I was a 20-something dethroned dotcom ceo that went to work at mcdonald's (2000)

https://web.archive.org/web/20040616091238/http://www.heiferman.com/mcd/

by kamphey • 2 years ago

293 185 2 years ago

web.archive.org

mtmail• 2 years ago

"10/[20]00-10/[20]00: counterperson, mcdonald's" Does that mean he worked there for one month or less?

I checked his Linkedin, the job isn't listed. Jan 2002 he started a new photo startup ("50M+ members posted a billion photos"), then co-founder&CEO of meetup.

It's a good time capsule of what his thinking was in 2000 but I wonder if it was more than a break. At my office job I, too, often think I should drive an Uber or deliver food for a month as a break.

dylan604• 2 years ago

Is working the counter at McDs something you add to a LinkedIn profile? Do people moving from the counter at McDs to BurgerKing use LinkedIn?

reactordev• 2 years ago

Exactly. I have dozens of jobs I don’t list on LinkedIn. I wouldn’t list McDs either. Your LinkedIn is your resume. Something tailored towards the career you choose. These off jobs and hustles don’t belong in my opinion. Leave that for the story telling part of the interview when they ask.

robofanatic• 2 years ago

Why not? Its a nice PR story about early life struggles.

tennisflyi• 2 years ago

Such a classist comment

Maxatar• 2 years ago

He worked there for a few weeks:

https://www.businessinsider.com/scott-heiferman-startup-care...

SoftTalker6• 2 years ago

Well that explains why he felt nobody appreciated his efforts. The first few weeks at a job like that you are pretty much just in the way. It takes some time to learn the routines and operate the equipment so you can work quickly without thinking.

brianshaler• 2 years ago

I used to work in software sales in a call center. I hated my job and the highlight of my week was the Monday burrito special down the street at a place where the employees shouted "Welcome to Moe's!" whenever customers entered. When thinks ultimately fell apart at that job, I went to Moe's and somehow managed to get a job despite a lack of food service experience. I lasted a while—months, I think—but eventually got fired.

I don't know that there's a moral to that, but I guess I tend to look at the urge to bail and go to unskilled (or really, differently-skilled) labor less as a virtuous thing and more a sign that some in-place re-evaluation is needed with mental health in mind.

I still occasionally say "I should become a farmer" but take it more as a sign that there's something I probably need to address within my current situation and/or I need to get back on the wagon of going on morning walks.

euroderf• 2 years ago

Maybe you needed to work with your hands for a while.

gopher_space3• 2 years ago

somehow managed to get a job despite a lack of food service experience. I lasted a while—months, I think—but eventually got fired.

Bit of a tangent; I switch between knowledge work and labor a bit, and the biggest mistake I see people make is not altering their caloric intake or sleep schedule.

raffraffraff• 2 years ago

Oof, never become a farmer. Farming is generally something you (reluctantly?) inherit along with the farm. It's insanely expensive to buy your way in. Even if you inherit the land, the cost of buying and upkeep of machinery is extremely expensive. Everything you invest after that point (in livestock, seed, fuel, time) is a risk. Bad luck or bad weather can ruin a crop. The hours are long. The stress is monumental - suddenly you really care about the weather. And unlike some small tech startups you absolutely have to employ people, but the people who end up working as farm labourers "fall" into it because they can't do anything else (kinda like the building trade). Not that you'll be complaining when you have to pay their wages. No you'll complain when the umpteenth stupid costly mistake is made.

Unless you're thinking about larping as a farm labourer, runaway.

Cthulhu_2• 2 years ago

Farming is a pretty big thing though, if you want to get into that it might be better off buying property and slowly turning it into a smallholding. Or work at a farm as a farmhand.

