[alphameese]

When I worked there during our lunch rush, we would have a person dedicated to every task, fries, coffee, orders, bagging. When it came to the dinner rush, we would have half the staff or less then our lunch rush. So in a sense it is the work of 2 to 3 people. Also during overnight we would have only one person in the front, and one in the back. Once Uber eats came on the scene our workload increased 3x or more, but no extra staff was added! :-)

Edit: that’s not even mentioning when we would be short staffed, due to people not showing up / calling in, which happened every other day it felt like, and the shift wouldn’t be replaced.

[Dem_Boys]

Yes. Lunch rush is the baby of all McDonalds management. You'll rarely see an understaffed store then. Coincidentally this is the shift that most store managers work.

Night shift is where you'll see the cluster-fucks occur most and it's when the ice cream machine will be "down" the most in my experience

[seanmcdirmid]

Lunch is like one $1200 hour, dinner is $4-600/hour, but occurs over many more hours. Lunch is definitely busier and better staffed, and the dinner crew usually needs to to start thinking about closing, so a few go off at 7 to start dish or clean the back room or whatever.

[WalterBright]

The customer load on a service business like McDonald's is going to vary chaotically from minute to minute. It's a difficult problem to have it match the staffing level, while staying in business.

[robertlagrant]

> When it came to the dinner rush, we would have half the staff or less then our lunch rush. So in a sense it is the work of 2 to 3 people.

Is dinner as busy per hour as lunch?

[voisin]

I suspect this is a franchisee trying to improve profitability versus a company wide issue. I suspect it is highly variable. Also, sometimes sales are unexpectedly higher than normal.

[bee_rider]

We have comments from people who’ve worked there, which fit the general impression that the places tend to give.

I haven’t worked in fast food, but I’ve worked in retail, and it was my experience that the “nice” manager would schedule us, like… one extra person beyond the bare minimum.

Why do you suspect this, do you have any particular insight into these kinds of businesses beyond the rest of us?

[voisin]

Well, yes I do. I have owned four franchised businesses - all quick serve restaurant style - from two different national chains. Individual franchisees have significant leeway in how they schedule. Some, particularly marginal locations, will cut staffing to the bone. Others that are more confident in sales and doing well are able to schedule more than the bare minimum so that customers don’t wait as long and employees are happier.

[bluGill]

Sales unexpectedly higher than normal happens, but that typically only lasts an hour and then you go clean the now very messy store, while if sales were normal you would have enough staff on hand to keep it clean as you go. Stores keep enough clean trays and the like around to handle the worst case extra busy, and the trash cans can go an hour without being emptied. Customers will pick the least dirty table.