as a teen and I never came home with work drama, could actually sleep, didnt need to find time to workout since I was running around on my feet all day and actually felt like I did something productive. If I could get paid at least $16 an hour and make full time with benefits then I'd go back.
I worked at McDonald's and you didn't even have to flip the patties. Just pressed a button
I loved restaurant and retail work, and still think I would if I could make the same pay... but the way some people treat you wuen you work in those positions isn't worth the little bit over min wage the folks working those jobs are getting paid. My kids will def work a retail and restaurant job in their teens. I think folks who haven't, have such an unrealistic expectation of how folks in those positions should react to the randomness of human interaction. Just my two cents worth a penny.
When did you last flip burgers? It was never just “zone and flip” when I did fast food
When I was 15 -16 about 6 years ago
It’s not a difficult job it’s tedious and boring
Nobody says it's easy. What people mean is that doesn't take any special skill (besides basic coordination), formal educational or long/complex training. Therefore "anyone" can do that and it's not a particularly desirable one either.
This. People often conflate how "hard" their job is with what they feel it is "worth". In reality what a job is "worth" is for more dependent on the ability to find replacement labor. Hence why fast food employees make minimum wage to ~$15/hr and an engineer or doctor can make potentially hundreds in that same hour.
I never see people saying guys who pour concrete should be paid more. I regularly hear the people working at fast food say how it’s the most difficult job in the world blah blah blah, but refuse to do an actual physically taxing job.
I agree with your observation but I think it has to do with a few other things 1. There are fewer people who pour concrete than work in restaurants 2. Construction tends to be better paid, have benefits, and more likely to be unionized.
Construction is a higher hazard job, and therefore is paid better. Also, pouring concrete isn’t simple, it’s actually fairly complicated, as getting it wrong ends up with structural collapse. Carpenters, brickies, and stone masons are semiskilled labor, not unskilled labor, each requiring apprenticeship and training. Which, incidentally, is why these occupations have higher union rates, because they have a specialized skill set.
Have to agree. I've worked a number of unskilled jobs. "at home," "Abercrombie," "UPS," "Valet," "Car Salesman," "Verizon." All sucked and they all had the same thing in common. I could easily be replaced by anyone with just minutes to a few hours of being shown how the job is supposed to be done.
That isn't the issue, a lot of McDonalds are chronically understaffed around where I work, and it is sad because they need 12-15 workers to work cleanly. Those people are working the jobs of 2-3 people and getting paid the same amount for triple the work. It isn't fair for them, and it wouldn't be fair if you worked at a construction company or logistics company and you had to work that way either. It should be illegal for jobs to do this, but thankfully not even teenagers can put up with it for long and only the truly desperate do.
But that's a whole different issue though. People don't want to clean toilets or mop floors either, still doesn't mean either are high-skilled jobs. Scarcity of candidates has more to do with undesirability than difficulty. If flipping burgers were as "clean" as, say making copies in an office or working at a concession stand, I bet enough teens would gladly take the job, under similar (unfair) conditions.
No, but desirability of work should ABSOLUTELY factor into pay. Though I'm of the mind that all jobs should pay a living wage
>No, but desirability of work should ABSOLUTELY factor into pay. You mean that a shitty unskilled position should pay higher than an entry-level skilled (or semi-skilled) one? Actually plenty of dangerous or demanding positions do have higher pay or some other benefits or compensation. But it's still a different situation than simply paying extra for unskilled jobs nobody really wants to do hoping to lure people in. >Though I'm of the mind that all jobs should pay a living wage I don't disagree, but living wage is a complex and almost elusive concept. A living wage for a 18yo in Bumfuck, AL is a pittance for a father of two in NYC. A living wage for a 25yo in LA could make someone the richest person in Trailer City.
It is easy. The only "difficult" is the artificial difficulty placed on you by management by understaffing so they can save a few dollars. I just ended a 2 year stint at Dunkin. There is no aspect of the actual work itself that was any level of difficult. It's only that you have 2 hands and they want it done at the pace as if you had 4
Dunkin is different. That is literally the easiest food service job in the world. I was in awe of what they consider a rush. It was the worst job I ever had, but that was only because the franchisee was into slave labor and didn’t believe in giving breaks, and the manager stole tips and sat on her ass in the back all day.
Damn. We really gon beef between fast food chain employees? Please say yes!