Anyway, not parent commenter specifically, but if you're in a situation where you have loads of money but don't know what to do with yourself, volunteer work is always an option, and there's loads of things you could do, be it formal volunteer work (e.g. homeless shelters, retirement homes) or informal (set up IT classes at your local library, go around your neighbourhood and pick up trash, pick up a conversation with a random lonely stranger)

magpi32• 2 years ago

This happened to me, and I actually did it. I burned out of an IT job and joined an intentional community where I worked with people with disabilities on a farm. There was also a vegetable garden and a craft shop. I lived there for two years. It was an Americorps position, and I made $150 a month (although housing and food from the organic farm were all free). Probably the most formative two years of my life, although afterward it was definitely hard to explain to employers why I decided to take an Americorps position in my 30s. I never went back to work in IT, although I still read about programming/the IT world almost every day.

ericmcer• 2 years ago

Customer service jobs are great because you feel useful and you never wake up stressed wondering if you will be able to do your work well that day.

I did 5 years at Trader Joe’s, would easily do it for 30 if they paid 150k lol.

sethammons• 2 years ago

My farmer near-equivalent is, "I hear janitorial work can be rewarding." No, I do enjoy software work, but sometimes I do just want to turn my mind off or not deal with all the politics

maschera• 2 years ago

We, the internet people, should all work a regular job for 2-4 weeks year. I think far too often that I'd like to experience being a truck driver before I die.

Why there are no companies that arrange this? We need a Kidzania for adult nerds.

Aperocky• 2 years ago

Therein lies the problem, as you'd expect a company to arrange for this, via just go ahead and .. do it?

But I guess as a society we are constantly inventing higher level of first world problems that's probably the result of echo chambers that has stratified the society.

otteromkram• 2 years ago

I worked in bars and restaurants on the weekend when I held a full-time job during the week, so it's possible. The variety also keeps you from burning out.

If you aren't to hard-up for money, there's always volunteer work to scratch your "regular job" itch.

jakderrida• 2 years ago

Why there are no companies that arrange this?

That's a weird expectation. But I think, for starters, that the reason you don't see it often is that when it comes to jobs working with your hands, you'll find that incredibly costly accidents by employees overwhelmingly occur within the first few months. I've seen it while a technician at Verizon and also for the local transportation agency. A new hire is an investment where you take on massive risk to start with, and you recoup costs incurred after the first few months when the risk dramatically falls.

magpi32• 2 years ago

If you ever feel like you want to beat your body up a little, it is very easy to find seasonal work at UPS (or I guess amazon) during the holiday season.

I worked for UPS unloading trucks one holiday season. We would work 8 hours straight, and the only way to really eat was to have granola bars or something in your packets to snack on as you go. UPS hires ex-military personnel to lead the trucks, so you are yelled at if you slow down.

In the beginning it was grueling, but after about a month or so my body was used to it, and I was volunteering for overtime and worked up to 12 hours a day.

It messed with my back though. I would say it took me three years before my back felt normal again. For this reason alone, I wouldn't actually recommend it unless you are in your twenties.

hackeraccount2• 2 years ago

They should add a date to the title - I saw the $5 and hour and was confused. I swear I remember McDonald's starting people at $10 an hour even around that time.

wil421• 2 years ago

It says dotcom in the title so it must be around 1999/2000 give or take a couple years.

awad• 2 years ago

NYC has had shockingly low minimum wage:

https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/spotlight-minimum-wage/

I specifically remember being a teenager around that time and trying to math out a part time job at McDonalds for 5.35 an hour and realizing how tough it all was.

SoftTalker6• 2 years ago

In 2000? Yeah that might be somewhat typical for fast food wages depending on locale.

Minimum wage is a floor. It doesn't mean you can hire at that rate.

Minimum wage in my state is the federal minimum ($7.25/hr) but restaurants here have to pay about double that to get anyone.

huac• 2 years ago

His most recent LinkedIn role: Fulfillment Center Associate I, Part Time, Amazon.

your_challenger5• 2 years ago

This guy is a legend!

kotaKat• 2 years ago

I've done that as a break, once. It was fun to sling boxes around for a month on outbound dock. Tune out, grab a box, scan a box, tote the box, scan the bin barcode, repeat.

Making bucks, getting exercise, working inside. The discount was nice, and I still use the comfy composite toe shoes when I need to do some heavy work.

vecter• 2 years ago

Confirmed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheif/

From May 2022 - Jan 2023 · 9 mos

ralferoo• 2 years ago

There seems to be a certain irony that working at a fulfilment centre sounds like one of the least fulfilling jobs you could do.

karaterobot• 2 years ago

If his timeline and application are true, he was technically still the chairman of his company while working at McDonald's, if in name only.

