Fran works six days a week in fast food, and yet she's homeless: 'It's economic slavery'

The Guardian ^ | 22 August 2017 | Dominic Rushe

[Cronos]

Once a customer has barked their order into the microphone at the Popeyes drive-thru on Prospect Avenue, Kansas City, the clock starts. Staff have a company-mandated 180 seconds to take the order, cook the order, bag the order and deliver it to the drive-thru window.

The restaurant is on “short shift” at the moment, which means it has about half the usual staff, so Fran Marion often has to do all those jobs herself. On the day we met, she estimates she processed 187 orders – roughly one every two minutes. Those orders grossed about $950 for the company. Marion went home with $76.

Despite working six days a week, Marion, 37, a single mother of two, can’t make ends meet on the $9.50 an hour she gets at Popeyes (no apostrophe – founder Al Copeland joked he was too poor to afford one). A fast food worker for 22 years, Marion has almost always had a second job. Until recently, she had been working 9am-4pm at Popeyes, without a break, then crossing town to a janitorial job at Bartle Hall, the convention center, where she would work from 5pm- to 1.30am for $11 an hour. She didn’t take breaks there either, although they were allowed.

..More than that, she likes working in fast food. “I love it. I’m good at it. Just like Martin Luther King said, ‘If you are going to be a road sweeper, be the best damn sweeper there is’,” she says. “I don’t know. It’s just this society is all messed up.”

[jjotto]

Also probably left out is the indolent baby-daddy she’s spending money on.

[unixfox]

It’s an article advocating 15 dollars an hour.

And the poor poor pitiful me narrative snuck in.

[hmmmmm]

"Actually, KC used to have an awesome burger joint called "Wimpys," the best burgers, tenderloins, Italian Steaks, & tots. They were closed on Tuesdays. I miss the place."

My mother is still searching for an Italian Steak replacement to a Wimpy's.

[I want the USA back]

It’s extremely expensive to live in this country. Anybody who is foolish enough to have a job pays a huge amount in taxes to support anybody who doesn’t have a job. So you work, and you can’t survive. Go on welfare and you don’t need to work.

[wally_bert]

She should try the sweatshop labor of electronics recycling.

I wound up in the ER twice working there. High stress, sauna like in the summer, icebox in the winter.

Paid 10 to start. That was several years ago. There wasn’t much else and I needed something.

If someone gets above peon, Midwestern management does everything to drive a person to leave. They have that down to a science.

[Jamestown1630]

That’s a good story. No matter how small your job is, if you learn everything possible about it and make yourself valuable and reliable, you will advance.

[wbill]

I worked in retail right out of college, while I was looking for work in my major. All I wanted was part-time, something to keep money coming in and keep my resume current.

In about eight months, I turned down at least three offers to get promoted to assistant manager.

As you stated, a little hard work and application, and you can move up very quickly in the ranks, and pay for management in retail is nothing to sneeze at.

[Jim Noble]

sexual intercourse without regard to its consequences (not always completely negative but more so nowadays) does not automatically bring prestige and respect to idiots who might eventually expect responsible Americans to support them and their “families”.

Well, in a healthy, normal, functioning society you would be correct, but you may not have noticed you actually are living in insane clown world.

When I was growing up, "single mother" (but not "widow") was a synonym for "whore".

My, how things have changed.

When George W. Bush came to my little town in July 1999, campaigning for the 2000 NH Primary, one of his main talking points was how "single moms" are the real heroes (I think he meant "heroines") , and how, if we made him President, he was going to do so much more for them.

[Bryanw92]

I’ve seen that one. When I see that kind of vagueness, I start calculating actual costs of operating it in a real business.

[ExTxMarine]

The Obamacare costs alone, for ANY full time employee, is going to lower that number even more!

My daughter, 21, has been working two and three part-time jobs because the companies will NOT allow full-time or overtime due to the Obamacare costs.

I told her to go to college after high school, even offered her assistance, but she wanted to work for a year, buy a car and THEN go to college. Now, I just don’t know what she is going to do for a career!!