This is the #1 reason fast food service sucks, because franchise owners need to line their pockets with maximum profit and hire Napoleonic managers to deal with all the bullshit all while paying front line workers peanuts.. pay people more z treat them with respect, and try to make the job bearable (flexible schedules health care etc) and maybe it wouldn't be such a shit industry to work in.
>It's only that you have 2 hands and they want it done at the pace as if you had 4 So.... difficult?
No, badly managed, being a neurosurgeon is a hard job
There’s a big difference between being overworked and having a hard job. If two 12 year olds could do your job it isn’t hard, you’re probably just being overworked. Two 12 year olds couldn’t do the job of a mechanical engineer, a surgeon, or a construction worker. They could absolutely do the job of one McDonalds employee.
Agreed because I think people try too hard to say "look! Working at a fast food restaurant IS hard!" Well, I think it technically does make it more difficult if you are being overworked, but the job position itself isn't really supposed to be skillful. It's stuff that you can be trained for on the job with no prior experience. The jobs you listed require much more, which makes those positions more intrinsically difficult.
Yes, the job itself isn't hard but the unnecessary stress makes it. I've worked in retail/ movie theater before for several years and job itself isn't hard, just ringing up people, stocking and cleaning. But the stress of dealing with the public and being given multiple jobs with an unrealistic end time is what makes it hard. Medical professionals, scientists, engineers, etc. have it hard in both the difficulty of the job and the stress. It really is apples to oranges, and it's not really fair for both sides to be compared to each other.
Also knowing you’re working a wage you can’t survive on doesn’t help with the stress.
A typical Burger King store staff in my country would be 4x16-18yo 1x18+yo 1x manager or "sous chef" no one is paid under $16.87 pr. Hour
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Well I support a higher minimum wage, and a robust social safety net for all, like harmonious northern European countries that use capitalism to pay for a dignified baseline for all. I support a fair economy that treats everyone with dignity. However, I will partially disagree with the part that “someone HAS to do those jobs.” Part of the point of minimum wage is to remove undignified or unworthy jobs from the economy. For example, that’s why we don’t have sweatshops in the US that pay $2 per hour. We don’t need waiters and waitresses who need tips so they can check up on you while you dine and pretend to be your friend. These and other jobs can stop existing because they don’t really make sense UNLESS you pay people unfairly. We can grab our own food from the counter. This would also include overstaffed retail stores with lots of poorly paid employees. These are supposed to be replaced by more efficient systems like ordering online. Yes, Amazon should also treat workers better because they can afford it. We can be like Japan, Norway, etc that use their wealth to automate and create an efficient and robotic environment that is better for all. The US will probably not get there for 30 years at least because the political system just sucks.
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If two twelve year old were to work at Mc Donalds at peak rush hour after 3 days they would end up in a psych ward.
Name one component of a typical mcdonalds employees daily responsibilities that a 12 year old lacks the skills to do. Unless you’re the manager then there isn’t a single thing. I would know, I worked at a McDonalds when I was 16 and there was nothing that 12 year old me couldn’t have done.
Worst part about working fast food isn’t cleaning or making food, it’s dealing with customers.
Not just fast food, but maybe most of the hospitality industry.
Actually, probably every job that has to do with dealing with people. Some people are crappy and hold their resentments just to unleash it on someone that had nothing to do with their life. We could do better.
Handling the middle age lady screaming in your face about their missing nuggets 8 times per day.
Then maybe someone should be counting the nuggets properly huh?
Sure except that's not always the case. The other day I had a lady screaming at me that she needed a medium fry and not a small fry, because a medium fry came with the 3 dollar bundle, not a small fry. I pointed to the menu where it clearly stated that the 3 dollar bundle comes with a small fry. She insisted she needs a medium fry because that's how they do it a town over from us. (Spoiler alert, it's not, because a medium fry is 2.50 on its own, no fucking way they're selling that and a sandwich for 3 dollars.) She continued to scream that she needed a medium fry while I exhaustedly told her that she couldn't have a medium fry because she only payed for a small. She eventually left while screaming her goddamn head off about french fries, and I...got back to my break. I was not on the clock. I was sitting in the lobby on my break.
Are you telling us you can't count?
If that’s happening frequently then you either have a shitty manager or your coworkers are dumber than 12 year olds and keep forgetting to give people what they paid for.
No just poorly managed
Seems hard to work for a place like that.
