Performance Reviews

I'm sure we all remember the Perfromance Reviews. The glint of a ten pence pay rise but of course it all depended on what a good boy or girl you had been.

I don't think I ever reached the heady heights of a two bob pay rise. 5p was always enough for me.

Have a look at my first performance review here on Valentines day 1994. Michelle Fenton went easy on me considering I was generally only ever on Drinks pulling or Lobby. The target for my next review was to get 2 stars... although in my 6 years in McDonalds I never got any stars....of course i did become a lobby host and so didn't need any stars.

Wherethehellaretheynow: Heather Speirs!!

Heather Speirs was a member of the Trongate crew for a couple of years....not sure how long. Being from Bellshill she had the pleasure of my company on the train to work a fair few times.

Heather made her presence in McDonalds known with her brazen flirtyness and was known to strut her stuff up and down lobby in front of a certain speccy lobby host!! (I name no names).

Heather finally caught her ideal man in big Kerr the most laid back guy you could meet. Was he from Liverpool... or manchester. Luckily Heather was a dab hand at the playstation as this was all i remember her telling me about her dates with Kerr!

Nowadays Heather is an international jetsetter and is strutting her stuff up and down the globe...with a boyfriend in everycontinent...well New Zealand anyways. She is some sort of Computer whizz down in NZ and only pops home to check on her property investments.

Big Graeme McLure

One of my favourite lobby hosts of all time was

Big Graeme McLure

Graeme was a ladies man extrordinaire.... he had women falling at his feet.... as illustrated by the picture above...although as you can see thats no woman...thats a hunk of burning masculine love at his feet :o)

Graeme had a cool sports car which only enhanced his sauve exterior. Can't remember what kind of car it was but it may have been a Mazda.

Look at this photo from the Lobby night out at the Tudor Hotel in Airdrie 1996...... Another notch on the McLure belt that night. Although if you look closely I would say it looks like a rubber doll he has in his hands.....not that I have much experience there....honestly (well maybe just the once... but I loved her)

At one point the big dude had a young Filly from lobby on the go by the name of Fiona.... can anyone mind her second name. Anyways they kept their relationship well under wraps. One night....hmm it may even have been Fiona's birthday and we met up in the "Griffin" in town and then as the night progressed ended up back at someones flat..... The McDonalds Stoners were there as wll as Graeme and Fiona. Graeme said he was going to drive Fiona home and then come back for me..... at this point I didn't know they were "hiding the sausage" together. So of course it take the git 3 hours to come back for me.

In that time I am sat with a bunch of stoners who are watching a MUTE television and laughing their F*ing arses off at it whilst I try and drink stinking becks feeling sober as a judge. Ah! those were the days!!

Graeme never drank a drop and I swear to god the man could get a party going in a nunnery on menstruation week. He had no need for the demon drink and left that to us lesser mortals. Always a cheery smily guy!!

Not sure what the big dude is up to these days. I know that he left work to do some kind of Care in the community thing but apart from that zilch. I still have his phone number and not too long ago when I was steeming I phoned him up. No one answered and I forgot about it. Next day he called back but I had no idea who he was and thought it was a wrong number so told him he was mistaken and no one in their right minds would call him at 4am in the morning.

Iain Kirk updates Friends Reunited

Had a wee Scout out at Friends Reunited and found that Iain Kirk had updated his profile, so thought it would be a good idea to copy it over to here:-

"Hi Everyone, Believe it or not I am now married and have a little boy. I got married in May last year and we had Matthew in May this year. I currently work for Churchill Insurance in Glasgow but would love a change into something else!! "

Good old Kirky - I remember him telling me that he had read the Satanic Bible.....and his claim to fame was going to school with the members of the band "BIS". Not sure if he is married to the same chick he was going with in McDonalds....can anyone remember her name??

Always a Fox and the Hound attender Kirky used to wait till I came in - and knowing I was skint shout at me he wanted a pint as I tried to sneak up to the bar unseen......the bastard :o)

After leaving Trongate he went on to East Kilbride McDonalds for a stint.

