That was the first line on the SOC (Station Observation Checklist) for the position of Cashier at McDonald’s Corporation in the 1990s, when I was an Assistant Manager at the flagship Peel Street location in downtown Montreal.

Over a three-hour shift from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., a part-time crew member would be expected to perform this (and dozens of other high-energy and well-delineated tasks) around one to two hundred times (with expected vigor) for their minimum wage earnings, unquestionably.

There were pins to be awarded for high customer throughput, such as the 350 customers served (by the team) in a given hour. WOO-HOO!

We cherished those badges of honour – and we wore them proudly on our carefully ironed cotton/polyester lapels – like US Marines with their Purple Hearts.

Of course, we didn’t have to shoot anyone or get maimed in the process, so weren’t we the lucky ones!

After years of working my tail off (I was just bloody grateful to be working anywhere at all to pay the rent while slowly plying my way through an undergraduate degree at Concordia U.), I was eventually promoted to manager. With that came the responsibility of balancing the safe and all cash tills, as well as faithfully toeing the corporate line.

Why, I myself was scolded by senior management for failing to iron-in a proper crease in my shirt sleeves, …once, but with God as my witness, never again!

The standard for presentation was high (even in polyester), and it applied to all employees.

If they arrived for work in an unclean uniform, or otherwise unkempt in any way, they could expect to be unceremoniously reviled by me, or any other manager, in front of their co-workers, and sent home without pay. No recompense for their transport or time spent; only shame.

For the majority, who considered themselves lucky enough to remain on the clock (that day, at least), they knew they’d dodged a bullet. And the other rules were automatic, starting with:

“Smile, and greet the customer.”

* * *

Many years later (2013 if memory serves), over a dozen years after I’d resigned from McD’s on the spot (more on that to come in future posts), my  step-daughter, at 15, would be hired as cashier at the Dorval, Quebec McDonald’s franchise. The SOC, I noted at the time, was unchanged.

“They’re telling me I have to smile but I don’t want to smile at everyone,” she protested. “Some of them are, well, …creeps.”

My step-daughter’s smile lights up a room like a floodlight, just like her mother’s. It doesn’t just “show up” on demand a hundred-plus times a day; and especially not for minimum wage. I got that. She lasted there less than two weeks and when she told me she’d quit over it, I gained a new respect for her. It was a revelation to me, about our changing world. Bullshit is bullshit, and there’s just no excuse for it – not anymore.

“No means no” meets fast food, essentially.

* * *

Sometimes I go to a McD’s nowadays as a customer and I place my order on a massive touchscreen, or order through the Drive-Thru, and then someone very busily multi-tasking hands me my order.

They don’t smile, generally, and I don’t give a hoot one way or the other. But I wonder if the Cashier SOC has been updated, or if it still starts with:

“Smile, and greet the customer”

– 30 –

NOTE: No AI has been harmed in the creation of this post. It was just me. 🙂