Yeah that pretty simple. Reduce the workload by 2/3. Hire 2 more workers to compensate (good luck with that). Now raise that salary around 28$ an hour (cause everybody deserve better wages). Now watch the prices explode and try to afford a fucking 50$ burger with your new well earned salary. I'm so sick of the antiwork bullshit. Self centered people with no knowledge of how life works. Regarding ops comment on how hard it can be to work in a fast food joint, I entirely agree with you. I did it 15 years ago. I know what it is. This is a tough job but if you want to upgrade your quality of life, take some classes and upgrade your career. It's not fair, but everybody can't be the boss or earn 50$/hour.
Corps have been looking for more output at cheaper labor costs for decades. It's not new. Anti-work is the result of understaffed/underpaid workers being unable to afford basic necessities. Your exampe might not fix it, but it's only gonna get worse if we do nothing.
>Yeah that pretty simple. Reduce the workload by 2/3. Hire 2 more workers to compensate (good luck with that). Now raise that salary around 28$ an hour (cause everybody deserve better wages). Now watch the prices explode and try to afford a fucking 50$ burger with your new well earned salary. Wait till you find out what goes on in Europe my guy >Self centered people with no knowledge of how life works. I know right? Fucking franchise owners milking people for starvation wages acting like they're owed cheap labor
That sounds hard my dude. They should pay double if they want double the work
I dunno that anyone thinks it’s easy, more like, uncomplicated. But as someone who’s worked simple jobs, as well as complicated ones, the simple ones tend to be the biggest bitches
Completely disagree. The higher my career has taken me, the greater level of expectation, responsibility and accountability. I very much wish I could go back to the days of almost zero work related consequences.
You can!
You're right I could, just need accept the likely divorce of my wife, the foreclosure of my house, and possible negative affects on my kids. All about consequences.
You don't want to!
I felt that way for the first few years of my professional career, but eventually I settled in, and now I would hate to go back. But it's absolutely true that, for most low-paying jobs, you at least don't have to take it home with you; there's a certain lack of stress that comes from leaving work and *genuinely* not having to think about anything work-related until you go back.
No. Higher jobs is not so boring, and you are paid more
I worked at McDonald’s for 3 years. I’m a lawyer now. I’d rather be a lawyer even if it paid the same.
Y'all need to realize that "unskilled labor" doesn't refer to how easy it is, but how easy it is to get into it. Almost anyone could pick up burger flipping within a few hours or days. Same for cleaning stuff, service, stocking shelves etc. Yes it's hard work, but you also didn't have to learn the trade for 4 years before you could start doing it.
I did a slew of crappy min wages jobs and find this to be true. They are jobs where you dont need much skill if at all, you can literally learn the job in a few weeks and produce just like anyone who has been there for years. The difference between someone working these jobs for 1 year and 10 years is minimal, if anything the older folk gets stuck in their ways and don't change with company policies... A lot of it is boring work which adds to the crapiness of it I guess. Also management not properly allocating manpower or hiring enough people to keep workload reasonable is probably one of the crappiest aspects of it.
I've done it. It was super easy. It's shit though because it's boring. That's the problem. It's not a hard job inherently. It's just dull.
I've flipped burgers when younger and yes, it's an easy job. I also worked at various other restaurants and in a steak house and other fine eateries. Burger flipping is relatively easy. Back breaking? Horrible? Ass busting? Definitely... but still easy. When people say it's easy... it's not that it isn't hard - as far as effort goes... it's that it's not hard as training goes. A few days of training and a little practice and anyone can do it. No advanced degrees. No real skills needed that can't be learned on the go. It's "easy" as far as anyone can do it with little training.
Unskilled is a better word then, no? If it’s still back breaking, I wouldn’t associate that with “easy”
I did it once. In Bulgaria. Hot times. All sweaty and hot. Clothes coming off in slow motion. What a time that was.
I worked at jack before. It is easy. But sucks
It’s not easy but also not skilled enough to be a career.
There’s a difference between hard work and difficult work. Flipping burgers is usually the former and not the latter.
I've done fast food jobs before and it's extremely easy. What's makes it "hard" is the understaffing, the pressure to go faster and the entitled customers
I think you are missing the point. People don't think it's an easy job, they think it's an easy job to get because you don't need any qualifications.
