Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

web.archive.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 204 posts

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

#41

Post by swozey »

bogota wrote: post #25
swozey wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

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.

This isn't a $XCityBad thing. It's happened to drunk crowds everywhere and is completely irrelevant to location or whether you're even downtown. I guarantee the two step bars in the burbs are filled with drunk drama too nowadays. I was in Austin, Tampa, Dallas, Houston and Denver over the last decade and go to a few of them yearly. Denver is far away the safest out of those and I'm glad to be here. I live in 5 points, which I'm sure you think is a big scary place.

I will happily trade seeing a person living in a tent and being able to go out and do an incredible amount of various things literally every single day without driving to living in the suburbs, but glad you like it. Cities are scary.

Can't walk home after 9pm.. lmao.

I'm more afraid of sitting at the airport nowadays than walking around downtown. That's where the real psychos are nowadays. Or hotel bars when traveling. Awful, rude impatient people who act like they've never left the house before. 2020 really did a number on peoples aggression/patience levels and industry people are taking the brunt of it.

Hell, if you look at the /r/boomersbeingfools subreddit it's all of the people living in the burbs being harassed by old angry grandparents constantly. I rarely see that crowd out here.

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

#42

Post by OJFord »

josefresco wrote: post #23
your_challenger wrote: post #16

> 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…

> 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!"

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?)).

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

#43

Post by awad »

hackeraccount wrote: post #3

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.

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.

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

#44

Post by digging »

your_challenger wrote: post #28
josefresco wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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!"

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)

This comes across as quite rude, FYI. You may want to clarify and be more specific.

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

#45

Post by jdietrich »

your_challenger wrote: post #16

> 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…

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.

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

#46

Post by kranke155 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #40
karaterobot wrote: post #5

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,…

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. I…

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.

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

#47

Post by marcuskane2 »

swozey wrote: post #13
karaterobot wrote: post #5

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,…

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 i…

> 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.

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

#48

Post by petsfed »

duxup wrote: post #19
your_challenger wrote: post #16

> 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…

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".

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".

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

#49

Post by your_challenger »

digging wrote: post #44
your_challenger wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

This comes across as quite rude, FYI. You may want to clarify and be more specific.

Thank you. I hope I fixed it.

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

#50

Post by another-dave »

jdietrich wrote: post #45
your_challenger wrote: post #16

> 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…

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…

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