How many Managers are there at a McDonalds?

[Tyler Durden]

This is a trick question.

Most people would say that there is a location manager, and assistant managers. This is not the case. While the shift "supervisors" perform some functions of management, such as scheduling, they are not managers. Their is only ONE manager at each McDonalds location.

We can't ALL be managers. There aren't enough positions.

Besides, if we want fries, then we must have fry cooks. Grocery Stores require night shift stockers to face shelves. You like cherries? Then you have to have cherry pickers. This goes down to people who work at plastics plants, car assemblers, custodians, maids...

Not only do these jobs have value, the country simply cannot get by without them. And yet, the propaganda force fed us that states these people are "lazy, slackers, foolish" robs them of the respect ANY worker must have to go home at night and feel they have worth. Conventional Wisdom says "Educate, Re-train, Advance!"

Poppycock.

If everyone is a manager, then NO ONE is a manager. This is not a "bad thing," it's just that we must have the support workers to support the economy. Every pyramid has a bottom course of stones: it's how they start.

So let's not participate in the silly nonsense that says "Everyone can advance." It's not possible and it's a lie. Instead, let's learn to appreciate EVERYONE who works at ANY JOB.

Unless of course you were planning on cleaning that public restroom yourself.

[Broken_Hero]

1. Good post...

You had me going...I thought there were at least four managers at any given mcdonalds. I have never worked at mcdonalds, but I have worked a lot of food service jobs, and I appreciate the job they do, just don't spit on my burger!...:)

[Tyler Durden]

8. Even if there WERE 4...

Still works out to about 1 manager for every 8 to 10 workers. We STILL couldn't all be managers.

[kenny blankenship]

2. There can only be one

http://www.gonomad.com/globalroam/uploaded_images/Bangkok,%20Ronald%20McDonald-736210.jpg

[Tyler Durden]

6. There can be only one.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B00005RYL2/ref=dp_image_0/002-0869127-6833619?ie=UTF8&n=130&s=dvd

[Turbineguy]

3. Caddy Shack

As Judge Smails said: "The world needs ditchdiggers too!"

[Tyler Durden]

5. Unfortunatey true...

...people like that character are the ones who forment the unrest by their lack of respect for them.

[BlueJazz]

4. I've gotten into some real "Spats" with persons who have .....

...Cut-Down the lower paid workers.

I tell them:
"It's pretty Damn sorry to make a person ashamed of what they do for a living"

[Tyler Durden]

7. I tell them the same thing I said at the top:

"I assume YOU were planning on cleaning that public restroom yourself, right?"

[TygrBright]

9. ahhh, but you don't understand the solid pragmatic reason...

...behind calling people "managers." If they are "managers," then they are officially "exempt" from the wage & hour laws that prevent employers from exploiting peons.

They can be made to work overtime without time-and-a-half, based on some specious "flextime" or "comptime" shuck & jive. You don't have to give them breaks or lunch hours. Sometimes (if you set things up right) you can fire their asses without due process.

See? Of COURSE we want more "managers." And what allows us to define some poor schmuck as a "manager?" Tell them they supervise some OTHER schmuck. Give them "administrative or technical responsibilities." BINGO! They are a "manager" and you can treat them like shit, no problem!

Ohyeh, and let's not forget the other incentive for making people "managers." Which is, a hotshit-sounding title with (or even without) a puny increase in compensation is somehow supposed to convince them that you 'appreciate' them. They're supposed to get all motivated and take 'ownership' and CARE about flipping burgers faster.

Oh, yeh, Mickey D's is fulla managers. So is everywhere else people have figured out the dodge.

disgustedly,
Bright

[Tyler Durden]

10. Oh no, I DO understand the BS semantics...

I'm really just speaking in terms of Advancement, higher pay/responsibility scales, all of the things related to actual Management vs VIRTUAL Management.

I'm using McDonalds as an analogy for all of the idiots who say "...it's all their fault they make minimum wage; if they'd just gone to COLLEGE..."

[IronLionZion]

11. Spoken like a true Democrat

While I obviously support education for everyone, there are some people that can only work in min. wage jobs or factory jobs. It's so "Republican" to tell them to just pull themselves up by the bootstraps when the plant closes. And Republicans tell these guys that Democrats are trying to keep them down.

[novalib]

12. GREAT, EXCELLENT, TOTALLY AWESOME POST!!!!!!!!!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!

I absolutely HATE it when, after asking someone what they do, I hear them say, "I am only a waiter", or "I am only a sales clerk".

BULLSHIT!!

No one is EVER "ONLY" anything!!!

