A pair of training films designed to make McDonald’s employees the go-getting, cope-with-anything examples of excellence that we know and love today.
If you have experienced the dubious pleasures of McDonald’s, then you might be surprised to hear that the company apparently puts its staff through rigorous training. Oh, okay, it makes them watch a video. Or at least it used to – who knows what happens today.
The 1972 training video is quite the thing for new employees who we can say with some safety are generally not working at McDonald’s because they didn’t fancy being President. This is very much the baptism of fire, as a collection of angry and shouty customers, unable to make a choice from the vast and nutritious menu options and so taking out their rage on the hapless employee. This may well be a fairly accurate depiction of what working there is like. Good luck, new counter-monkey!
A decade later, McDonald’s training had become a bit more ambitious, and, some might argue, delusional. In 1982, NASA astronaut Jim Lovell swallowed his pride – for a hefty fee, I hope – and with barely a smirk, fronted a video that manages to compare delivering the right food with a successful space launch. This is, it must be said, a bit of a stretch.
These corporate training videos are always ludicrous affairs – and we’re not, we should emphasise, singling McDonald’s out for mockery. There are plenty more training videos out there to scoff at, and who hasn’t been put through rigorous training for some brain-dead job?
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