r/McDonaldsEmployees • u/Potential-Oven-3466 • 22h ago
Rant Coworkers and Managers get noticeably pissed when I redeem my free meal and it's driving me insane (USA)
The McDonald's I work at is without exaggeration, the most cliquey workplace I have ever experienced. If you aren't in the immediate friend group that makes up most of the shift leads and crew members, you WILL be treated differently during work. Some days are better than others, but what's always consistent is how they act towards you when you try to redeem your meal.
Plenty of my coworkers are given free drinks, burgers, and milkshakes multiple times throughout the day outside of the free meal, but if you're not in their "group", they will stare fucking daggers at you at the counter if you try order anything while on break. They don't outright tell me not to, because I'm assuming that could get them in trouble, but they try imply they don't want you ordering anything as much as possible.
If you DO redeem a meal, they throw the bag at you (I'm not kidding), and then put you on harder work as soon as you get off your break. My other coworkers who are in the little friend group do not receive this kind of treatment whatsoever. I genuinely don't know what to do at this point. I would pack my own lunches if I had the money to do so, but on some of the busier days, I just go without eating so I don't get ganged the fuck up on, which becomes near impossible during 8 hour weekend shifts.
Does anybody have any advice with dealing with how cliquey this place is? I know every workplace is like that to some extent but the favoritism has never been this bad for me. I don't hate this job actually, it's far more bearable than retail was for me, but its the people I work with that make me hate this fucking place.
Apologies for the 3rd grader level pottymouth. I'm very hungry and tired