The Ballad of Alan Cullen

Alan Cullen was the jewel of the lobby. Loved by all the "old yins" with a passion. Alan was a crazy guy and he even dyed his hair pure blonde and got an earring....shocked the oldies anyways. I remember Alan was telling me about all the debt he was in and I couldnt believe how anyone could get themselves in that state.... well I totally get it now big guy!!! two credit cards/ loans/ overdrafts... we are practically brothers man!!!

One night Alan thought it would be a good idea to go to the pub during his break from work. He had a few drinks and then came back over... clocked in.... and headed right back over to the pub for more of the same. I think in the end some f the crew had to drag hom back over to McDonalds.

After McDonalds Alan got a job at the bus station and the last time I bumped into him he was working in Next and had a ponytail. Where is he now???

Alan was sacked for nabbing a cheeseburger whilst in the middle of his shift. Detective Charles Bokus was on the case though. He followed Alan to the crewroom but the trail went cold at the crewroom toilets. Cunning Chick deduced what had happened and came up with a deliberate ruse to fool the master thiefter. Chick took an unused cheeseburger wrapper and stuck it under the tap..... he called Alan into the office and told him that he had found it in the crewroom toilets after he had been in there. Under the stress of interrogation Alan confessed and was promptly shown the door!!

With that in mind I have created a T-shirt to commemorate Alan... all proceeds to the Alan Cullen Cheeseburger fund:-




This essential T-shirt can be bought at http://www.cafepress.com/trongatecrew
along with other famous Trongate Tshirts

More Customer Stories

Ricky Okane left the following rcollection:-

"I remember one, well non british, customer wanting a refund on the 2 remaining chicken nuggets in his box of 6 when he decided he was full. "

Just shows you what snidy gits those customers are!!!!





I remember we had this mad woman in who had a cannister of lighter fluid and was buzzing it straight from the can. I'm sure it was Mary McElhinney who was trying to get her out and she was for decking her and I was keeking myself incase she started on me.


Later I met a guy I knew who worked in JJB sports and we got to talking about mad customers and I told him that story. He said he had met this crazy lady before.... in fact she was soo out of it that she was taking runs at the JJB window and knocking herself on her arse.

The old School: John Mills

JOHN MILLS: I don't remember too much about this guy but he was my McDonalds "Yoda" that is he was my trainer in McDonalds.

I remember when I started that I was put on grill for the first week. Considering at the time I crapped it when making toast because the grill was hot.... and avoided using bunsen burners all the way through school... you can imagine how happy I was to be working on a lovely hot grill with grease splashing you at all angles.... and of course the risk of touching the actual grill itself.... well big bad john took over most of the duties for me and eased me in nice and gently. If it wasn't for him I don't think I would have stayed at McDonalds.

TONY O'ROURKE

One of the most memorable managers in my book was Tony O'Rourke.

Those who can remember Tony will also no doubt remember his red BMW car as well. In the middle of shifts Tony would run to the back door just to see if his baby was okay or was still shining! If he wasn't out the back door he would be checking the video camera's!

At one time the managers used to come out to lobby and tell us that the local area manager was coming in. Was it Steve Gardener? Anyways Tony made a habit of coming out and pretending he was coming in so that we would fly about like blue arsed flies and tidy everything up. Once he came out and said that he was coming in.... I thought it would be funny to call his bluff and a half hour later I went into the Managers office and told Tony that Steve Gardener was upstairs waiting on him. You see the managers used to keek themselves whenever there would be a visit so I was hoping to strike a bit of fear into Mr O'Rourke.

As it happened the joke fell on me as Tony got Kev McCudden to tell me that he had phoned Gerry and that he was on his way in and had cut a family holiday or something short. So it ended up that I was crapping it that I was going to get pulled into the office by Gerry and be given a bollocking. As it turned out the bastards had set me up.

But Tony never gave it the old Steve Gardner speel again!!!

Tony was also famous for his chocolate Donuts a la carte!


Tony was the guy who showed me how to tie my tie into a Windser knot!!

What a guy - That Windor knot has saved my life on three seperate occasions and helped me pick up numerous Burds.... well maybe not but it certainly helps me sound like a pratt when I tell people I have a special knot.... Cheers Tony :o)

I recently bumped into Tony at the gym. You know I can't even remember what he is up to these days. But we had a good laugh about the old days in McDonalds!

