No shoes, no service for 6-month-old at BK
Aug 6, 2009 News
I have way too much to do today to be posting about this. To tell you the truth I have too much to do to even be reading the news online. But I needed to take a break from catching up on emails and work. Not so much of a break that I stepped away from the computer though. 
According to Momlogic, a mom and her baby were told to leave a St. Louis Burger King recently by a manager because the baby wasn’t wearing shoes. Baby. Six months old. No shoes. I’m guessing (hoping?) the baby wasn’t even eating anything (although trust me, I’ve seen it happen – I waited until a respectable year or so to feed my kids fast food fries, so anything less is irresponsible). But the manager insisted they leave.
I’ve worked in two fast food restaurants, a McDonald’s and an Arby’s. The managers were a mixed bag. The GM at Arby’s spent most of the time in the bathroom. We couldn’t tell if he had an intestinal problem or a coke problem, but either way he was MIA most of the time. It was a really small restaurant so he was pretty much it as far as bosses went. Working there was fun. There were practically no customers and I spent a lot of time eating curly fries right out of the bin. That particular Arby’s doesn’t exist anymore, to nobody’s surprise.
McDonald’s was a lot bigger, and a lot less fun to work at. They took that “Time to lean, time to clean” saying seriously. They even had us in once, sans pay, for a cleaning party. I was 18 or 19 and didn’t know any better. I felt like I was pitching in. Yes, pitching in to help the international multi-billion dollar corporation for free for eight hours. No, I don’t know what I was thinking either. I was supposed to work there for an entire summer, but only lasted six or seven weeks. The last straw was when I almost passed out working the grill because it was against corporate policy to let us have drinks in the kitchen. God, I hope things have changed.
The managers there ranged from the young blond go-getter assistant manager who I’m sure is running McDonald’s University right now, to middle-aged guys who weren’t smart enough after 20 years to have moved past assistant manager, to “Dry Biscuit.” He was the regional manager, in charge of half a dozen restaurants. Old people would come in occasionally and ask for a dry biscuit, one that hadn’t been slathered with butter-like topping right out of the oven. We would have to cook an entire pan of new biscuits in order to serve one dry biscuit. It was a huge pain in the ass. Hence, the nickname.
The store’s manager was a really nice guy, who seemed very smart. But he was too worried about his job to make waves with corporate over silly things like keeping the employees hydrated in the 100-degree kitchen. He knew it was a stupid rule, but he had a family to feed. If he had been a little less smart, he could have been the type of rule-following manager to kick out a baby for a health-code violation. That’s all it takes for dumb shit to happen: combine a person with power (and yes, in the world of fast food, the manager has power) with someone who isn’t smart enough to make judgment calls, combined with someone who’s scared of getting fired, and you’ve got a baby kicked out of a Burger King.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: baby, Burger King, shoes
They ought to kick some adults out of BK for being overly rude to minimum wage employees who are just trying to eke out a living!
@Molly – Having been one myself, I completely agree. But just to be clear, you’re not talking about that particular mom, right?
No, not talking about you. Talking about adults who argue about being charged $.79 for a drink and holding up a line of 20 hungry people at lunchtime. On another note, I make a point of not being rude to minimum wage people, and I usually tip ‘em at Starbucks, too! Learned that from a particular talk show host….
@Molly – Sorry, just wanted to make sure I wasn’t misreading your comment.
I totally agree. My last minimum wage job was probably about 15 years ago, and it feels like it was yesterday.
My son had his first just-above-minimum wage job this summer at age 19. He has already spent his nearly all of his college book money on clothes, and does not understand why $200+ does not buy very much anymore. It’s totally sad for this up and coming generation of degree-earners, and they work their tails off…
There are many such cases. It happened to my son as well still it was long back.
[...] me all night that I couldn’t figure out what the purpose was. I went back in my mind to my McDonald’s and Arby’s days, but at both places I made the food, I didn’t work the Drive-Through. Then, finally, it hit [...]