I wonder if our librarian could dig up statistics on the percentage of Americans who were employed by McDonalds restaurants at some point in life?

I never worked there, but I know a few people that got their first job at McDonalds.

I worked at an Arbys while I was in high school. It was owned by a good friend's dad, and it was only busy for like an hour per shift, so we'd pass the time by doing homework, having ice fights, and seeing how many apple turnovers each employee could fit in their mouth at once. Good times.

One out of every eight Americans have been employed by McDonalds during some stage of their working lives, according to numerous sources. This might be beaten by Wal-Mart soon.

The only food place I worked at was a local pizza delivery business. Worse situation developed when there was a rodent problem. There would be stacks of folded pizza boxes ready to be used. These boxes have tab holes to vent the moisture when the pizza is placed inside. Unfortunately, these holes were also quite inviting for the mice to crawl into, take a dump, and move on. When I was on ovens I encountered several boxes back-to-back that had rat droppings inside. I'd call for another box and THAT box would have rat droppings.

I was the only one who replaced soiled boxes. When the other workers were on the ovens apparently not a single box had droppings. I came close to shutting the place down by calling the health inspectors in and even told the store manager I would do so if he didn't take care of the problem.

You risk more than a little weight gain by eating at fast food restaurants!

Only because Wal-Mart hires people after they retire

I worked at the McDonalds in Corner Brook, Newfoundland for 4 years.

Yes, the job market there is that bad.

My sister worked for McDonalds in the early 1970s. She quit within a few months. She told stories about how the cooks would put things like rubberbands and paperclips into the meat patties and she hated being stuck up front when the customers came to the register angry if they found something in their food. Apparently several people ate stuff that you wouldn't think would be in hamburgers.

I've never had a food service job of any kind. On the *Mart front, I spent a summer at Tar-Zhay.

No McDonalds in my past, unfortunately there's a Dairy Queen & Little Caesers back there though.

I never did work in food service. I was always drawn to airports. I washed cars at Avis, and loaded bags on the planes for Delta at the Atlanta airport (Hartsfield).

No food-related work of any kind.

Unless you count putting food into bags at the local Jewel. (Or "Jewels", if you live in Chicago.) That was my first job ever, at the ripe age of 16.

Reagan was president then. Cruise, I'm old.

During the Carter administration I spent a month working at a Burger King.

I asked for money to go to Florida for my senior trip, my dad said, "get a job", so I worked at BK for a month. When the manager asked why I was quiting, my answer was, "I only needed a couple a hundred dollars.. so... no reason for me to keep working."

List of restaurants I've worked at in my life:

McDonalds
Taco Bell
Pizza Hut
Applebees
Chilis
Chi-Chis
Ruby Tuesdays
Ranch Steak & Seafood (1 day)
Denny's (1 day)
Quiznos
Bucca di Beppos
Jimmy Johns
Big Boy
Marco's Pizza
Noodles & Company

No Chochkies? No Flingers?

Never even heard of them.

I spent 4 years at the biggest McDonald's in Canada, until they opened the Sky Dome. I learned a lot of valuable lessons there, including:

When you're average meal is $5, $8000 in sales in one hour is an absolutely insane number.

Their mark up on a medium french fries is roughly 400%; pop is about 700%, and coffee is about 500%

It is not possible, without preplanning, to work for 24 straight hours in a kitchen.

the most important one...Don't sh*t where you eat. Of course, I had a buffet, but what can you do.

Jason

Wow. That's a lot. I spent a summer working at a roadside burger joint. That's the closest I came to any sort of fast food experience. Good eating back then!

The two fictitious places mentioned in Office Space (remember Jennifer Anniston's "pieces of flare?"). You seemed to have worked in every soul-stealing place of that ilk.

But I bet you were nice.

Flair, I believe.

Indeed. Else she might start a fire.

I do not believe this list. You would have to be twice as old as you are, or readily dismissable, to have worked at this many restaurants.

Applebees, Chi-Chi's, and Ruby Tuesday's come close, but I avoided the two worst, Bennigans and TGIFridays.

But Chi-Chi's? Keep reading A Boy Called Monk and you'll see a sadly faithful rendition of the uniform I had to wear.