McRib's

Ah the McRibs were one of my fave McDonalds meals. I remember when theyfirst came out and each patty had to be dipped completely in the BBQ sauce. They were a pain in the arse to make but tasted fantastic. In later versions the BBQ sauce was applied using a dispenser similar to the ketchup dispensers.

According to the website http://nessart.8m.com/mcrib.htm McRibs were first available in 1981 but I think that was in America. I remember them as part of the Route 66 special's which must have been about 94 or so.


Look at the cast from star wars getting wired into their McRib burgers. The McRib is alive and well on the internet with lots of people all over the world demanding it's return.... and who can blame them!!


Heres one of the educational posters we had up in trongate explaining what went on the old rib,:-

Fun pictures

Heres a couple of funny pictures I got from the internet:-

I think that Graeme Innes must have gotten a hold of that poor Ronald McDonald!! that'll teach the smarmy ba$tard!!

Sponser a fat kid!! these poor obeseter's can only eat McDonalds 5 times a day.... Donate £2 a day so that they can get an extra happy meal!!

McDonalds and the Media

McDonalds was always keecking itself from bad publicity. So much so they had a special plastic card made up for those managers who didnt know what to say.... luckily I managed to obtain one of these bad boys:-

Click either of these images for a close up.























When Princess Diana's funeral was going on and all the other shops were giving their workers paid holidays. McDonalds decided they wouldn't pay anyone for having the day off. Some sneaky crewmember called up the evening times and grassed them in. After a phone call from the paper they keeked it and paid everyone!

Ostrich Burgers all round

May 1996 saw the introduction of the Ostrich burger on the British population. In a cunning marketing ploy the new burger was offered to Joe Shmoe on the street. One of the Trongate gang was lucky enough to get a taster..... Yes Tommy Shaw was that man!!

Here is a copy of the article detailing what happened and a close up of our intrepid manager himself_ click the picture for a close up:-






Unfortunately the Ostrich burger never made it. If the british had liked it I'm sure a McOstrich special would have been on the cards

Mick Primrose: the man, the myth, the legend

Mick Primrose was a true crewmember. I'm sure he did about three tours of duty and with various roles in the organisation. Crewmember, 5star crewmember, night closer and manager!

He loved his heavy music and I can imagine him now pleasuring himself to "the darkness".... well maybe not.

He made his name by pleasuring that elusive beauty Carol Livingston from Lobby - Who as legend has it moved onto a new career as a stripper/ kissogram whoar!!

He is now a bus driver in Cumbernauld and is fit as a butchers dug by going mountain biking frequently. He now lives with another famous crewmember... the infamous Stephen Primrose (more on him later).

Young Malky

Ah young Malky was just a pip squeek of a lad when he joined the lobby ranks. By the time he left he had grown a fair bit. All I remember about Malky is that he left to go to the Army and hasn't been seen or heard of since.

Heres a photo of him from the 1996 lobby night out. He was some dancer!!

McWedding Bells and McWeans

Big Announcement from the Park Family:-

Elaine Park and Kev McIver have been hitched this year! Both are living together in their love pad in Glasgow.






Brian Horsburough and Vicki McGarity have produced a lovely sprog.... age/ sex/ name unknown at the moment.

Mick Primrose: Asleep at the wheel

Billy Murray Speaks:-

I still have nightmares about the trip back from Birmingham with Mick nodding off at the wheel quite regularly but for some strange reason he insisted on listening to some mellow pink floyd album.



By the way, that Metallica Tap i am wearing in the band photo's is Mick's. Sorry Mick but it rocked and i stole it.

Where are they now: George Park

George Park was a crewmember extrordinaire. He even gave McDonalds staff their own patter.... "Safe", "saft"

Not long after he started he was on till. I was waiting to be served and the guy in front turned round to me and says "this guy is so bloody slow". Of course I had to agree :oP

When he moved into the bungalow with Donnie and Mick they had a few parties. It was amazing the amount of red bordered cloths and nuggets and stuff they had there. They even had a packet of caramel sauce.

