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Going for the golden arches
By DAMIAN CRISTODERO, Times Staff Writer
And when they got past the metal detectors without setting off any alarms, the joke -- and it was a joke, right? -- was that the soldiers let them through in a shameless quest to get some burgers and fries. It was the first day of work for the three Tampa Bay area women, part of the elite team of McDonald's workers brought here to offer efficient service with a very big smile. Roberts, 35, and Joseph, 21, both of Tampa, and Wansor, 44, from Zephyrhills, will have plenty of stories to tell when they return. Among their tales will be the challenge of working shoulder to shoulder with people who do not speak English. "A lot of it is gesturing," Wansor said. It is a minor inconvenience when compared with what McDonald's has provided: an all-expenses-paid trip to see the Games, the athletes (Roberts and Joseph, who have roots in the Virgin Islands, really wanted to see the Jamaican bobsled team) the mountains and the snow. All that McDonald's asked in return was six days of work, paid in full, with the same commitment to excellence they demonstrate at their home restaurants. "I can't believe I'm here," Wansor said. "It's all I could think about for months and months and months. I still have to pinch myself." Someone at McDonald's had a pretty cool idea while figuring out how to staff its two facilities at the media center and its restaurant at the athletes' village. Why not stage an Olympics of its own in which employees worldwide are judged on how well they do their jobs? Instead of gold, they get a golden opportunity. Local and regional competitions were held at working restaurants, where employees showed their stuff and were judged. Wansor made her name in food assembly and preparation, Joseph on fries and Roberts with a cleanliness in the restaurant and parking lot that is indeed next to godliness. "I can't tell you how many people told me this is a life experience," said Mike Perry, McDonald's director of operations at the Games. "It's one thing they have thoroughly enjoyed and something they couldn't imagine doing." Perry said from a pool of 1.3-million workers, 470 from 26 countries made the cut. "If it had not been for the best in the world," he said. "This would have been a real challenge." Not that it has been easy. McDonald's, which is an official sponsor of the Games, made difficult choices when putting together its menus. Perry said small grill space in the media center's main restaurant, and the fact that all burgers were bumped up to quarter-pounders, meant Big Macs got squeezed out. McDonald's also figured the media center was a good place to try out its new chicken and vegetable wraps. You know reporters, they'll eat anything. It also is experimenting with a new concept called the McDonald's Snack Station, which serves things such as soup and chili, cookies, popcorn and muffins. How are things going? Let's go to an unbiased journalist. John Glennon, who works for the Tennessean of Nashville, said the chocolate shakes are "the best I've ever had." That the operation runs as smoothly as it does is a minor miracle, considering workers do not always speak the same language and are used to working in different ways. Cindy Dolder, 20, came from a McDonald's in Switzerland, where she said many of the restaurant's sandwiches are premade and "preserved." On the other hand, she prefers the flavor of the Swiss burgers and fries. Dolder also said American workers seem way too serious. "In Switzerland there is music and we're talking all the time," she said. She apparently hasn't been to the McDonald's at the athletes' village, where the employees have taken to spontaneously singing the Village People's YMCA and have gotten the Russian and Brazilian bobsled teams to sing and dance along. But from Dolder's perspective at the media center, "Here, everyone is really strict," she said. Maybe that's why, Roberts said, "If I can do my job in my store, I can do it in any store." It was that kind of confidence that helped carry Roberts, Joseph and Wansor to the world's biggest sporting event and reaped for them a bit of celebrity back home. During a going-away party at the McDonald's near the University of South Florida campus they were put on a victory podium and cheered. Caspers Company McDonald's Restaurants, which owns the facilities at which the women work, gave each $200 spending money. "It's hard to put into words what this meant to them," Bob Conigliaro, the company's vice president of community relations, said of the trip. "An opportunity like this is an opportunity of a lifetime." Wansor said there is no pressure working at the most professionally staffed McDonald's in the world. Nor will there be pressure back home to live up to her Olympic billing. "They don't expect any more of me than I expect of myself," she said.
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