If something needs to get done, and someone is willing to pay you to do it, then YOU have just as much value as anyone else!

Don't let ANYONE tell you different!

[Ian_rd]

13. And meanwhile, the Bush Admin will allow McDonald's and others

to call as many people as they want "managers" in order to avoid paying them overtime.

Off the topic I know, but I couldn't resist.

You make an excellent point. Such realistic thinking however in the wrong hands leads to the philosphy that these "lower people" must be identified in school and kept where they belong. Greg Palast gets into this a bit in his latest, Armed Madhouse.

But if this is truly the land of opportunity, then everyone should be able to start out their working life after having the same educational upbringing.

[4_TN_TITANS]

14. Been there and appreciate it ....

I've gone from scrubbing the factory toliets to sitting at an air conditioned desk. I'll never forget what it was like to be at the bottom, and my kids have been taught to have respect for people with 'looked-down-on' jobs. One of my daughters is an honorary custodian at their school - she stays late many times to help out the janitors, and always treats them with respect.

Not everybody is capable of moving up the ladder, but nobody should ever be ashamed of their job.

[Phrogman]

15. Remember, money is only a "thing" that buys more "things"

It is not a vital organ and it cannot replace family or friends.


It is just paper.

[Freedom_Aflaim]

16. "Everyone can advance" vs "Anyone can advance"

Its a big difference.

In fact I would say that "everyone can advance" is absolutely true. Everyone DID advance when Clinton was at the helm. Even the Cherry picker advanced, and even though he was still a cherry picker, he was a bit better off. During the golden years, everyone advanced a little bit.

In terms of anyone can advance, there is living proof in the whitehouse. A stupid, inept, vain, shallow person with no redeeming value whatsoever advanced himself to the leader of the United States. If he can do it, anyone can.

[ReadTomPaine]

17. People should never define themselves via their job.

It's a frequent phenomena esp in the USA. Ask a person about themselves and the first thing they mention is where they work. Never a good sign.

While career goals can be vital to some, it's a mistake to have a lifestyle that supports one's job, rather than a job that supports one's lifestyle. There's a lot more to life than where you work.

[nedbal]

18. "The world needs ditch diggers too" Ted Knight

[Skidmore]

19. Isn't there a law about compensation and people designated "managers"?

I'm having trouble recalling it, but didn't Congress pass something? Help me! Making everyone a manager would be then be another way of screwing everyone.

[readmoreoften]

21. See my post below :) /nt

[readmoreoften]

20. You're absolutely incorrect. We're all managers.

Didn't you get the new National Labor Relations Board Memo? Any employee that engages in ANY supervisory capacity in their job is no longer a worker-- they're management and ineligible to continue membership in a union. So if you're a cherry picker and your boss asks you to come in from the field for an hour and call all your coworkers who work on the evening shift and tell them to be on time... then you are no longer a worker.

But it's more important for whole categories of workers to be wiped out of unions: nurses, teachers, medical interns, college professors. Oh wait, college professors (in private universities) haven't been able to organize since 1980. Why, you ask? Because they are management. They "manage" the classroom.

Let me tell ya a lil story: There once was a poster named Read More Often. She decided to enroll in an MFA program at one university while she was working on her Ph.D thesis at another. So she gets a job in the category "teaching assistant". Even though she is the instructor of record and no one helps her teach, she is considered an "assistant" because she is enrolled part time at the university. She doesn't mind because the job pays $20,000 a year with full benefits because she is a member of a union. Then George Bush's NLRB reverses her right to unionize saying that she is not a worker. The NLRB says that she is a "student" and if she weren't eligible for union membership for that reason then she would be ineligible because she's MANAGEMENT. A labor strike breaks out. Our poster loses her job. But the university rehires her as FACULTY, doing the same job in a different department, for $4000 a semester with no benefits. But now she IS a worker and not a student.

In 1984 Orwell called it DOUBLESPEAK, I believe.

[Skidmore]

22. Thanks for the assist. I'm sorry that happened to you.

I really believe that both the markets and business community need to be reined in substantially.

[readmoreoften]

23. Especially when that "business community" is a private university

With a 5 billion dollar public endowment that charges its students $46,000 a year in tuition and pays 80% of its workforce a substandard wage. :)

They also tore down Edgar Allan Poe's house (where he penned the Raven) to expand the law school. A grand asset to the State if there ever was one.

[NMMNG]

24. Thank you!

I can't stand snobs/elitists who look down on others because of what they do for a living. As far as I'm concerned if they are working an honest job there is no reason to be ashamed. IMO an honest, hardworking trash collector is better than a sleazy backstabbing executive.