I don't really care what happens at other stores

Today we had someone come in through drive thru asking if our ice cream machine was working. My response to this was "Yes, our ice cream is always working, except during the mornings for cleaning". I've worked at our location for a year now, and our ice cream machine has indeed never failed us, even during the summer. The only time the machine is down is once a week for detailed cleaning, and that's during breakfast, when few people order ice cream products anyway.

The woman starts going on a tirade about how another store's ice cream machine never worked and how crappy it was. Well, what do you expect ME, a crew member at another store, to do about it? You should be complaining to the managers at the store having the issue, not some random person at another store!

The thing about the ice cream machines at mcds is this: there are two main reasons why a person wanting to purchase ice cream is unable to do so.

1) The ice cream is legitimately down for some reason. Some examples of legitimate downage include:

• The need to fulfill the weekly cleaning schedule automatically programmed into the machine. You know, sanitary reasons and all.

• We've sold too much ice cream in a short period of time. See, sometimes we sell a lot of ice cream at once, and the machine needs a bit of a break in order to allow the ice cream to harden somewhat and get cold again. If we get too much ice cream product at once (for us typically it's a combo of about six-seven cones, flurries, and sundaes) the machine starts spitting out something that resembles liquid rather than ice cream.

• We're actually out of ice cream. It sometimes happens, typically during the summer months.

2) The crew just really don't feel like making ice cream, so they lie and claim that the machine is down. This tends to happen a bit more in stores where the ice cream machine is in an inconvenient location from the presenting area for drive thru. It's a hassle sometimes to walk from one side of the store to another (yes, some layouts are like this).. sad but it sometimes happens that some crew people don't feel like doing it.

Ideally, every store should have their ice cream machine up and running (except during times mentioned in point 1), even during third shift. But they don't, and then it reflects badly on the rest of the stores in the area, and I have to hear about how some other store's ice cream machine is never working. I don't need to hear it!

On another note.. when it comes to training new people, don't lie. A new girl was on register, being trained somewhat by another girl who had been at the store a few months. I was showing new girl how to make a sundae (new people always struggle when it comes to ice cream), getting it to mushroom and then putting the one pump worth of syrup, if applicable, on top. I showed the new person how to do all of this, and then she says

"Oh, that's not how I was taught, I was shown to do two pumps on it."
Me: "Who told you to do that?"
New person: "She did." *points to the other person on counter*
Me: "Well, it's wrong. It's one pump on top, if they want more, it's extra and it goes on the bottom"
So then I go up to the other counter person, and I ask them how many pumps of syrup go on a sundae. And wouldn't you know that they said one? Of course she did.. she only overheard me instructing the new person on the correct method. Teach them right the first time, and don't lie about what you taught someone else.