15 ms·

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

293 points by kamphey 2y ago

mtmail 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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.
    - dumbfounder 2y ago
      He was founder of Meetup, acquired by WeWork for $200m in 2017, my guess is for cash. They only raised $18m so that should be a good exit for founders. I don't think he is using his LinkedIn profile to find a new job. I would expect him to use his LinkedIn as more of a bio, and include the McD's experience.
  - robofanatic 2y ago
    Why not? Its a nice PR story about early life struggles.
    - RandomThoughts3 2y ago
      He wasn’t struggling. He had sold his former company properly. He was just more or less taking a break by working at McDonalds. Some people said it was a bit disrespectful at the time because he didn’t need neither the money nor the experience and was only doing it for the kick of it. I tend to agree.
  - tennisflyi 2y ago
    Such a classist comment
    - sandspar 2y ago
      Guy who makes $200,000 a year is aghast that some people actually work at McDonald's
      - _xiaz 2y ago
        In our little IT bubble where 3+ interviews are the norm, it's fine to envy the straightforward hiring in food-service. Ofc we still got the better deal overall and should only complain in hush tones
      - bluGill 2y ago
        I'm haven't worked at McDonalds for 20+ years, but I think that the top manager at each store is making $200k, and the top 4 are over $150k - it goes down fast below that though. I'm reasonable sure that if I had stayed at McDonalds I'd have never had a year where I made less than I made in tech. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to be out, but they pay those they care about well enough, and there were some good things I miss.
        bumby 2y ago
        >I think that the top manager at each store is making $200k, and the top 4 are over $150k Curious what this range is based on? According to ~3.8k self-reported salaries from Glassdoor, the McD manager salary ranges from $37k-$64k with a median of $48k.
        celdon25 2y ago
        I don’t like to speculate but I could imagine managers at some franchises receiving a bonus based on profits or sales.
        bluGill 2y ago
        The top manager. The shift managers make about that, but the top managers who mostly do paperwork and are rarely seen on the floor do better.
- Maxatar 2y ago
  He worked there for a few weeks: https://www.businessinsider.com/scott-heiferman-startup-career-history-2013-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/scott-heiferman-startup-care...
  - SoftTalker 2y 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.
    - oceanplexian 2y ago
      Agree that’s kind of *^%% move, I’d have too much self respect to start working somewhere for a few weeks than bail. Doesn’t matter if it’s a food service job or a FAANG. McDonalds was doing him a solid by offering some kind of employment for a person presumably down on their luck with zero experience. Hiring people is a huge expense and risk even for a small franchise.
      - paulpauper 2y ago
        high turnover is common. he was not doing anyone a disservice.
      - klyrs 2y ago
        I dunno. Sounds like you've never bitten off more than you can chew. I have found myself in a situation before, where my continued participation would be an immediate low-grade harm and my rate of improvement was slow because I had volunteered for something well out of my wheelhouse. So I had a dilemma: give up and disappoint today, forcing my replacement; or carry on in my incompetence and risk the whole endeavor. Quitting early did bruise my self-respect: people were depending on me! But hanging on, just to protect my feelings, would have been a much greater regret.
        abduhl 2y ago
- brianshaler 2y 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 2y ago
    Maybe you needed to work with your hands for a while.
  - gopher_space 2y 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.
    - bulletninja 2y ago
      Could you elaborate on that? Altering caloric intake and sleep schedule as a reaction to what? And how would you change between the two regimes? Increase/decrease how much? etc.
      - mathgeek 2y ago
        Not GP, but being on your feet all day will lead to needing more calories and sleep for proper recovery.
- maschera 2y 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 2y 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.
    - photonthug 2y ago
      I think unions and certification would largely prevent the "just do it" idea. For better or worse, it seems more difficult for a programmer to become an electrician than for an electrician to become a programmer. So yeah, if you want to LARP at some kind of trade, then you're likely going to need some kind of fixer to let you do that after you (and the people you want to inflict all the substandard work on!) sign all the appropriate waivers. Now if you just want to swing a sledgehammer on demolition day for what is usually a construction crew, ask a friend, because it is great exercise and relieves stress and has a relatively low barrier to entry. But on the other hand while you're saving the membership fee of your crossfit, you're also taking work from someone who's unlikely to be able to switch careers on short notice, so perhaps this is not the best way to unstratify society.
      - canadianfella 2y ago
        [dead]
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      >you'd expect a company to arrange for this, via just go ahead and .. do it? Given how the hiring process works (or if I may be frank: has devolved into a soft lottery system), and expectations for most part or full-time employment in terms of scheduling and work terms: yes. Maybe you can get away with finding a seasonal job to do this with, but that only solves half the equation. many US jobs can barely get medical leave without scrutiny, there's no way this "adult internship" would get approved without some major handshakes. Or as you put it: for people who's so comfortable or confident in life that they can bounce around jobs like this for leisure rather than survival. >that's probably the result of echo chambers that has stratified the society. I'd say this is less echo chambers and more how corporate America has evolved. This may have been possible (but still infeasible) in the 60's where you can walk in with a nice suit, give a firm handshake, and be on the holiday shift in a week with relatively minimum contracts or background checks or negotiations (with a single wage that can support a nuclear family to boot!). There's just a lot of bureaucracy even to get entry level stuff these days.
hackeraccount 2y 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 2y ago
  It says dotcom in the title so it must be around 1999/2000 give or take a couple years.
- awad 2y ago
  NYC has had shockingly low minimum wage: https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/spotlight-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.
  - SoftTalker 2y 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 2y ago
His most recent LinkedIn role: Fulfillment Center Associate I, Part Time, Amazon.
- your_challenger 2y ago
  This guy is a legend!
- kotaKat 2y 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 2y ago
  Confirmed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheif/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheif/ From May 2022 - Jan 2023 · 9 mos
- ralferoo 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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.
  - Scoundreller 2y 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.
- swozey 2y 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.
hollywood_court 2y ago
Reminds me of Armie Hammer selling timeshares in the Caribbean.
your_challenger 2y 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 2y 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 2y ago
    And that's being the job, it wouldn't make sense to repeat it, multiple times, multiple days
  - your_challenger 2y 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 2y 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.
sobelius 2y ago
Honestly, I think he’s living the dream — no tech headaches, just flipping burgers and taking it easy. Really makes me think...
- gwbas1c 2y 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 2y ago
    I believe that flagged+dead indicates people reported the comment to death, whereas just "dead" indicates the poster is shadowbanned.
    - sobelius 2y ago
      Well I appear to not be shadowbanned if this comment shows up so I must of been reported to death. I can see why, and it was a silly thing to say, but after a long day of nothing but solving deep bugs in a terrible tech stack I have little control of, while getting virtually no praise by the organization for my work, mindlessly flipping burgers seemed pretty nice.
- jandrese 2y 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.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
supahfly_remix 2y ago
He went on to found meetup.com (see his bio at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Heiferman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Heiferman).
nunez 2y 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 2y 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.
- canadianfella 2y ago
  [dead]
sandspar 2y ago
Slumming it, basically. You can leave whenever you want, the people around you are stuck there.
swader999 2y ago
I went back treeplanting in between jobs at 46. It was glorious but I really missed my family.
pharos92 2y 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 2y ago
I got a -1 point at an English test when I was a kid because of writing "i"...
thatgerhard 2y 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 2y 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.

