Posted on 03/09/2017 11:26:10 AM PST by nickcarraway
A Plano man’s daily walk to work has received a lot of attention in Collin County this weekend.
Five days a week, Patrick walks the 15 miles from his Plano home to the Braum’s near U.S. 75 and U.S. 380 in McKinney where he works as the acting manager.
The walk typically takes him two-and-a-half to three hours.
But for Patrick, 52, it is simply a matter of commitment.
“You can’t keep your job if you don’t go to work,” he said. “I used to work at the Braum’s in Plano and I got transferred here because they needed help here. I said ‘OK,’ and my commitment to them was, I have to be at work so I’ll be at work, whatever it takes.”
Patrick said that a friend drops him off at home after work each night. He has been making the walk to work for the last seven months.
But over the weekend, Patrick’s stroll along the service road caught the eye of a McKinney Police officer, who stopped to ask if he needed help or a ride.
After taking Patrick to work and learning his story, Officer Branson asked if he could take a photo with him.
Officer Branson then shared the photo and the story on Facebook, writing, “My kids will know about Patrick, my grand kids will know about Patrick, everyone should know about Patrick.” The post garnered nearly 5,000 “likes” in just 24 hours. Patrick said his Braum’s location has been flooded with calls from people wanting to help. A woman even started a GoFundMe account for him, which raised more than $1,000 in one day.
“There is a lot of kindness in Collin County,” he said.
Patrick, who asked that his last name not be shared, said he didn’t want the spotlight, but he hopes his story will inspire younger generations.
“Commitment. You make a commitment to your job, to go to work everyday. They expect you to go to work everyday. No excuses," he said.
No excuses -- just a man leading by example, one step at a time.
On Monday afternoon, Braum's Spokesperson Amanda Beuchaw released the following statement to NBC 5 regarding Patrick:
The news story that was ran on the station over the weekend about one of our employees that works at the McKinney Braum's , Patrick, has been brought to our attention. Many viewers and customers have been reaching out to us because they are concerned that Patrick is having to walk so far to work.
When we were notified, we started looking into the matter with our management team in the area.
About a month ago, Patrick was offered a promotion that would move him from the Plano store to the McKinney store. He is a terrific, hard-working employee and we wanted to offer him the chance to advance in the company. During his interview for the new position, he was asked if he had reliable transportation and he informed the district manager that he did. We did not learn that he was walking to work until we saw the news story that ran this past weekend. We take the health and well-being of our employees seriously and we plan to address this with Patrick.
Thank you for highlighting how great of an employee that Patrick is for the company. We just wanted to address the public's concern, which we share also, and let everyone know that the situation is being evaluated.
I can see him fibbing about the transportation issue - he wanted the promotion. And in his mind he figured he wasn’t really lying. (”I can walk - that’s ‘transportation’!”)
But yeah - why not get a bike at the thrift store for $20?
Post #58
His knees and or hips could be giving him some trouble very soon. He ain’t no spring chicken.
Thanks for posting the whole story.
I'm cynical by default of anything with a GoFundMe account attached. Most of them seem like scams. Doesn't mean there aren't the occasional cases of true hardship and suffering and people who were genuinely helped by the donations they received.
The same people who never find any good in any legitimate feel good story and go out of their way to delegitimize those very stories.
As I posted previously, Braums is nothing more than a drive thru ice cream and burger fast food joint. How much do you suppose the acting manager makes above the minimum wage kids that work there?
I thought it was some home-improvement warehouse type place. I’m figuring retail typically pays the grunts slightly over minimum wage, say $8.50, and manager should probably be at $12.00-12.50. Enough to afford a bus pass (assuming it goes there), or a used bike, or convert some of those 5-6hr/day unpaid into working hours if they’ll give him the hours, or get a second job. Walking 6 hrs a day to an 8 hr (hopefully) a day job is ridiculous.
I am astonished so many don’t have any clue how others live, what it is like in rural areas. Most must live in areas with miles of bike paths, round the clock public transportation, no low paying jobs...
I knew how out of touch most of our politicians are but stunning how many others don’t have a clue.
No, not hill country. Dallas area.
I'm astonished at how far FR and it's current crop of members have devolved to the point of being DU light........
It's getting harder and harder to read most of the threads these days.............
Yeah. I’ve been to Plano. REALLY flat. One of their favorite things to say is, “That wind is so strong because there’s nothing between here and Canada but two barbed-wire fences.”
Bus passes.
You don’t know rural.
Up in the central and northern area of our state, people use shanks mare all the time and others stop and pick them up. Used to sit in the truck bed but now that is against the law
I knew that was coming
That is good - w Marty Feldman
But you try to tell young people that!!
I use an electric unicycle to go to work. It takes less time than using my car, near zero fuel cost, mean speed = 15 mph, no sweat. Just saying...
The article doesn’t say which particular stores he worked at. There are three Braums in Plano and two in McKinney. The towns are about 10 miles apart, so it’s possible that it’s 15 miles each way. He would have to be walking fast to make it in three hours. That’s a twelve minute mile, and the average walking pace is 18-20 minutes per mile.
If I worked at Braums, I know I would be consuming a great many calories. Their ice cream is delicious!
That is hysterical! And very likely how my post sounded but I didn’t mean it that way. So many were posting that it didn’t seem possible for the man to do what was claimed in the story. To me it seems very possible; not for me now but I know at one time I could have done it if I had set my mind to it.
I truly was extremely lucky the way I grew up; did not feel I had it bad, still don’t see it that way. I did not know it at the time, never thought about things being different one way or another. It just was what it was, which is my point. People live far different lives than some others, so what is normal for one person might seem pretty out there to another.
I always loved to read so am probably more familiar with how things are in a large city than most people in large cities are with how rural people live. More books about cities and city people.
I went back East for the first time in my life a couple years ago and after seeing the NYC skyline in so many movies and pictures over the years I was astonished it seemed much smaller in person than what I had pictured in my mind.
We all hear or see things we can’t quite wrap our heads around depending on our perspective.
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