Pros And Cons Of Working At Dunkin Donuts

My experience working in the fast food industry changed my perspective on a lot of things. When I turned 16 I got my first job at a Dunkin Donuts. I worked there for a year and half. It was a good first job, but also the worst. My morning routine consisted of waking up at 4 in the morning to open in store at 5. Make the coffee and teas, set up the donut case and get everything ready for the morning rush. Before I got this job I expected it would be cake. I mean, how hard is it to brew coffee and sell donuts? it was not very hard in my opinion. Although, I wasn’t expecting how crazy the rushes would be and how stressed out it made me. I have to say, there were pros and cons about working at Dunkin Donuts, but more cons than anything. To list
some things: the management was horrible, rude customers, and the food quality was nothing I thought it would be.
The General Manger there was very disorganized with literally everything there she was responsible for. Making a schedule was one of her worsts, and that was the main problem I had with her. She had a favoritism problem and hardly worked me at all. Doing so the training took me way longer than everyone else to complete. I thought before working there everybody would get just about them same amount of hours per week. I was wrong. She would most of the time only have me work 12 hours a week. Some would get 20-30 hours per week. I’m not sure if it was because I was the youngest employee there. Even though was in school I think I deserved more hours. When we first opened we had a promotion suit that was a giant coffee cup that covered your whole body. We were supposed to take turns wearing it and standing outside the store along the highway. I was the one who wore it most out of anybody else. She would make me stand out there for 30 minutes or more in the Florida heat waving to cars driving by to attract them over. People in the vehicles would honk at me or take pictures of me. One time a guy stopped on the side of the road, just so he could take a picture with me. At the time I didn’t really think anything of the torture and humiliation I was going through because it was my first job and I felt lucky to even have one. So I did whatever it took to make money. After speaking with the manager for the 100th time and threatening to quit, she came to the realization of how she was treating me compared to everyone else and even gave me a 15 cent raise.
I knew in the life of the workforce I would have to deal with rude customers, but I never thought I would have to deal with them on a daily basis working at Dunkin Donuts.
The majority of the customers who came in were elderly people. I’ve noticed elderly people are extremely finicky about how they want their food. If you mess upon their order, they make a huge deal about it. Me being new, I’ve got to admit, I messed up a lot. The customers obviously did not understand no matter how times I apologized and told them I was new. For example, this customer, who was a regular once ordered a strawberry frosted donut. It was last the strawberry frosted in the case. I went to grab it and it fell out of my hand and on to the floor. He raised his voice and cussed at me about how I upset he was and went on complaining about every time he goes there his order gets messed up. He made me do a refund for the $1.09 donut and wrote a horrible review about the store. After that day I never saw him come into Dunkin Donuts again. This pretty much scared me and I will never forget that because I never want to deal with somebody like him ever
again.
My perspective changed a lot on the way they make the food at Dunkin Donuts.
Working there after a few months, I got the chance to make the donuts. I was ready to fry up some donuts and frost them into pretty colors. I came to find out there was no fryer at all. They actually use an oven to make donuts. They don’t use the raw dough and form it into a circle or cut out holes in the middle to make the munchkins (doughnut holes). Nothing is actually fresh at all. Everything literally comes premade and frozen in a truck. Including everything for sandwiches. Coming in frozen does make the job easier and faster though. It takes about 30 minutes for the donuts to thaw and then you just have to frost them and then they’re done. I only usually make them if we run out of donuts during the day, other than that the bakers come in at night at bake 72 dozen donuts for the following day. Making sandwiches are a little different though because you have to heat up the eggs, sausage patties and other sandwich ingredients in these small ovens that make them hot in minutes. The only thing is though that the ovens are so small you can only fit about 6 sausage patties in there and that is not enough if you’re having a rush. However, if you’re not having a rush, then it’s a good day because nothing gets ran out of and everyone is
happy.
I can surely say working in the fast food business was not really how I thought it would be, and it changed my view on many things but I did have fun working in it sometimes. I loved the other cashiers I would work with and not every day was a completely bad day. Really nice people would come in and sometimes even give me tips. In all, I learned from this experience to not have such high expectations because it most of the time leads into disappointment. Even still working in the business for over 2 years I still get surprised every now and then.