Entreprananural Fatigue

While conversing with the owner of the McDonald's I frequent, he revealed he used to own eight McDonald's stores but was now down to one. He said he sold the others because he could no longer stand the business climate in Jacksonville. (His other seven stores were in Jacksonville proper.) I was surprised at this and asked exactly why he got rid of them. He said it was the people that the stores served, they did not respect his property, they stole food and drinks, they left the tables dirty all the time, spilled drinks on the floor, emptied napkin holders and were very demanding and abusive to the help.

The available help in those areas required excessive training and retraining. They would give food and drinks away to their friends. Often he was short handed because the help would not report to work every scheduled day. The workforce was constantly changing and there were always trainees serving customers. Equipment was not maintained as required and when it was the work was shoddy.

Gangs were set up in the parking lot and there were always trouble makers around the cars. It was difficult to get employees to go out into the lot to clean it up, they were frightened. He would go into the lot to clean it up and was never bothered. But his employees were harassed when they went out. He said he could not personally spend all his time cleaning his lots.

He is very happy with his decision to only own the one store in Green Cove Springs. I commented that we have our share of blacks in this store and, to my way of thinking, they are unruly. He just smiled and said it is a whole different culture here in Green Cove Springs.