ISABELLA INZINNA
Special to The Leader
From managers refusing employees hours to rats bigger than your foot running around the kitchen, college students working in fast food witness it all.
Most people love grabbing a quick meal from one of the fast food chains in Fredonia. What customers don’t know about are much darker secrets occurring behind the scenes.
From personal experience, most of these managers are in their twenties but act like gossiping middle schoolers. They play adults while being petty behind closed doors.
One former McDonald’s employee shared their personal experience of a manager being straight-up petty. Most people know how the McDonald’s drive-thru works. You pay at the first window. For employees, this is the back window. You then receive your food at the second window, which is the front window.
Back in September 2022, a former employee was working at the back window. They have been kept anonymous due to the nature of their comments.
They said, “All I was doing was cashing out cars, confirming orders, etc.” This means that the employee was not handling any of the food. They continued saying, “[One of my managers] was having a hard time, and he was blaming me because he was giving out the wrong food.”
It seems to be very common for managers to blame employees for issues that they didn’t even cause. After the manager made the mistakes, the former employee said, “He came back [to the window] and started yelling at me in front of customers. He made me feel like garbage, and laughed at me.”
On another occasion, this manager sent the employee to run an errand and grab supplies for the store. The employee said, “On the list he gave me, he told me I ‘better act like I have a reason to live, otherwise he’ll give me a reason not to.’”
This is pretty insane for a manager to write, but after some of the comments that have been thrown at me, I’m not surprised.
I’m sure management was also not surprised to receive this former employee’s two weeks notice
While on the topic of comments, managers have made, I have many.
One manager at Wendy’s in Fredonia did not like me from day one. I never saw any apparent reason for her insults; she just threw jabs at me every chance she could.
For a bit of background, I have worked in a Wendy’s in my hometown, so working at the Fredonia Wendy’s didn’t seem like a terrible idea. I would just have to get reacquainted with the menu and system, but that didn’t take long. I started in September 2022 and just had my last shift at the end of April 2023.
Almost every shift I worked with this manager, she found something to complain about or insult. From calling me a “stupid pink-haired bitch” out of nowhere, to singling me out when everyone was violating the dress code, this manager always had a bone to pick.
She was also the scheduling manager, and magically, once she started scheduling, my hours disappeared. Probably my least favorite disappearing act by far.
My 28 hours a week dropped to 10 hours, which was only actually marked as nine hours. I’m no math major, but a six-hour shift with no breaks and a four-hour shift with no breaks adds up to 10 hours, not nine. Making less than $150 a week doesn’t work out too well for a college student who’s trying to save and pay for necessities.
During one shift in early April, I came in with pants that did not fit the dress code, but I had worn them many times before, and the dress code had never been enforced. Barely five minutes into my shift, this manager said, “If you don’t change your pants, you won’t be able to finish your shift. You’ll have to go home.” I was a bit shocked. The restaurant was certainly understaffed, and everyone was drowning in orders.
As I looked around, I could see multiple workers breaking the dress code. I explained to my manager that I wouldn’t be able to go back to my dorm as she knew I didn’t have a car or a roommate that could grab me a different pair of pants.
After I finished clearing up the big rush of orders, I was forced to clock out and walk to Walmart to buy new pants and finish my shift. When I returned, she thanked me, as if I had a choice in the matter.
Also, this manager did not ask any other employees to go home and change when some of them were wearing Crocs, light wash pants, or covering their work shirt.
It is unfair that fast food managers take advantage of college students the way they do. These managers let their superiority complex get the better of them.
In all honesty, I did enjoy my time at Wendy’s. I had so many coworkers, and I used to be excited when I was on the same shifts as them. However, one manager made my experience so insufferable, that in the end, for mental health and better opportunities, I quit.