10/99-10/01: chairman, i-traffic (an agency.com company)
10/00-10/00: counterperson, mcdonald's (4th & broadway, nyc)

I sometimes think about going back to work at food service jobs after I retire, just to keep busy. I enjoyed those jobs as a high school and college student, and I wonder if I still would, or if I might be too spoiled now. And if my back was tired at the end of a shift when I was 21, I guess now I might just die.

jprd• 2 years ago

I dream about working at Toys R Us again, at least a few times a month, 20+ years on. I can no longer put the cheapest metal swing set on my shoulder and carry it out to a customer's too-small car.

But damn it was fun.

Scoundreller2• 2 years ago

Somehow the retail arm of the chain still exists in Canada. 80 stores remain.

Note to self: invite US visitors with kids to toys R us.

swozey4• 2 years ago

I'm around the service industry daily/nightly, used to bartend, lots of my friends still bartend. Apart from the social aspect of actually enjoying working with your coworkers, cool regulars, general night life fun, etc, the world has collectively lost it's mind since 2020 and there is not a chance I would ever do industry again.

The amount of drama, fights, and just people in general being rude assholes since 2020 is astronomically higher than it was when I bartended around 2005-2010 and way higher post 2020.

I used to bartend on dirty 6th in austin a decade ago and I won't even walk down that street today. Society has lost its mind.

I live in a busy bar neighborhood here in denver and we just had a door guy get shot and killed 2-3 weeks ago, literally on my street at a restaurant I go to every few weeks 4 blocks away in broad daylight on a Sunday. A 14-15 year old (iirc) running around on a scooter harassing people shot him in a scuffle.

bogota• 2 years ago

I still live in denver but in the very outer burbs. I moved from market st about a year ago and it is so much better out here. Denver needs to gets its downtown under control. I used to love nightlife and going out to bars but after 2023 when places were all open again I never went out again as it didn’t feel safe after 9pm.

Really hoping they turn it around.

marcuskane22• 2 years ago

the world has collectively lost it's mind since 2020

Covid causes brain damage. The common symptom of "loss of smell" was found to actually be due to covid infection of the neurons in brain & cranial nerves. Obviously "brain fog" (or memory issues, fatigue, lack of focus, however people articulated it) is due to damage to brain.

I wonder how society moves forward. We didn't get the movie-horror-story virus that turns people into zombies, but we did get a virus that leaves many people with diminished emotional regulation, attention span and ability to reason.

subsubzero• 2 years ago

I think its just a huge burden that certain states are putting on people along with dramatically increased cost of living due to insane govt spending. People are really hurting right now and tempers are short.

- Housing has gone up 50-60% in the past 3 years.

- Groceries have also gone up 30-40% along with restaurant prices.

- Despite the job market for professionals being the worst its been since 2008 you have the media gaslighting everyone talking about a "vibecession" and saying the economy is the strongest its ever been.

- Crime and lawlessness has been out of control, we are approaching 90's levels of crime in a few short years.

- Interest rates are the highest they have been in 30+ years, all loans etc are now very expensive(see housing costs as house prices have shot up).

- Arsonists running wild in California/Oregon/Washington causing record wildfires and releasing tons of CO2 into the air.

- Homelessness hit record high (up 12% from 2022 to 2023)

- All these things are causing a huge drop in quality of life and pushing people to the brink. So many people in my circle of friends - engineers, scientists and mgmt that are out of work I have never seen anything like this.

bobthepanda• 2 years ago

I feel the same way, but rather about being a receptionist. Which is an option if you are concerned about manual labor.

colechristensen• 2 years ago

I did this between jobs (and slightly overlapping) for a while, about 6 months. It didn't pay the bills and I got a seemingly permanent repetitive stress injury from working in the kitchen, but it was fun and an excellent change of pace. My god I was never confused about how to do a task and when I left work I was just done, there was no todo list hanging over my head.