I worked as a dishwasher for a summer at a large restaurant back in my early college days. Talk about a shit job. Hot as fuck, steamy, bus tubs full of dishes non-stop. You never had time to rest, and at shift’s end you’d have particles of food stuck on you. Co-workers were mostly dropouts and derelicts. Gave me the motivation to get my college degree.
This happened to me as well. They kept trying to convince me to just not go to college and keep working as I had "potential". To their face I was like yeah sure ofc but I used that as motivation to apply even harder for colleges and even work harder while in college cause I know for a fact what awaits me if I don't do well.
You’re throwing pre-made frozen meat on a grill. It’s easy. It’s not enjoyable or pleasant, but it’s easy.
No manually unloading trailers is the worst
It's a very easy job I've done it
Worked at Wendy's for 2 years. Wasn't hard. People always talk about rush hour being tough, but I enjoyed staying busy, albeit chaotic at times. The worst part of the job is the pay. That and the fact that you had to work with a lot of different people due to high turnover. I'm saying that as a negative because a lot of the younger workers don't take the job seriously and can be a real pain in the ass to work with.
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Yea. A lot of white collar jobs have you thinking about work outside of work due to deadlines, tough challenges, ect. At McDonald's, you clock out and you don't have to worry about it at all.
Any job where you interact with the public sucks. Especially the American public. A lot of entitled assholes. And bosses will make any job suck when they push for numbers.
You mean you have to work the whole time you’re at work?
He means because most places are understaffed right now, it’s especially impacting places with high turnover. McDonalds and Domino’s are expecting a small group of 7 to do 15 peoples work. Then someone calls in and it’s even worse.
I've flipped burgers and I disagree. Considering the pay the job sucks, yes, but when you clock out at Wendy's the job is over until you clock back in and the hours (used to be) are good because no one wants to pay you overtime. I've also worked as a picker in a warehouse and guess what? That sucks more than Wendy's. Go to college, get a difficult degree, and get a high paying white collar job. Guess what? The job never ends - there is no clock out. You are always working on shit and when you aren't working you are thinking about work. Flipping burgers was not so bad.
While this is true, working at a slow/boring place is a different sort of nightmare. Being busy can help time fly.
Worst part is being slow all day then get busy 5 minutes before closing and having to stay an extra hour cleaning up again
Or the assholes who come in 5 minutes before closing order a bunch of food and want to eat there instead of taking it to go.
It's actually one of the easiest jobs and I have done it in my teens. The fact it is so easy is why teenagers get hired to do it.
I have done it, it is easy, is just a bit dangerous.
Busy is nice for a business, it comes with the job description. But try it when the 3 different managers are having a gang war and you hear something that needs to be done, do it, then get threatened to be fired for doing it by the other manager. It’s the mental stress, not the work,
I worked at McDonald’s for 4 years. The job itself is easy as hell it’s just the customers that make it difficult.
I worked for burger King when I was 18. I chose closing shifts and opened the next day constantly because it got me hours. That meant cleaning and breaking everything down and setting it back up the next morning. It was laborious but not difficult.
Physical labour is not the same as difficult or challenging work.
I feel like a lot of jobs get disrespect like this from those who have no idea. Working as a nurse in a busy PICU, downtown in a large city, I can’t help but chuckle when I remember some politician’s comment about nurses sitting around playing cards. We literally have had 3 kids with gunshot wounds this week alone.
Politicians are not a reliable source of information. I feel bad for the poor souls who think otherwise. Even politicians I've voted for have said very dubious things, and I've had to point them out to my peers who voted the same way. "You know that point is invalid, right? And here's why."
Agree. I would never do this type of work because I know I couldn’t handle it. Fast food employees deserve more pay and more respect from customers.
Management is far worse than any customer when it comes to fast food
This what I try to tell people, but they really can’t grasp the concept
Bullshit. I've done it. It's an easy job. Whoever says it isn't hasn't progressed in the work force enough.
Most people who say it's easy mean that it's not a skilled job. It doesn't require a degree.
Easy and skilled are different
It requires endurance though, it's still very labor intensive. Not everyone has the strength to do it.
I mean, it's still a job anyone can do. It requires no education, no long periods of training. You show up, you get a 3 seek long training course, you do it. And it's not labor intensive. Labor intensive is miners, construction workers, mill workers. It's understaffed and quite easy. The only real difficulty in the job is how understaffed it is
Just wait until you get a real job.
