I've just finished reading "The Magic of McDonald's" by former CEO and Chairman of McDonald's Australia, Pete Ritchie. I was lucky enough to work in the Melbourne office from 1990-1996, and even for a young female who hadn't come through the store system, training and performance management was a very high priority across the organisation - Macca's basically trained me into an IT professional.
It turned out the 90s was a truly great time to work there, and I'll always be grateful for the friends I made, the opportunities I had and the lessons I learned. Reading about the performance appraisal system made me giggle - how could I forget?! Growing up with a Dutch Oma, my interpersonal approach was somewhat "lock and load" just like hers, at a time when young women weren't quite so forthright. My first 3 appraisals went along the lines of "you're doing this, this and this well, but we need to talk about your tact and diplomacy skills". At the 4th year appraisal, I asked "are we doing tact and diplomacy again?" and the response was "we weren't going to this year but you've just spoiled it!" 😂
I like to think I've improved in the tact and diplomacy department since then. And reading the book made me realise some of the other skills I learned from my time at McDonald's which I perhaps hadn't consciously credited them for. As a leader, I've always focused on people, training and personal development because I reckon that's how you get the best results, and I learned a lot about business, operations, marketing, retail and a bunch of other things just by working there. And I learned the value of having fun at work. Without going into detail - Friday drinks, Christmas party, Store manager events, trips to the Sydney office and weekends with friends, paintball, horse-riding, Chevron Island, starting work at 7am and leaving at 2 to go to the MCG Members for day/night cricket, Donovans, canoeing up the Goulburn River from Mitchelton to Tahbilk, dressing up as Hamburglar, dressing up as the Village People (don't ask), and let's not forget donning an apron for "Back to Store Day" - I can rock a drive-thru headset with the best of them!
So many good memories. Thanks McDonald's. One of the best times of my corporate life. ❤️
0 comments:
Post a Comment
COMMENTS ON THIS BLOG ARE FULLY MODERATED. If you post a comment with a backlink, it will be marked as Spam and never published.