I did some contract work for them at the Oakbrook, Illinois Headquarters, Some of the most pleasant people I have ever worked for! And they work like dogs, when the monthly reports are due, five o'clock comes and goes and no one leaves, a few work all night long!!!
I hope he at least worked his way up from fries to grill.
Fifty years later, Hendel owns and operates 31 McDonald’s locations across Long Island, Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan, including the flagship restaurant in Times Square.
He hasn't spent the last 50 years flipping burgers ...
All work deserves respect. I take my hat off to him.
This Lifer became a multi-millionaire, and his story is not the only one
Sometimes people miss real opportunities, because they can't see beyond their current status within an organization. Others can see the possibilities, and reap far more than their peers who scoffed at their decisions.
Mr. Morgan sure set his sights low. I wanted to be an astronaut or an F1 driver. For quite a while, I thought it would be cool to be Farah Fawcett's masseuse.
Back in the ‘70’s to ‘90’s, I knew an actual lifer worker bee at our Littleton, CO McDonald’s. I’m embarrassed that I can’t recall her name right now, but she was a mom turned grandma by the time she retired. All of us kids knew her from when we were in elementary school until graduating high school and then back from college. She was like a second mom and made McDonald’s even more special.
If the chance allows, I always ask people if they like their job. Some of the most happy, satisfied people work at mundane jobs I’d die at. A 7/11 night clerk, for example. Somebody once said there’s a seat for every ass. I spent a career as an engineer. But at every job, about six months in, I’d mastered what I was doing and looking around to take on something different. Towards the end, at General Dynamics, when I couldn’t find another job and they laying off, I lettered up a sign reading, “Will work for charge number. Will not spend it on beer.” I was the only employee who had worked in every department. Finance, HR, shipping, because in any large organization someone has a job and funding but no one to do it. It was about the only satisfying time I spent there.
There was an Asian man who got a job at a Walmart decades ago. His job was sweeping the back area of one of the stores. He eventually became the Walmart CEO. Starting at the bottom doesn’t mean you have to stay at the bottom.
I haven’t had a fast-food burger in decades, but this is a great story! It’s funny how we make plans for life not knowing that life sometimes makes plans for us.
I once heard, maybe it was on Jeopardy, that one in seven American workers had their first job at McDonald’s.
Another Walmart CEO’s first Walmart position was unloading trucks when he was in high school.
Feel good story of the day! Thanks for posting it!
I knew a woman of limited skills and education who,by the time she was in her forties, some twenty years ago, had amassed a retirement nest egg of about $350,000 working at McDonalds. Unfortunately her loser boyfriend cheated her out of it.
I must say, I saw the title, and was ready to come into this thread and do battle!
Relating it to the concept of raising the minimum wage to a “living wage” to service industry workers such as a McDonald’s employee flipping burgers, but...it is nothing like that.
It wasn’t his “forever job”. That would be someone who 55 years later is still flipping burgers.
This guy, as others pointed out in the thread, did not take McDonalds as his “forever” job. He might have started out flipping burgers, but it isn’t what he does now, or for the last 55 years.
I worked at Micky D’s for 2 whole days flipping burgers during college. Could not get rid of the grease smell. Left to be a janitor at a department store cleaning bathrooms and the beauty salon. Much happier.
I worked at Oakbrook headquarters in the mid-’70’s. At THAT time a McDonald’s store manager was making around $65,000-$70,000/yr.....not a bad chunk of change back in the day. Those managers basically had an education equivalent to a 4 year degree at a university and probably a lot more valuable to them. They were not only trained in how to manage and run the business but ALSO how to break down and repair alot of their store equipment.....
“‘Do you like what you do?’” says Hendel. “And I said, ‘Yeah, I really love it.’”
This is what a liberal marxist democrat NEVER understands. People are not mindless slaves who trudge to work hating their jobs and hating their bosses. I dare say most people enjoy their jobs.