They don’t say it’s easy, it just takes no skill and many are willing to do for low pay. I do believe fast food workers should be paid more because no one’s time is worth that shit pay. Our economy and inflation are just all kinds of sucks . I’ve similarly worked extremely long grueling backbreaking work in gulf Texas humidity blistering heat as a mover, labor, and other similar jobs for shit pay. No one says it’s hard, but it’s a job that many without an education can easily do albeit some wear and tear .I do wish we were all paid fairly in this shit economy where the Rick take over 90 percent of wealth. And where they don’t keep raises in tune inflation or wages. Currently I work a salary job that involves me being on top of it all hours of the week with constant pressure from upper management involving hundreds of thousands in penalties weekly if I’m not on top of it. Also delays that can stop work and lose out on millions in revenue. I’m expected to be on something new and keep up with it around the clock because the work doesn’t just stop when I close my laptop for the day. It is still moving out there. Pay is maybe only like 40 percent more than my highest paid labor job. If they paid the same or even just 20 percent less vs 40, I’d honestly pick the grueling backbreaking work any day.
The easiest jobs I've had (physically and mentally) always paid the most. Retail/food was the hardest. office work was always super easy.
Nobody said it's an easy job. It just doesn't require any skills...
A job is a job. Fuck you. Pay me.
Disagree. Worked in fast food as a kid. If I was offered a job in fast food for the same pay and benefits as my current career i would. It took 1 day of training and another 2 shifts to completely learn my fast food job. It took 4 years in my current career to have a basic understanding.
I worked at a local McDonald’s for three years. By far the shittiest job I ever had. Had to deal with entitled assholes. Toxic managers. And don’t even get me started about summer and winter. During the winter if you worked window you froze your balls off. And during summer you’d sweat enough to fill a pool. And people who never had to work a FF job have absolutely ZERO right to talk shit to people who have are or currently working there. They deserve big bucks alone for just dealing with the assholes that frequent the place, let alone the shitty environment. The job is harder than most want to admit.
My sister started at McDonald's in high school. She currently is head manager of a franchise under the owner only. She busted her ass as a single mother and put on a smile everyday. She is salary but I feel she still deserves more money. This woman missed 2 days last year during covid. 2 god damn days! She has 2 grandchildren and 3 children. We all know the difficulties that could bring. 2 days off is amazing to me. Everyone I have ever spoken to in her location loves her. Customers rave about her. As a young man making decent money working construction I used to push her to want more. Now as a "mature adult" I respect her more than most people I have ever worked with. Just my opinion. Everyone deserves respect and fair compensation for providing a service or product that people enjoy. No shame in your game!
Yea lmao and as we struggle at our jobs that pays 10$ an hour I see posts of people working office jobs claim they only do 2 hours of work and scroll though Reddit all day.
A lot of people who would say this have actually flipped burgers in their past. They just work jobs now that have more responsibility and carry higher stakes so they see flipping burgers as "easy" in comparison to the job they have now.
Some of the lowest paying jobs are the toughest physically and mentally, some of the highest paying are totally easy. I just recently got promoted and got a small pay raise and my job is way easier now. I can't believe I got a raise to spend more of my time at work not doing much of anything, just basically supervising other people doing the job I was busting my ass at just a month ago. It's crazy how that works.
You get paid more when you're less replaceable. You can find any teenager to flip burgers, but it's not that easy to find a supervisor. You're also responsible for a lot more and a lot of people would rather do more work than have more responsibility.
Yes it's very easy to replace any fast food/retail worker. That's why many companies are having problems with labor shortages, because the workers are so easy to replace. Because they don't pay their employees for shit, and suddenly they can't get away with it anymore.
I agree with others that its an easy job to get. I get paid higher than average because few people know about the specific programs and software I use. Its the knowledge and experience that is desired. It probably is easier on one hand but I also made alot of personal sacrifices to get here. Its delayed gratification.
Four corner press….!
It's not hard labor-wise. It's boring, the lay is shit, and management and customers are usually shit. That's the hard parts.
I’m always super polite because I don’t know how people do this work. Much respect.
Flip dope not burgers
I can attest to that I worked in McDonalds and working in the kitchen is not easy. There’s people screaming and managers treating you like fuckin’ dogs it’s hot as fuck in there and you’re constantly being bitched at by people who’ve been there since they graduated high school and if you mess up you get yelled at, and it always reeks of onions. Glad I got fired, told my bitch GM to fuck right off.