293 points by kamphey 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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.
  - dumbfounder 2y ago
    He was founder of Meetup, acquired by WeWork for $200m in 2017, my guess is for cash. They only raised $18m so that should be a good exit for founders. I don't think he is using his LinkedIn profile to find a new job. I would expect him to use his LinkedIn as more of a bio, and include the McD's experience.
- robofanatic 2y ago
  Why not? Its a nice PR story about early life struggles.
  - RandomThoughts3 2y ago
    He wasn’t struggling. He had sold his former company properly. He was just more or less taking a break by working at McDonalds. Some people said it was a bit disrespectful at the time because he didn’t need neither the money nor the experience and was only doing it for the kick of it. I tend to agree.
- tennisflyi 2y ago
  Such a classist comment
  - sandspar 2y ago
    Guy who makes $200,000 a year is aghast that some people actually work at McDonald's
    - _xiaz 2y ago
      In our little IT bubble where 3+ interviews are the norm, it's fine to envy the straightforward hiring in food-service. Ofc we still got the better deal overall and should only complain in hush tones
    - bluGill 2y ago
      I'm haven't worked at McDonalds for 20+ years, but I think that the top manager at each store is making $200k, and the top 4 are over $150k - it goes down fast below that though. I'm reasonable sure that if I had stayed at McDonalds I'd have never had a year where I made less than I made in tech. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to be out, but they pay those they care about well enough, and there were some good things I miss.
      - bumby 2y ago
        >I think that the top manager at each store is making $200k, and the top 4 are over $150k Curious what this range is based on? According to ~3.8k self-reported salaries from Glassdoor, the McD manager salary ranges from $37k-$64k with a median of $48k.
        celdon25 2y ago
        I don’t like to speculate but I could imagine managers at some franchises receiving a bonus based on profits or sales.
        bluGill 2y ago
        The top manager. The shift managers make about that, but the top managers who mostly do paperwork and are rarely seen on the floor do better.
Maxatar 2y ago
He worked there for a few weeks: https://www.businessinsider.com/scott-heiferman-startup-career-history-2013-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/scott-heiferman-startup-care...
- SoftTalker 2y 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.
  - oceanplexian 2y ago
    Agree that’s kind of *^%% move, I’d have too much self respect to start working somewhere for a few weeks than bail. Doesn’t matter if it’s a food service job or a FAANG. McDonalds was doing him a solid by offering some kind of employment for a person presumably down on their luck with zero experience. Hiring people is a huge expense and risk even for a small franchise.
    - paulpauper 2y ago
      high turnover is common. he was not doing anyone a disservice.
    - klyrs 2y ago
      I dunno. Sounds like you've never bitten off more than you can chew. I have found myself in a situation before, where my continued participation would be an immediate low-grade harm and my rate of improvement was slow because I had volunteered for something well out of my wheelhouse. So I had a dilemma: give up and disappoint today, forcing my replacement; or carry on in my incompetence and risk the whole endeavor. Quitting early did bruise my self-respect: people were depending on me! But hanging on, just to protect my feelings, would have been a much greater regret.
      - abduhl 2y ago
brianshaler 2y 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 2y ago
  Maybe you needed to work with your hands for a while.
- gopher_space 2y 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.
  - bulletninja 2y ago
    Could you elaborate on that? Altering caloric intake and sleep schedule as a reaction to what? And how would you change between the two regimes? Increase/decrease how much? etc.
    - mathgeek 2y ago
      Not GP, but being on your feet all day will lead to needing more calories and sleep for proper recovery.
maschera 2y 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 2y 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.
  - photonthug 2y ago
    I think unions and certification would largely prevent the "just do it" idea. For better or worse, it seems more difficult for a programmer to become an electrician than for an electrician to become a programmer. So yeah, if you want to LARP at some kind of trade, then you're likely going to need some kind of fixer to let you do that after you (and the people you want to inflict all the substandard work on!) sign all the appropriate waivers. Now if you just want to swing a sledgehammer on demolition day for what is usually a construction crew, ask a friend, because it is great exercise and relieves stress and has a relatively low barrier to entry. But on the other hand while you're saving the membership fee of your crossfit, you're also taking work from someone who's unlikely to be able to switch careers on short notice, so perhaps this is not the best way to unstratify society.
    - canadianfella 2y ago
      [dead]
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >you'd expect a company to arrange for this, via just go ahead and .. do it? Given how the hiring process works (or if I may be frank: has devolved into a soft lottery system), and expectations for most part or full-time employment in terms of scheduling and work terms: yes. Maybe you can get away with finding a seasonal job to do this with, but that only solves half the equation. many US jobs can barely get medical leave without scrutiny, there's no way this "adult internship" would get approved without some major handshakes. Or as you put it: for people who's so comfortable or confident in life that they can bounce around jobs like this for leisure rather than survival. >that's probably the result of echo chambers that has stratified the society. I'd say this is less echo chambers and more how corporate America has evolved. This may have been possible (but still infeasible) in the 60's where you can walk in with a nice suit, give a firm handshake, and be on the holiday shift in a week with relatively minimum contracts or background checks or negotiations (with a single wage that can support a nuclear family to boot!). There's just a lot of bureaucracy even to get entry level stuff these days.