Cthulhu_2• 2 years ago

Reminds me of a summer job I had once, sitting at a machine assembling the plastic part of toilet blocks. I sat at one end where my job was to place a foam slice rough-side up onto the plastic bit appearing in front of me. Pssht. Pad. Psssht. Pad. Psssht. Pad. 8 hours a day, break every two hours where I'd spent some of that money on a snack, CD player with pirated music doing its thing.

I mean I only spent two weeks or so doing that if I recall correctly, the rest of my time there was supplying the eight or so machines (times five people per machine) with parts and taking the finished boxes away, but still.

hn_throwaway_992• 2 years ago

he was technically still the chairman of his company while working at McDonald's, if in name only.

He discusses this in the blog post:

in my interview, the manager (ralph) asked if i can handle a fast-paced, intense environment. i said yes. he looked at my resume and asked about my current part-time job as chairman at i-traffic. i said, "it's an internet thing." he said "ok" and then asked me for my waist size.

sandspar3• 2 years ago

Did he really use lowercase? The status-seeking, high status lowercase mixed with the "outside looking in" account of working class people written for the benefit of other rich high status people, Jesus.

hackeraccount2• 2 years ago

Yeah. My first real job was at a restaurant and there was something totally zen about the work. It wasn't exactly turn off your brain but I would just be too busy to think for hours on end. Plus the people I worked with were all over the map but they were all a hell of a lot of fun to be with. You'd work a long shift and then hang out in the parking lot after drinking beer or go out to a party.

Ah... it's sad to say but I probably just miss being 20.

bg24• 2 years ago

The key is "Enjoy". There is no substitute to meet people, smiling, happy, no politics, no desire to grow or get a raise. Plus fixed hours and you are not responding to slack/emails/oncalls after that. This is not stress, this is fun as long as you do not have to pay large bills.

Yes, it also gives you ideas for new businesses.

SoftTalker6• 2 years ago

From what I've seen, it's not the same. I worked at McDonalds in high school and college. It was fun for the most part. But most of the employees were like me. Young, not really adults yet, pretty carefree.

The people I see at McDonalds today are not the same at all. Mostly older, disinterested, no energy, no spark, marginal care for personal appearance. You rarely see a high schooler or young person working there. It's just depressing to even be in there watching them.

kranke155• 2 years ago

If McDonalds is to exist, it would make sense it would be a young person's job. To think that there are large swathes of the population who can do no better in prospects is depressing indeed.

konfusinomicon• 2 years ago

my 6 month stint at mcdonalds was pretty amazing as a sophomore in high school. it was 2 no nonsense managers and a few chill managers that corraled a bunch of teenagers and young adults that liked to get high and have fun. which we did with reckless disregard and it was AWESOME! some crazy shit went down after close in the ball pit over there lol. i got fired by my friend because me and a coworker came in after a smoking sesh in the woods to get some free food and i was supposed to be working that evening. i brushed it off and asked for some free food which we got. it was a great first job and i made several connections with people that im still friends with to this day. also, i ate so much free mcdonalds in that 6 months that i have only had it a handful of times in over 20 years since.

HeyLaughingBoy• 2 years ago

That's interesting. I wonder if it's related to the corporation. My local McDonald's hires people who seem to be mostly in their early 20's. OTOH, the Dairy Queen that's just a few minutes down the road seems to rarely have anyone older than 19 or so working there. Average age at DQ seems to be around 16.

gwbas1c2• 2 years ago

It's a franchise; so how each restaurant and region hires will vary.

In 2004 I drove between MA and Chicago, and found a very stark difference in every one. In Chicago McDonalds was hiring people who were coming out of poverty and helping build work experience. In PA, the McDonalds were well oiled machines and run with pride.

In MA the McDonalds have always been first jobs for immigrants / refugees.

ilamont• 2 years ago

There was a movie subplot that featured something like this as part of the main character's midlife crisis. Something with Kevin Spacey. American Beauty?

People who retire from professional jobs often do pick up part time work that would be classified as "menial" because they want to keep engaged and/or make a little extra money. I've had older Lyft drivers who retired from professional backgrounds including one guy who was a comptroller for an engineering firm in Boston. The WSJ sometimes profiles retirees who fall into this bucket as well. IIRC there was a former CEO who couldn't stand being at home and decided to work at the local airport information counter, maybe even as a volunteer.

al_borland• 2 years ago

American Beauty?