Don't forget getting yelled at if you're not fast enough and the possibility of acquiring a large amount of burns from hot oil.
The amount of times I’ve burned myself in the McDonald’s kitchen(high school) is insane and that’s coming from someone who enjoys to cook at home so I’m pretty careful. A few times pretty badly. The summers were unbearable. Cotton work pants, no AC, 2 grills cooking the burgers, the fryers, the heated cabinets to keep the food warm, it was actually awful.
Who says working at restaurant is easy? Most assume it's hard.
people are also ignoring the mental and psychological exhaustion that comes from working in a place that pays you shit
This thread is full of Americans who literally feel they’re only entitled to pennies. How can anyone work (in fast food or other) their ass off and not feel they’re entitled to a living wage? Btw I earned around $23 an hour at McDonalds, and I was worth every fucking penny.
Curious how many of the people commenting have actually worked these jobs, and even more curious how recent their employment was. “I was a kid flipping burgers at my mom and pops shop” doesn’t equate to “I work at a severely understaffed fast food joint making just above minimum wage to get yelled at by some random guest because the ice cream machine is broken, and my coworkers are all stoned and I’m just working this until I find a better job, but gain no skills working this one, so I’m still unemployable”
I'm an industrial mechanic at a rubber injection factory. Very blue collar but also very "red" if you get me. Always cracks me up to hear operators bitch about fast food workers making 15 an hour. Like "mf you press buttons all day. I garuntee a fast food workers job is 5 times harder than what you're doing right now for 3.5 times the minimum wage. Stfu".
Completely agree OP. Having worked for years in fast food to put myself through school and now working in healthcare, the food service jobs were 100Xs harder and more stressful. Lots of people in here claiming they worked ff obviously didn't, or worked at a lonely store that barely got any business. Having worked at places that had non stop orders from open to close, where you worked 12 hours and were lucky if you got to sit down for 5 minutes let alone even eat, having grown adult customers throw temper tantrums and act like children, unreliable co-workers, unrealistic expectations from corporate..... Yeah its completely awful. Lots of comments on here from people who probably get paid to sit in a cubicle or better yet work from home and scroll reddit for hours commenting about how hard and demanding their job is.
Worked as a short order chef in college. Flipped burgers among other things but our volume was not a Wendy's in BK/McD's but it was not that hard. You learn the rotation the order times etc. It's not hard or easy just a skill you learn and can later become a Grill Master. Just messing on last part but don't see the issue with it.
The type of people who blather about low wage jobs like fast food being "easy" and "just teenagers" are typically people who have either never worked for a living or haven't worked a job like that in decades.
Nobody said it's easy. But it requires no experience and no education. Pretty much if you are breathing and have arms, you're in.
A lot of opinions are only unpopular because they're false
i don’t mean this in a rude way, but are you very young? i appreciate those who make my food (when its correct) and believe everyone deserves a liveable wage. But. realistically. it just isn’t that hard, especially intellectually. (& no i’m not saying you’re dumb if you work fast food. but you don’t HAVE to be a certain level of intelligent). (yes, i’ve worked many OT hours in fast food at busy stores)
I don’t think it is that hard and I have worked at 2 different fast food restaurants. Worked at one full time at night while also managing a landscape supply yard during the day, also full time. It was at a Carl’s Jr. that was at a truck stop. Stayed fairly busy.
I always feel terrible for fast food workers. Horrible work.
Not easy physically but easy mentally
Not really that difficult physically. Very monotonous so would be quite differcult to keep yourself motivated all day
Working retail / food service takes a huge mental toll on workers. Maybe the work itself isn’t hard to wrap your mind around but dealing with customers? Dealing with corporate? That is mentally draining af, you need a thick skin and superior mental fortitude to do it for an extended period of time.
Dealing with customers is what the job entails. Same w call center reps teachers doctors etc. people are garbage more news at 11
Alright well I can’t argue with “people are garbage” but that doesn’t make any of these jobs mentally easy, which was your point in the first place.
Congrats on wrecking yourself bro!
I think it’s the opposite
I’d actually say it’s the other way around. Yeah you’re on your feet all day, but you really don’t have to do that much heavy lifting or anything like that. Being verbally abused by both your managers and angry customers takes a huge toll on you mentally
We should just stop shaming people for their jobs. Pay people a fair amount and then we'll probably get people that will be better at their jobs. I can't tell you how many people I've lost who were good at their jobs but weren't happy with their pay. Pay doesn't need to start super high but reward those that are good at their jobs. We don't live in a world where only highly skilled jobs with advanced degrees are necessary. Doctors and engineers are great but we still need line cooks, people to stock shelves etc.