Well I went up and visited Big Geo tonight and he is doing great. He is currently a bus Driver and is working on passing his HGV license and will soon be known as the Trucker Mucker! Geo has his own pad in Coatbridge and still keeps in touch with Michael Primrose and Stephen Primrose.

He was also known as Geo Satan and looked a bit like this:-

Thats because he was a demon on the pool table!!

Oh and lets not forget about him having it off with some burd in the middle of George Square at New Years.... What a Hero!!!

Laser quest orders

I used to love taking up the laser quest orders as it was always a great skive. Although it was sometimes murder if lots of drinks were to be taken up with you! Alas poor laserquest is no longer there. Can you believe it!!

His name Was Gerry DEVLIN

Remember Gerry? what the hell was his second name again? Cheers to the anonymous comment enlightening me to Gerry's second name. Much appreciated

Gerry was a cool guy. I'll never forget the video he made on his last day at school. Him and his pals dressed up in boiler suits and masks and went round the school terrorising classes with smoke bombs.

The video ended when they left the school to be met by the police. what was the name of his friend Mark something he's not in the picture - thats me). Wasnt his pal Mark a life gaurd as well?

McDonalds Reunited

popped over to friends reunited to see if i could spot anyone i knew from McDonalds. below is a list of who had left any comments:-

Michelle Fenton - "Working part time as office manager. Single parent with one child but still not stopping us seeing the world. Can't believe how fast the years are going by as it just seems like yesterday. "

Stacey Lee - "I'm working in Aberdeen as a Reservoir Engineer Technical assistant for Shell(since June01). Staying near the centre of Aberdeen close to the nightlife! "

Kirsty Lee - "Well I first graduated with BSc Anatomy in 2001, then went on to Paisley to do an Msc in IT, all the while salving away in McDonalds! I am now happily employed by a software company in Coatbridge doing websites, multimedia and school software. feel free to get in touch x"

Elaine McLaren - "Very odd seeing some old names on here. God, some people were right arses! The joys of being a teenager. Glad to hear everyone is getting on well in life. Mind you, if life is *****, you're not really going to go into detail on here. I'm living in Edburgh and am working in PR. I get to talk (and write) a lot of crap- so I feel right at home. Hoping to branch out into property development next year with the boy, Mackie, (and the cat too) when I sell my current flat(which should be a veritable palace by then- ahem). I'm lainey, first three letters of second name at the more than luke warm site of you wanna drop me a line. "

Derek Miller - "Currently working as a transgenic techician for Glasgow uni. "

Derek Smith - "Hello :-) I was at NK from , then went to various colleges and Uni's to get my Accountancy Degree. I'm currently working towards qualifying as a Chartered Accountant. It'd be good to hear from any old friends who I have lost touch with - drop me a line! All the Best Derek "

Derek Also put in a list of his jobs:-

Workplaces
1994 - 1998, McDonalds
1998 - 2000, Chalmit Lighting
2000 - 2001, Clyde Blowers Pension
2001 - 2002, Becogent
2002 - 2003, Cigna European Services
2003 - 2004, Consarc Engineering
2004 - 2005, Asda

Billy Murray - "Getting older and balder "

EVERYTHINGS EASY

The Easy Everything website features this shot of the section which has been converted to an internet cafe.

Dodgy report

The website: http://www.glasgowsurvival.co.uk/sights/glaTrongate.html

has this to say about our beautiful place of work

"The Trongate also boasts the dodgiest McDonalds in the world. If you ever venture into this McDonalds (perhaps escaping the beggar chasing you down the street) you are three times as likely to witness some sort of fast food related violence as you would in the second dodgiest McDonalds in the world, located at the other end of Argyle street. In fact I'm sure that one time there were more people standing outside asking for money than there were inside the place eating."

I mean how can they say that we had the dodgiest McDonalds in Glasgow and Argyle street second. Wasn't it Argyle Street where that junkie overdosed in the loo? I mean come on!! give me a break. We never had any fatalities!!!!

Candid camera

A group of wee neds came into the store and snuck upstairs whilst it was closed. After they had eaten their food they thought it would be a great idea to make a big mess. They pulled out the plants and scattered them all over the floor of top lobby.

