What a wonderful life.
Before Uni, when I first started out on the road to adult working life I worked in my local McDonalds. As I was not a complete ignoramus and could add up without using my fingers or moving my lips, as well as being able to remember more than 3 things in a row, I was quickly promoted to that hallowed being, a ‘floor manager’.

This meant I managed the floor and all the stuff that was on it including the people. So I was 17 and in regular charge of an entire business, albeit for 13 hours of a day. It was on a main road but quite far from any major boozers so we didn’t get the drunks. So it was reasonably quiet and I liked that.

It was there that I mastered the zen art of doing absolutely nothing constructive at all whilst getting the overall job done.

The other staff used to like me because I instigated such initiatives as turning off all the external lights and powering down the internals by 30% so we looked closed at 8pm. This meant a considerably low footfall. If anyone did have the temerity to come in they would find the whole restaurant cordoned off, apart from one table in the far corner of the place by the toilets.

I stayed in my office watching videos most of the time and eating junk food. I used to regularly start the closing procedures at 9pm and then stay on myself in a virtual catatonic state when everyone had left. Sometimes the next manager would find me at 6:20am the next morning claiming I was ‘gurning’ on purpose but actually I was asleep with my face in a gurning position.

Anyway, things I got up to for 13 hours at a time in my office:

- Played myself at Monopoly, Scrabble and the Game of Life using all the player’s counters (not all the games at the same time though)

- Updated from memory my complete book and film database including basic plot points and MS paint drawn cover art.

- Tried to mentally synchronise the multiple CCTV cameras of the staff and customers interacting to episodes of the Archers on the radio.

- Restarting a song when it got to half way on the store audio to see if anyone would complain. I managed to string together over 20 halves of Aqua’s Barbie Girl before some bloke, apoplectic with rage, came to complain. I soothed him by saying that we have to cater for all sorts of people’s musical tastes and it hadn’t really been on repeat but modern music did sound the same didn’t it?

- Painstakingly glued together 70 odd empty fry boxes to makes a giant teepee to keep my Bigmac father, my Chicken McSandwich mother, and nugget and fishfinger children happy and dry. Ketchup dip baths were also provided for the children every other day. Pongo the dalmation and flubber were the family pets.

- Warming to the theme above, I used to make complex dioramas using old happy meal toys. I still remember to this day I created Hamlet Act 2 Scene 2.

Main Cast list:

Hamlet: Flounder (from Little Mermaid)
King Claudius: Hercules
Queen Gertrude: Mulan
Rosencrantz: Twigs the beanie baby
Guildenstern: Scorponok

Supporting artistes:

• Wedding Rapunzel Barbie
• Tomagotchi #6
• Baby Pegasus
• Tomagotchi #2
• Baloo the bear
• Tomagotchi #5
• Sebastian the crab (Little Mermaid)
• Tomagotchi #9

Sadly now I have to work for a living. I leave playing with happy meal toys until I get home nowadays.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Thu 8 Jan 2009, 16:19, 8 replies)

start the close at 9pm!
You amateur. I used to start close at about 6.30. By 11pm closing, we'd be running on one corner of a grill, one vat, one spatula, heat lamp instead of the bin, one till, one each of the absolute minimum amount of equipment, shake machine off by 9 ("we've run out!"), drinks towers cleaned and covered in clingfilm, etc etc. We'd be done be 11.10 and eating donuts in the lobby till midnight before clocking off. I was a master at closes.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Thu 8 Jan 2009, 16:26, closed)

to be fair
My toy animals and characters had priority over my attention :-)
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Thu 8 Jan 2009, 16:31, closed)

do you remember the trivial pursuits promotion in about '89
(yes i'm old). I nicked a few boxes worth, got an encyclopedia, and completed about 500 of them. Sold them at 20p a shot or something.

I think i affected profits at the macclesfield branch for a while though. Sorry Nick.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Thu 8 Jan 2009, 16:42, closed)

Erm...
Town Centre or Silk Road one?

As the town centre one has now closed, and half the office has just picked up their lunch from the Silk Road one!
( Agnostic Antichrist Baltimora, Fri 9 Jan 2009, 12:37, closed)

This is a thing of great beauty
Well done

*clicky*
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 8 Jan 2009, 16:38, closed)

My $0.02
I honestly think that Flounder had a greater gravitas as Hamlet than Olivier's interpretation and his overall portrayal was far more cerebral than Branagh's version.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Thu 8 Jan 2009, 16:49, closed)

One of my fave things about this stellar post...
...is imagining all the numpties that would be crying over the Happy Meal toys being 'wasted' in such a manner. Especially a beanie baby.

Plenty of scary things at my own rednecked McD's back in the day, but they were a class all of their own.
(Angie the Redneck Wonder, Mon 12 Jan 2009, 7:21, closed)

You get a massive click for the
'barbie girl' thing :')
(The Oscillating Gibbon is eating curried squid, Mon 12 Jan 2009, 15:49, closed)