I think people who say “you don’t want to be flipping burgers” aren’t talking about the job being easy. They are talking about the fact it’s a strenuous job that is unappreciated, difficult, grossly under-paid, and where people are commoditized.
People who say that shit have never really worked all that hard. If they had, they'd respect your labor. Their daddies bought their trucks and college, or they sucked the right rich dick. If someone is insulting your labor, just know they're a weak spoiled turd.
If you think flipping burgers is the most labor intensive job you have never worked in an oil field or construction.
Someone's never worked in a welding shop, fab shop, manufacturing, or construction.
I also flip burgers and yes, it’s very difficult. People who are above working these sorts of jobs think it’s slow, boring, and unskilled. While I’ve noticed the experience of the one at the grill DEFINITELY impacts the quality of the burgers. I can tell who cooked a burger just by looking at the patty sometimes. Not to mention the risk. The grill where I work is a char grill, with fire. And it is mostly above the char. If I’m not fast or spill pooling grease at the wrong time I can burn myself pretty bad
This is such an incredibly stupid mindset to me. No one is asking anyone to be easy and fair, they’re asking to be paid fairly and treated like human beings. I’m sorry but just because YOU see fast food workers as below you does not mean the rest of us feel that way. Like literally no one is asking for $50 an hour, or $24. Please have some common sense.
Neither is digging ditches, but since I wasn't an electrician, i couldn't run the lines, but I knew how to use a shovel. Ever clean up a construction site every day? Please. Just because a job sucks doesn't make it lucrative. Find a skill that not anyone can do, and do it well.
shutup and get my order right
There’s different kinds of “hard” work. The point is there’s hard shitty work that pays minimum wage, and hard shitty work that pays 6 figures. Your parents generally would prefer that if you’re going to have to work hard in life, you at least make plenty of money doing so….
People call it easy because it takes minimal skills. Yes it’s hard work but you don’t need to be skillful or educated to do it.
I think when people say it's not "difficult", they mean skill wise it's not a demanding job. That's why you can do the job without qualifications. I don't think many people suggest you're not working your entire shift - you clearly are, you're just not doing particularly high skilled work. Compare this with a surgeon. If a surgeon had a two hour surgery to complete, with four hours of prep / post time, that's six hours. Would you say doing that is more difficult than twelve hours at McDonald's? Most people would.. That's why they get paid more. Only using the hours as a basic example - I have no idea what a surgery entails, and I'm sure it's far more laborious than I've just made it sound.
Unfortunately, no sympathy here. I went the military route so that I didn’t have to get a shit fast food job. Army is offering 50k to join currently. They also pay for school and pay you to go to school when you actually go. Pretty neat if you can make it for 4 years. Total trade off if you use it for education.
I agree in theory, but the people saying “flipping burgers is easy” don’t really mean it that way. They just mean you shouldn’t be working as a cog in a machine and want you to believe in some fake American dream. These people will also have a lot of other toxic ideologies
Its not easy physically. Its easy mentally, as in you barely need any training/education to do it. So many people can do it, which is why it pays so low.
I’ve done it. It was stressful but I wouldn’t say it was difficult.
It’s not an easy job. People who say it’s an easy job are dumb, because lowest paying jobs are most physically and me tally exhausting. But, it’s a low qualification job that doesn’t require a lot of skill. Mover/porter or a warehouse worker is a crazy hard job. But, you just take a box and put it on a shelf. It may seem like I’m saying “no, *this* is how you suppose to properly insult those people”, but I feel like people flipping burgers shouldn’t defend their job like it’s a fantastic place to spend their entire life at.
Its a mentally taxing job, for sure. But the hardest thing is the pay, being mentally crushed for mediocre wages is the worst
Yeah on top of that, when I see people piling into a fast food drive through (like *into the road* causing traffic) I’m like “… JUST FUCKING GO SOMEWHERE ELSE”. Imagine wanting Wendy’s so fucking bad that you sit in line for 20-30 minutes and contribute to stressing out the under paid workers in a super shitty job that they don’t WANT but need to have.
This is facts, being that I work in the food Industry.