Correct

bluGill4• 2 years ago

Food service needs a lot of people to work the 2 hour lunch shift from 11-1 and then go home. You get out of the house, get to talk to real people. Doctors have noticed that people who sit around doing nothing tend to die earlier than those who stay busy, and people who talk to others also do better, so that 2 hour shift could add years to your lifespan. That you get some extra spending cash is a nice bonus, but not why you do it. (at 16 you do it because they are about all that will hire you and you need then money)

hollywood_court• 2 years ago

Reminds me of Armie Hammer selling timeshares in the Caribbean.

your_challenger5• 2 years ago

Nobody thanked me.

Do you think this is still true?

This resonates with me. I used to work in tech, but I recently joined my family's brick-and-mortar business. No one says thank you, no one appreciates you. I find it amazing that this culture of thanklessness exists even in the US (I'm in India) in non-tech jobs.

P.S. I worked at all fronts of the business before joining the management. Worked at the counter, as a delivery personal, as a sales executive, etc. And when I say "Nobody thanked me" I mean no one at the company appreciated my efforts.

duxup• 2 years ago

I'm curious what qualifies as "nobody thanked me".

If I told someone "good job" that's not really thanks in my mind. I probably wouldn't say "thank you for making the fries"... but I would say "good job".

meiraleal• 2 years ago

And that's being the job, it wouldn't make sense to repeat it, multiple times, multiple days

your_challenger5• 2 years ago

It's more that no one appreciates the work. Not the customers (which I don't expect), nor the management.

Businesses like these are about showing up everyday - day in and day out. Unlike in tech, you can't be just smart and find "smart solutions". There is no magic. And so people are always in a state of normalcy. And any kind of "smart" execution takes a lot of time to see its results.

Brian_K_White• 2 years ago

As a customer, I always say thanks for whatever someone did for me, and it I always feel like smacking another customer whrn they are on their phone while giving an order to someone at a counter, like the human behind that register was actually just part of the register. Just an npc, or a toaster. The company they work for does see them that way and treats them that way, but we have no excuse for doing the same.

As an employee, or a boss, I don't find it ridiculous to thank or be thanked for random tasks occasionally, especially when they are a little out of order. No one needs to be worshiped for making fries, and it's techically simply within the expected job description for the manager to tell you to go out back and wash the rubber floor mats or something slightly not your usual task, and yet never acknowledging anything ever is also just being an inconsiderate ingrateful assshole.

It's worth it not to be that guy even if only for the purely self-interest reasons of having more and better choice of employees who do a better job on average and give you less grief when you need a favor like to cover someone else's absense or a large job etc.

Asking instead of telling at least sometimes, and saying thanks at least sometimes, has to be genuine too. If it's just bs noises that don't actually mean you are being accomodating and flexible then don't bother. Even though the boss is the boss, and has the right to just didctate, and even if the thing you're asking is really all else being equal a command, the reason for asking is not just as a pacifier so someone feels respected when thy're not, it's to allow for the possibility that there actually is some problem. 99% of the time there should be no problem and thr answer is expected to be "yep got it", by asking, the person is far less stressed on an ongoing constant level feeling that if there ever was some problem, they could just say so.

It turns dictation into cooperation. Can you restock that station later? I have to pick up my kid. Can you do it now if I take you off this other thing? ok. ok. Much better that way.

Thanks for cooking the fries, or even good job on those fries does sound silly, because it is, because it kind of misses the point and isn't what they're talking about.

petsfed• 2 years ago

I think part of what they mean is that some retail managers seem utterly incapable of giving positive feedback in anyway except to sandwich a criticism.

Like yes, it can stave off bad responses from volatile colleagues to sandwich bad feedback with good, but if that's the only place that positive feedback appears, then the listener learns pretty quick to just ignore the positive feedback. Its evidently disingenuous, and its deeply toxic to assume that "because you're working at McDonald's/Walmart/etc, you're not smart enough to pick up on that".