Unfortunately for these scalliwags one of them left an expensive jumper behind that they had just bought. So when he came back into the shop to get it he was apprehended and kept in the managers room until the coppers came.

In the meantime the dutiful lobby staff had been upstairs tidying up the mess. Michelle Fenton was keen to show the police the damage so she started pulling out all the plants herself in order to recreate the mess. When the police came in they saw the mess up there but also asked if they could see the security camera vid as well. You can imagine Michelle's face when they said that. Luckily they managed to bypass the point where Michelle was ripping it up big time. Didnt stop her panicking like mad though!

Richy's big adventure

Billy Murray let us in on the following Story about Richy Moonan:-

When Richard Moonan started in McDonalds he was given the important duty of cleaning the lobby bogs. Looking to impress Richy gave it his best shot but was a bit confused when he went into the ladies and had to be told that those were special bins that werent to be emptied by crewmembers.

Not too worry Richy went onto have a succesful career as a McDonalds Manager and was loved by all.

Weird Customers

Remember when Customers would eat three quarters of their chips and then complain that they were cold??

Once there was a junky family in and the daddy junkie noticed a very small spider on the seat. Shouted on me and pointed it out saying "that could hiv went intae ma weans ear ye kno"

Another time an old woman was in and was sick on thee floor....she had been boozing.... as i went over to the table with mop in hand she handed me a plastic bag... "whats this?" I asked..."well the rest of it had to go somewhere"....I was holding a plastic bag full of some drunkan old biddy's spew. I was so disgusted i threw the mop down and ran and his in the lobby cupboard.....then the old biddy went into the toilets and stuck her feet in the sink to clean the carrot chunkc off of her feet and sandals that she was wearing.

What about the stamp licker and his wife? can you remember them? This old couple who used to come in and the old guy could'nt control his tongue and was always sticking it out as far as it would go. the wifey would go up to the counter and she spoke really weird.... it was like a high pitch "oooh yee haa, yee haaaa....filly o fish yee ha" and the old guy always wanted a fillet o fish and they would always question how much their order was.

The Big Fight

Can't remember when it happened and I wasn't on shift at the time thank god but there was a big fight between the crew and a gang of guys. I know that Tommy Shaw was the manager on shift as apparantly he and other kitchen staff vaulted over the front counter and the fight was taken outside.

The next day when Karen Cathcart started she thought she was cleaning tomatoe sauce from the front of the shop but it was in fact where Tommy Shaw had belted someone and their blood sprayed over the shop.

Does anyone know any other details? who else was involved? why it started?

Tell you what though I wouldnt like to mess with Tommy Shaw! I'll never forget him telling me that he wanted to write a horrer book where the psycho was able to grab someones head and fit their mouth in the psycho's mouth and would crush the victims teeth between the pyscho's jaws. That gave me nightmares for years man!! :o) Speaking about Tommy Shaw, After McDonalds he went onto Dixons in viewpark. I met him once sometime between 99/2000 but have no idea what he is up to these days. Although I did get the following picture from the web and thought it may be him:-

William the transgender non crewmember

"This one time" in the crewroom (downstairs) an unknown 'person' walked in. The crewroom was full of people including Charlene McIlheney the manager. Anyways this person who had on combats and had short hair but looked verry feminine walked into the male changing rooms. Charlene got me to go in and tell the Shemale that the girls changing rooms were next door. When I went in and said this there were a few guys in getting changed and s/he told me in a VERY squeeky voice "my names william".

Anyways two seconds later williamina headed out the door and was never seen or heard from again. Was she an undercover McDonalds protester or just a weird burd that wanted to perve on the hunky men?? we'll never know

The great denim jacket caper

If anyone can remember Mark holmes (I'm sure that was his second name - he was a zany character and into his heavy metal music)....anyways he had a denim jacket that he had decorated with a marker pen. Writing his fave band names on it and pentagram signs or other such stuff.

Anyways one day he accidently picked up Charles Bokas's (Chick) denim jacket and left. Chick nearly shat a brick... well considering his was a fashionable versaci (or something similar) jacket I dont think he would have been too impressed heading home in Marks scabby jacket. Luckily the chickmeister caught up with him....well he was running like a madman to catch up.