hackeraccount 2y 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 2y ago
It says dotcom in the title so it must be around 1999/2000 give or take a couple years.
awad 2y ago
NYC has had shockingly low minimum wage: https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/spotlight-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.
- SoftTalker 2y 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 2y ago

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

your_challenger 2y ago
This guy is a legend!
kotaKat 2y 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 2y ago
Confirmed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheif/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheif/ From May 2022 - Jan 2023 · 9 mos
ralferoo 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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.
- Scoundreller 2y 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.
swozey 2y 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.

hollywood_court 2y ago

Reminds me of Armie Hammer selling timeshares in the Caribbean.

your_challenger 2y 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 2y 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 2y ago
  And that's being the job, it wouldn't make sense to repeat it, multiple times, multiple days
- your_challenger 2y 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 2y 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.

sobelius 2y ago

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

gwbas1c 2y 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 2y ago
  I believe that flagged+dead indicates people reported the comment to death, whereas just "dead" indicates the poster is shadowbanned.
  - sobelius 2y ago
    Well I appear to not be shadowbanned if this comment shows up so I must of been reported to death. I can see why, and it was a silly thing to say, but after a long day of nothing but solving deep bugs in a terrible tech stack I have little control of, while getting virtually no praise by the organization for my work, mindlessly flipping burgers seemed pretty nice.
jandrese 2y 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.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

supahfly_remix 2y ago

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

nunez 2y 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 2y 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.

canadianfella 2y ago
[dead]

sandspar 2y ago

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

swader999 2y ago

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

pharos92 2y 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 2y ago

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

thatgerhard 2y 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 2y 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.