Certainly, "thank you for making the fries" is poor thanks. But "I saw how you hustled to get the fries out during that rush, that made $other_employees jobs a lot easier. Thank you for that" is good. Too often, retail employees just get the "thanks" and not the "here's why I appreciate it".

hn_throwaway_992• 2 years ago

It depends on where and when you work.

When I was a teenager in the 90s I worked cashier at McDonald's in an inner city black neighborhood. On Sunday mornings we got a big crowd of people coming to/from church, and I'd say the majority of them were very kind and courteous - I even got a tip a few times. I also worked Saturday afternoon/evenings and it was a different story.

josefresco2• 2 years ago

Nobody thanked me.

I don't buy this for a second. I thank everyone for even the most trivial of interactions and I'm certainly not alone (in the US)

Buy a Coke at 7-11 - "thank you!" Take package from UPS guy - "thank you!" Waiter takes order - "thank you!" Support rep puts me on hold to look up issue - "thank you!" Pretty much every retail/store interaction - "thank you!"

your_challenger5• 2 years ago

People like you do exist. And it is a joy to serve you.

When I said "nobody thanked me", I mean the management didn't.

(edited for clarity)

neilv• 2 years ago

I couldn't figure that one out.

Maybe he was speaking of management, franchise, and McD corporate?

Or maybe it was a quirk of that store in NYC, or our own experiences are otherwise not representative?

Or maybe he was writing more loosely, about a "thankless", poorly appreciated, poorly compensated, purely transactional job.

toomuchtodo• 2 years ago

My partner and I were normally polite when picking up ice cream from a local dairy a few weeks back. "No rush, take your time." Nothing overly fancy from a manners or politeness perspective. Was offered free ice cream for "being the nicest folks we've had in a long time." Didn't take the free ice cream of course, but thanked the folks working.

I suspect overall impoliteness has seen a bit of an uptick, from my casual observation of the sociomacro (especially during airport and air transportation transit and use), and that gratitude is not expressed in casual interactions as perhaps it previously was.

https://hbr.org/2022/11/frontline-work-when-everyone-is-angr... ("Frontline Work When Everyone Is Angry")

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2015-28930-001 ("Catching rudeness is like catching a cold: The contagion effects of low-intensity negative behaviors.")

OJFord• 2 years ago

I find it so jarring when visiting - not so much thanking (I would say thanks/cheers in those situations in the UK too) but the way it's taken (or so it seems) with such sincerity or like it was a huge thing that really needed to be thanked. 'Thanks.' -- oh you're so welcome!

It's completely arbitrary really, it's just really noticeable and, well, jarring when you're not used to it/used to different. I'm sure it's similar in reverse (I thanked him and he was so grumpy about it, didn't say a word! (Or he just said 'cheers' back, I didn't buy any alcohol?)).

agiacalone• 2 years ago

It's anecdotal, but my wife was a Disneyland cast member for ~5 years. She claims that the words 'thank you' were a rare occurrence to hear from guests...

brailsafe3• 2 years ago

You may be in the U.S, but are clearly from Canada

swader9992• 2 years ago

I always say thankyou. Got three raw burgers at a restaurant this summer and just asked for them to be cooked. They gave us new ones, took an hour longer. Still tipped 20% and thanked them sincerely and said not to worry about it. The waiter got choked up. I'm not going to be an ass in front of my kids. I worked manual labour planting trees for ten seasons, know what it's like to struggle.

mikestew• 2 years ago

I took it to mean that no manager ever thanked them. Because, like sibling comments, I can’t believe no one like myself and siblings ordered a burger and said “thank you”. Hundreds of customers at that counter everyday, someone had to have uttered those words. But management, OTOH…

(Alternatively, “no one” being defined as “the vast, vast majority of customers”. That I could believe.)

ChrisMarshallNY• 2 years ago

I've been doing nonprofit (free) work for decades.

I almost never get thanked; even after doing tens of thousands of dollars' worth of free work.

That's fine. That's not why I do it.

This reminded me of American Beauty, for some reason...

jdietrich• 2 years ago

Here in England, there's a very significant cultural divide between North and South. One of the key symbols of that cultural divide is whether people thank the bus driver when disembarking. In London, thanking the driver would make you a bit of a weirdo; in Newcastle, not thanking the driver would make you dreadfully antisocial.

