Everyday Life Of B.K

I have worked for the same Burger King for the last four years of my life. I have learned many lessons from there. It may not seem that you can learn a lot from there, but you really can. I have learned leadership skills, because I got promoted to a manager about a year ago. You can also learn a lot from the customers. The way they treat you is how they are going to get treated back. I know that we are supposed to be nice as we can be because the customer is always right. If you got yelled at and you knew you were right wouldn't you get upset and maybe take it out on that person? I have enjoyed all of my learning experiences there and all of the opportunities that I have received there. Not only have I gotten to meet a bunch of new friends there, I have learned leadership skills, how to manage my money properly. Ever since I started there I saved as much money as I possibly could. I bought my own car, and I am paying for my own college tuition by myself. I understand that you must save your money as best as you can for the future.

What have I learned?

Since working at Burger King I have learned many different things. Since this is the only job I have ever had, I think it does a good job teaching the basic skills that everybody needs to know in life. It has taught me basic things like: basic working skills, Social skills, and leadership.

Working skills, the everyday things I use in life like to be on time wherever I go, to be prepared, and to be more responsible. I am always on time to where I am going weather it is school, work or an appointment. I am prepared for class by always having the material we need, for work I am prepared with my uniform, and anything else I might need. More responsible in the sense that I always get what I need done on time, if I don't understand I get help. When I am doing the books at work and I am off by a lot of money I get another manager that is higher than I am to help me out.

I have learned leadership skills working at Burger King. This is because I became a manager almost a year ago. I have learned how to treat my employees from other managers who have taught me what I should know. If I get another job and become a manager there I will already know how to treat the employees. Basically if you treat them with respect they will treat you with the same respect that you want.

Finally, social skills. When I first got a job at Burger King I was extremely shy. After meeting a lot of people there, I started becoming more and more talkative. I started talking to the customers more often, and other co workers. I developed many close friendships working there the past few years. I enjoy seeing all my friends weather they work there or don't. I think being social is a good skill to have learned because that is how you meet all of these new people and you really and truly will never know what they are like until you meet them.

Eating at Burger King

I have had some bad experiences eating at other Burger Kings that are outside of Traverse City. I have also had many of my customers come in and tell me about there bad experiences eating at other Burger Kings. I would still eat at them because of the fact that people that work there do make mistakes. It would also depend on the cleanliness of the store as well. If I had a bad experience at one I would probably not go back to it.

I have had people come up to me and tell me that the resteraunt I work at is the best Burger King in town. They have told me that they have gone to other ones out of town and the food they recieved was so hard that they couldn't bite into it, and when they took it back they would not replace their food. We would never do that at my resturant. I have a theory of my own that I have picked up over time while working there. If it is something that you personally would not eat by the looks of it or the feel of it do not serve it to others so they could eat it.

Customers have told me that they will only eat at the Burger Kings in Traverse City because of how clean our resturaunts are compared to other resturaunts they have gone to before. Another thing is the customer service. Other Burger Kings have really rude people which is a cause for people to not eat there.

It personally doesn't really bother me to eat at other stores but I would prefer the ones that I am used to going to eat at.

Do people Ever get Fired?

It may seem nearly impossible to get fired from a fast food restaurant. In fact in our restaurant hardly anybody has been fired. So many people should have been fired by now. The other Restaurant Managers fire people and tell them to be appropriate at work. If they are not in the proper uniform they get sent home are given an hour to get the proper uniform or they get written up, it goes into their file and if the problem persist they get fired. Not only improper uniform can get you into trouble, showing up late, no call no show, and not doing your job properly. The store I work at you can get away with just about anything and not get fired. I have been there for almost four years and maybe a total of five people got fired.
I know some of the reasons they got fired mainly no call no show, and getting into a fight with the managers. One person I know got rehired at our store, that was a misunderstanding why she got fired in the first place.
What really needs to happen at our store is a lot of changes. Everybody needs to be on the same page. It seems to be only one or two managers trying to make a difference, when in fact it takes a whole team of people.

behind the scenes

A lot of things happen at burger king that you would not expect. you Probably would not expect the employees act like a bunch of little kids whining and throwing hissy fits there. In fact you probably would not expect managers to act like that but they still do. They act like it high school all over again even though some employees are still in high school most are not. Also we have managers there that always complain they want to go home and they have only worked 45 minutes. It is kind of obvious that managers are supposed to stay when asked not whine to go home early but they still do.
Also nobody seems to follow are dress code in our store, however if it was another store they would get sent home. All of the burger kings in traverse city are owned by the same family.In our store we have managers that wear white shoes and have there shirts untucked. Our Uniform is supposed to be shirts tucked in, and have black shoes. When managers work in the kitchen they are supposed to wear hats or hair nets because we don't have to have hats once we become managers its not a part of your uniform anymore. So if the health department or the health inspectors come in we would fail because of it. I personally think it is disgusting to not have a hat or hair net on while making food. A lot of people come in and complain there was hair in their food, if i went out to eat and found hair in my food i probably would take it back as well to get new food.

The Drive-thru

The Drive-thru, a fast and convenient service. Or so you think. Our generation is filled with people who are always on the move. Usually you wont have time to stop in and eat, so the drive-thru was invented. It provided the convenience of staying in your car and getting your food. Although it's not all fun and easy. People often have a short temper.... really short. I have had to deal with the good and bad people.

There are people that can understand a simple mistake, and say "oh it's ok your fine".

Then we got the short tempered cannons that explode for messing one little thing up. These people often will continue to yell and scream at you. It's also partly their fault for the mix up. We get the diesel engine vehicles so that you can't hear their voices, if you ask them to turn off the vehicle, they get upset.

A few months ago I was running for drive-thru (picking up the food and bring it down to the drive-thru) and the person on headset had forgotten to ring up the drinks for his kids meal. we were going to charge him for it. The drinks for kids meals are only a dollar so it would have been only 4 dollars total for the drinks. He was upset and starting to swear at my employees and myself. We were going to just give him the drinks to get him out of the drive-thru to make our line move faster. However he still was upset when we were not going to charge him for the drinks still swearing and yelling at us. He looked like he was going to jump through the window because he was so upset. I didn't know what to do so I got the resturant manager and she took care of the situation.

Scammers

It's kinda sad to see the length people will go to get free food. Enter the "Scammers". These people go to extraordinary lengths to con off a cheeseburger or even cash! Scams can range from a variety of things from a phone call with "missed food" or to people coming into the restaurant and yelling up a storm. I'd like to share a few examples:

1. One lady came in and placed an order, it was picked up she walked off and sat down to eat. Now sometime after she was done eating ALL of her food, she came up to the counter and complained that her food was cold and tasted disgusting. She demanded her money back. Unfortunately for us the owner of BK believes that the "customer is ALWAYS right". So we had to give her a full refund.

2. Some guy came in one afternoon and began to order, with coupons. It took him roughly 45 minutes to finish his order. He had to change it roughly 5 times throughout the order. After he was all set he came right back and began to complain that he came in a previous week and placed a large order that cost around $140.00. He mentioned that the entire order was screwed up and left a note asking the Restaurant Manager for compensation of the ENTIRE order (be it a full refund or food).

Those are just a few examples of what scams people will use to get just a little free food.