End of an Era

After almost almost 60 years, Haljohn’s 19 McDonalds stores in San Antonio and surrounding areas have been sold and the company is no more. 

I started working for McDonald’s in 1983 when I was 17 years old, in Universal City, Texas. I worked there for 3 years and made life long friendships with other employees, a few of which still worked with the company up til today.  For reference, I’m now age 56. (omg) 

Those years were developmental, and fun, and impacted my life in so many ways. I would not be who I am today without this company. I learned processes, responsibility, accountability, hard work, work ethic, good management, teamwork, pride in my work, marketing, product development/management, industry, the challenges of financing my adulthood, check-kiting, how to take apart and put together a milk shake machine, and how to wash equipment that weighed more than I did at age 19, in 100 degree water-spray plus soap. Also, the lifelong concept of “if you can lean, you can clean,” which has totally served me well in every job since and as an employer today, I wish was a high school class. And we mustn’t forget being asked to open (at 4 am), working all day, and then being asked in the same fucking 24 hour period to close (at 1 am) because someone else called in.  

But seriously, genuinely, I owe this job so much. Thanks to Rich and James and Dee and Darlene for hiring and managing me, at that young, self absorbed age, especially when I tried to call in at 3:30 am saying I was sick but I was really just tired and kind of still drunk-ish, after partying all night, and they (Darlene mostly) just insisted I get my ass in to open at 4 am because “BY GOD I better not be a worthless idiot.”

But also, I have to say that I was the best and fastest drive-through cashier ever, and I sold the shit out of some McD’s Big Macs and Quarter pounders and nuggets and fries and whatever McRib/McDLT/Happy Meal/ Grimace Glasses/etc promotional deal they had going on back in the day, because I was a totally motivated young person looking for a challenge and I found it with this company every day that I showed up. I remember Dee telling me that my shifts had the highest sales. What a great manager. Satisfactorily, I knew I was quick and efficient. It made me want to be even better. Also, my first experience with the power of data was so impactful. I work in nonprofits now and can’t go a week without wanting to know what the data says. I can trace the roots of that back to shift sales. 

Other “fun” memories include: 

Cleaning up the lobby and bathrooms after Friday night high school football game crowds -6 customers deep for hours at the registers, slimy lobby floors to mop, and the grossest (MOST grossest) things you can imagine in the bathrooms. 

Being trained to “not react” to men in cars in the drive thru exposing their genitalia to us as they arrived at the window to pay/get their food, because that would just “encourage them to come back again.” #goodtimes 

Half price meals while working being the only food I ate all day (but mostly they were free as opposed to other store locations because we had the best managers ever who understood how poverty stricken so many of us were). 

Learning to clean the grill (for some reason, why I don’t know because I was clearly the best cashier ever) to the sounds of Madonna’s first album (“Borderline, feels like I'm going to lose my mind, you just keep on pushin' my love over the borderline.”) 

Stealing toilet paper rolls (and other things) -SORRY! - but they paid me only $3.35 an hour for over 2 years and then only a nickel raise which was honestly insulting, but I was too dumb to know it. 

And of course doing so many extra duties as assigned, stressful birthday parties for bitchy moms with snotty kids, who I mostly adored actually and got great tips from, and ultimately got fired over because of a stupid misunderstanding I was too young and dumb to navigate concerning the keys to the birthday party closet and too much responsibility for the kid I was. Sigh. I was ready to move on anyway, and then got a great job as a bank teller doing way less work for a lot more money, so that was clearly my right time to go. 

I probably shouldn’t end on that note, lol, and I couldn’t do a post about these years without shouting out my dearest Mickey Dee friends, Sandy and Darryl and William whom I met working there in the 80’s, and who I am still friends with to this day even though our lives took us in so many different directions over the years. I will Love you guys forever. We had some great times together. Let’s never lose touch, k? 

Fun post about #MickyDeeNostagia: https://www.boredpanda.com/mcdonalds-80s-and-90s/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=BPFacebook&fbclid=IwAR0pgMJ9iH9V-mUIGxtq4wBpXHW0prgotejvDmpN1G2Aofco6J94DLcLO0I