I imagine that there's a huge difference in this respect between a McDonalds in Manhattan and one in a small town.

another-dave• 2 years ago

In London I often see people thanking the driver. At least outside of rush hour & outside zone 1

frereubu• 2 years ago

I think it's a central London / outside central London thing. Just in my personal experience people in both Brighton and Somerset thank the driver, and I bet there are plenty of other places like that in the south.

rsynnott• 2 years ago

In Dublin, thanking the bus driver is such an ingrained thing that Dublin Bus use it in their job ads (“Get thanked for a living” was a recent one). The switch to two-door buses has complicated this, obviously.

xkcd-sucks• 2 years ago

Do you think this is still true?

Personal opinion, when intra org reciprocity is not discussed or measured, quality plummets as a necessary response to stress/burnout feedback loops at every scale.

Coming to terms with this """insight""" etc. was tl;dr life changing and exactly how is still an open question

hi-v-rocknroll• 2 years ago

Yep. (I'm in the US.) The transactionalization of aspects of both work and life is depressing. I think it's a confluence of multiple factors that may or may not be present in all circumstances: a lack of manners, a power imbalance, and/or a view that someone who provides a service is a widget rather than a human being.

Some data points:

- My next door neighbors in a small town residential neighborhood are poorer, but don't say "please" or "thank you" for anything.

- An entitled Brahmin dude I used to work with at a Big Name University™ grew up with a dozen servants never gave gratitude or used pleasantries.

- Some other employees at a MAANG I used to work for as well as other residents in the apartments I lived in had an attitude of "too cool for everyone else" and didn't use pleasantries.

Without rapport and humanity by showing a little real decency and compassion, life and business interactions become commoditized and cold, and that intangible cool or goodwill evaporates and nothing much holds people to each other or people to a brand.

sobelius2• 2 years ago

Honestly, I think he’s living the dream — no tech headaches, just flipping burgers and taking it easy. Really makes me think...

gwbas1c2• 2 years ago

I don't understand why this was "dead". It's not a statement I fully agree with; but the insight isn't something I'd want to keep off of HN.

bigstrat2003• 2 years ago

I believe that flagged+dead indicates people reported the comment to death, whereas just "dead" indicates the poster is shadowbanned.

jandrese• 2 years ago

You've never worked in fast food have you? "Taking it easy" is not how it works. You're on the clock 100% until you clock out, no rest, no breaks, if a burger takes more than 60 seconds to land on the customer's tray the boss is on your ass. If you miscalculate how many patties to slap on the grill and either run out or you have to toss some because they've sat in the steamer for more than 15 minutes you are in for such a dressing down. The machine tracks from the start of the order till it is closed out so he knows. He has some bullshit regional contest thing with all of the other franchisees in the area that he has to win if he wants to make that boat payment. If there are no customers you are cleaning, even if you just cleaned it. Plus you had to spend like half of your time training new recruits or filling in for them when they stopped showing after like two days. I did one summer of that in college and it cemented me in my tech career path. I couldn't deal with the stress.

Apocryphon• 2 years ago

You could work the night shift, though that of course has a huge trade-off.

alaxhn• 2 years ago

My fast food experience

* Worked ~9 months at a dunkin donuts

* Start of shift generally 4 a.m.

* End of shift generally 1 p.m.

* 7 days per week although Sunday would only work 3 hr - this was because my boss could provide much more compensation because we were paid 1.5x hourly above 40 hours. He would illegally manually adjust my hours downwards in the computer system to ensure it didn't get too much out of hand :)

* Was promoted to "shift manager" after 6 months (meaningless title)

I agree with nearly all of your points:

* no breaks

* boss monitors waste, quality (customer complaints), service time per order

* regional competitions

* cleaning in downtime

* constant churn training new recruits who would suddenly quit

Your conclusion fast food is difficult seems off to me. The work is repetitive so each individual step requires little thought. To make a sandwhich you put the bread in oven 1 and click button 2 then you put the patty in oven 2 and click button 7. When it comes out you wrap, bag, add napkins, and hand it to the customer. Crucially when your shift is done you go home and don't care. There are no objectives that line employees care about at a quarterly level. You were able to move around the entire day and interact with people rather than being sedentary behind a screen. You didn't have to have any education or work experience beyond completing ~9 grade (compared to CS where the most common path in the US is 3 years of highschool, 4 years of college). Most employees at my location were young, more social, less attached, and better looking than my colleagues in big tech (ok myself included).

