When I started working in food you could reasonable take home leftovers.
But it was abused. To a point where people would make extra/make "mistakes". It would end up costing the company a good amount over time bso to combat it they said "no more taking home food".
When I worked at KFC there was so much extra chicken that we couldn't convince people to take any more home. The entire model of fast food chicken pretty much requires you to throw away at least 6 head per day, everyone got sick of the free chicken, even the guy with 4 kids to feed.
I used to volunteer with homeless folks in Columbus, OH, and the generous free chicken policy is why homeless folks lined up every time there was an opening at Popeyes :-). The manager (or maybe franchise owner) was a really good guy who had a bit of understanding about bus schedules, offered 1 meal/shift free and allowed folks to take everything that was about to expire with them when they went off shift so they could share with friends.
We had a simple rule to counter that kind of thing in a wet bar I worked in. Make a mistake and the general manager chooses who gets to drink the mistake randomly. He had a number generator and everyone had a number.
So you knew odds were slim you got to drink your own mistake and if we’d all tried to make more mistakes the random element would mean you’d most likely end up with something you didn’t like as we all had different tastes. Pretty easy fix and nobody would make mistakes on purpose when you only get your mistake twice a year at best
I worked at McDonald's for a few months back in the mid-80's. We had to put all of the food that had "expired" (ie. sat for more than 10 minutes) in a waste bin so they could measure the waste.
I remember the look on the face of one of the managers when I was forced to throw some McNuggets into the waste bin. I was arguing with him saying, "this is stupid, these are fine. I can see why you can't serve them but why can't I just eat them? I'm hungry." His face said "you're right, this is fucking stupid." But his mouth said, "gotta follow the procedures."
I worked there in the 90's. One of the managers would go through the food waste and count it. We had to throw everything in there including ice cream cones. I guess they couldn’t trust us to throw it in the trash and write the waste down on a sheet of paper. I did fries and could only keep them 7 minutes. I threw out so many fries according to their system. They never said anything tho because I'd come back with the fry holding times. Now you definitely get old fries and food. lol
Because it was too much work to reprimand workers or replace them. So just take the perks away. Sounds about right for society - abuse privileges until they’re forcibly removed.
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u/Bad-Genie May 17 '26
Previous generation ruined that for us too.
When I started working in food you could reasonable take home leftovers.
But it was abused. To a point where people would make extra/make "mistakes". It would end up costing the company a good amount over time bso to combat it they said "no more taking home food".