Company: McDonald-s
Date: 2014-09-22
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Confirmed

The experience is what you make it.
Pros: The flexibility is great for anyone with any sort of availablity. I would recommend this to anyone who has another job to work around or any other obligations because as long as you are a good employee, you will get your hours.  Another thing is the management training program.  McDonald's is the best company to work for as far as food service management goes.  They have a very in depth training program that you can actually get college credit through when attending classes throughout your career.  Once you get to the position of Certified Swing Manager the health insurance is very affordable, and the 401k is a wonderful investment.  I had worked for both a franchised store and a corporate store.  Go for corporate if possible because the benefits are better and movement up in the company into a corporate headquarters is a lot faster.
Cons: McDonald's can be double edged sword.  You can get sucked in easily and it can take over your whole life.  I had open availability since day one, and it was definitely used and abused.  I started the company right after turning 19.  While I did make more with this availabilty, I didn't have much of a work life balance the entire time I was there.  I worked very hardf, so by the time I left I was very seasoned with every job there and was the acting the Kitchen Department Manager.  It's a minimum of 45 hours a week, which is great for some people but for some thats just too many hours.  The store I worked at last was undergoing a complete reconstruction, which was the most stressful time of my life.  The other two DMs and the GM all had to go in a few weeks early and it was not just a normal setting up of the store. We pulled 15 hour days to clean, hook up equiptment that construction forgot, do our own area configurations and then after putting in so much work we got to work more 15 hour days the first week of opening due to crew not showing up.  All food service places have high turnover, you get tired quickly of people just deciding that day they quit and just not show up.  You can be pulled thin sometimes and be doing 3 different jobs at once.  Probably the worst thing is dealing everyday with the stigma of being "stupid."  I have met and worked with so many bright people, let me tell you the stigma is not true for a lot of people at the store I worked at.  There are dumb people in every job, but the majority I knew were wonderful.  The reason I left was the amount of time I was putting into work wasn't really working with my personal life expanding, I'm looking into having kids in the next few years and I needed to find a job with steady hours.  Also I wanted to find a workplace with more adults than teens/young adults.  I want to thank McDonald's for time put into my development and I miss the great people there.