Luckily, she doesn’t want kids, without a family! So, she at least has THAT going for her! LOL!

[mountn man]

Let’s do some math.

Avg of 6 people working.

Open 10:30am - 10 pm.
That’s 11-1/2 hours.
Plus open and close, about another 1-1/2 hours.
That’s 13 hours x 6 people = 78 man hours a day

78 hours x an extra $5 an hour = $390
add 7.65% for FICA taxes = $30
add about another 20% for unemployment= $78

That’s $500 a day.
$500 x 364 days a year= $182,000

Popeyes averages $1,053,000 in sales per store a year.

[servo1969]

2

Slightly off topic-

Every time I see women and their teenagers being pitiful I always think the same thing: Where’s Daddy?

‘Oh, Dr. Phil, my teenage girl is out of control and won’t listen to a thing I say! I don’t know what to do!’
—’Where’s the father?’
‘Who?’
—’Her daddy. The child’s father.’
‘I don’t know. It was just some dude I hooked up with once. Oh, Dr. Phil, how can I convince her to stop acting like such a whore? Please help me!’

[beaversmom]

Really nice story about your friend.

[Kenton]

Fran works six days a week in fast food, and yet she's homeless: 'It's economic slavery'

The manager should take a charge like that very seriously and set her free, so to speak.

OK, consider that to be my mandatory snarky comment. So having said that, this is a tragedy, and it's increasingly commonplace. Too many children, born out of wedlock to a mother who has no job training in anything, no marketable skills and an absent "baby-daddy".

At least though, she's willing to work at her crappy job rather than exist entirely on public assistance.

[IYAS9YAS]

Those orders grossed about $950 for the company. Marion went home with $76.

And? Gross profit vs. net. Does Marion pay the rent, insurance, cost of goods, wages of the other staff, maintenance and upkeep, taxes, franchise fees, advertising, utilities or anything else for this company?

[central_va]

Even as we grew at a record pace, our focus on working with franchisees to increase efficiencies and manage costs drove domestic restaurant operating profit margins up to 23 percent, which translates to average profits of $340,000 per location. There’s simply never been a better time to own a Popeyes restaurant — and our franchisees couldn’t agree more. In a recent survey, nearly 95 percent of our franchise owners said they would invest in Popeyes again.

Ref link:2015 asset report

[mountn man]

•Franchise Fee: $45,000 USD (per restaurant)
•Royalty Fee: 5.0% of gross sales
•Local Advertising Commitment: 4.0% of gross sales
•Advertising Fund: 0.8% of gross sales

[central_va]

I am pleased to say that our commitment to excellence has paid off. Since 2008, we have built 1,236 new restaurants globally, including 552 internationally. We have posted seven consecutive years of global same-store sales increases. Average domestic unit volumes have grown from just under $1 million to nearly $1.4 million. We have nearly doubled domestic franchise Restaurant Operating Profits (ROP) from $177,000 in 2008 to $340,000 in 2015. Perhaps most importantly, we have grown our share of the Chicken Quick Service Restaurant (CQSR) market from just 14.8 percent in 2008 to 25.5 percent in 2015.

Ref link: 2015 Popeyes asset report

I am sure Fran Marion is so happy at this bonanza of profit.

[sheana]

I worked 2 jobs for 10 years. Wasn’t easy but I scheduled it right.
I worked 8 to 5 Monday thru Friday for the county.
Then I worked 6 to 2 5 nights a week but insisted I have Tuesdays and Thursdays off.
So on Saturday and Sunday I could sleep half the day away before going in at night and Tuesdays and Thursdays when I got off at 5 I’d go straight home and go to bed.

[logi_cal869]

Well, gee-golly...

I knew a guy who went to work for this little startup.hole-in-the-wall delivering pizzas.

He eventually became store manager, then district manager.

Last I heard he was earning over $150k/year before he retired comfortably.

The fast food chain was Dominos.

True story. Pick your moral Tom the story, but there can be only one conclusion.

However, if true, at least the woman was willing to work at all...