I would trade my new line of work for my old in a heartbeat if the compensation and career prospects were comparable.

sph2• 2 years ago

Working in restaurants and hospitality is hell on Earth. Work long hours for peanuts and get shouted at.

I'd rather be a gardener or a farmer.

ForOldHack5• 2 years ago

I have never had a toilet talk to me the way I see some people talk to service workers.

commandlinefan• 2 years ago

That was a plot point in American Beauty... got to say, at the point I was in my life when I saw it, I empathized with him.

brap• 2 years ago

I think when you work low paying jobs you quickly learn that the worst part is how most people treat you. Customers, managers, etc. We in tech take for granted how we’re treated.

The baristaFIRE fantasy seems to miss this part.

supahfly_remix• 2 years ago

He went on to found meetup.com (see his bio at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Heiferman).

nunez• 2 years ago

Honestly this is something I would like to do once I feel "financially ready." I want to be a barista, at least for a little while. Like this CEO outlined, it's really easy to be detached from the real world when you're working super high paying jobs.

uptime• 2 years ago

I met Heifermann once during a project and I thought he was a grounded person. I remember one thing he did was paying not for ad slots, but to change your background to a dalmation spotted print for a promotion, with a link. This was long before CSS, etc.

He made his money just when the idea of value being divorced from real product to virtual metrics, “chasing eyeballs,” etc. was getting hot. The days when you sold a huge contract by showing a CD ROM of the website you were never going to achieve, to a client who had no idea what they were buying.

This guy was much more honest than the norm. The McD and meetup stuff reflects the fact that he kept people in the equation.

sandspar3• 2 years ago

Slumming it, basically. You can leave whenever you want, the people around you are stuck there.

swader9992• 2 years ago

I went back treeplanting in between jobs at 46. It was glorious but I really missed my family.

pharos92• 2 years ago

I miss the carefree days of working in fast food in my late teens and early 20s. Getting stoned with friends, eating crappy food, staying up all night living care free. Glad I'm not doing it now, but there was a sense of wonder and joy in the simplicity of it all.

dominicrose• 2 years ago

I got a -1 point at an English test when I was a kid because of writing "i"...

thatgerhard• 2 years ago

In my 20s I also lost a job and had to go work at a Mcdonalds. Regardless of all the other things.. most fun job ever!

I'm in my 40s now and run a small dev agency. (if that matters)

vaxman• 2 years ago

Just threw up in my mouth. Yes, our capital markets developed FOMO on the next Apple or Microsoft and so they devolved into throwing caution to the wind and funding people like This. There were trillions lost, millions of workers permanently removed from industry (I think IBM laid off almost a quarter of them alone), plus the damage to the private equity companies that were robbed of investment (by ALL available capital going into "companies" like PETS.COM during the dot-com bubble) and then the catastrophic losses we all sustained as the public equity markets popped followed by the tech nuclear winter that lasted SIX YEARS (when few university students graduated with CS degrees) causing untold additional losses for decades thereafter. I'm glad there are companies like YCombinator to experiment in a controlled way with exploiting high-level technologies (like Web 2.0...) to make our economy run more efficiently, but execs back then were not experienced enough to put people like this guy under a proper manager or simply cut him a check to buy a Corvette or something and send him on his way. Some of those execs did have big wins that have allowed them to move on from their "stabilizing role" in the economy to a now very "destabilizing role" (by inflating another stock market bubble and "artificial" energy crisis). Let's hope the capital markets shut them down before it repeats --because next time, China and Russia won't be on their knees as we screw around with investments in those finding their way at McDonalds.

I was a 20-something dethroned dotcom ceo that went to work at mcdonald's (2000)

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