28 McDonalds Employees Tell All About The Disgusting Things They’ve Seen At The PlayPlace

The following entries have been collected from users on Reddit about their respective workplaces… Thought Catalog has not verified the veracity of their claims, but has collected the more interesting points of the conversation happening over on Reddit. Head over to the post for more.
image - Flickr / Nicholas Eckhart
image – Flickr / Nicholas Eckhart

1. Evil little genius

Some little kid shit in the twisty slide but its in the middle of the slide the kids at the top couldn’t see it, so kids would slide down unknowingly into a makeshift shit-n-slide and get shit on their backs, face, back of their head, hands, etc. It was horrendously disgusting. Worse day of life.

2. That ball pit is basically shit, piss, and food

Kids literally take their happy meals in there and forget. Heavier things are always at the bottom (cheeseburgers) then there is a layer of chicken mcnuggets and such. 50% of the ball pit is in fact edible. 25% balls. 25% poop

3. They don’t call it the Golden Arches for no reason

An old couple were with their grandchild. They sat at one of the tables that had the tubes running over it. Kid pissed in the tunnels above, piss dripped down all over the old people and their food.

4. Uhh…

I remember a news story that involved a 13-year-old boy raping a five year old girl in a McPlayplace once. It was incredibly sad…

He was caught when his parents saw wanted signs showing images of him from the security tape. They turned him in.

5. Left children there without a guardian

A lady left her 2 young children in the play place four hours while she went to the thrift store shopping. Eventually a nice old woman came and told me they were there and didn’t seem to have a guardian present. So of course I called the cops. When she finally returned she admitted that she does it a few times a week. Another time I was getting ready to lock up for the night and I noticed smoke coming from under the door of the play place. I was quite surprised to find 4 older men smoking pot and cigarettes sliding and giggling.

6. I would’ve quit too

My friend used to work there and quit after this particular day.

There was a kids birthday party in the play area. A really fat kid ate a lot of ice cream cake and decided to play in the ball pit. Apparently there were like a dozen kids in this pit when all of a sudden they were getting out and had stains on their shirt. What looked like this fat kid playing under the balls was him actually ducking under to puke. They caught him doing it and immediately asked him to leave.

Now picture this, a kid pukes in multiple locations in a ball pit with a dozen other kids running around in it mixing them around. The entire ball pit had puke spread throughout it. When her manager asked her and 2 other people to clean it up, she flat out quit and I don’t blame her.

We still bother her about it today and even put one of those plastic balls on top of her birthday cake last year, just to fuck with her.

7. This is really great

McDickhole’s employee here. No play place at my location, but I’m going to vent about mostly irrelevant things so you all have some insight about working fast food.

Lunch rush, eight hour shift, hungover as fuck working the register. People ordering “happy meal.” Not specifying which happy meal, just fucking saying, “a happy meal.” Me: “which happy meal would you like?” Parent bends down to their child to ask, child mumbles, hides head in shame. Meanwhile, the line is growing longer and the customers more disgruntled. A bead of sweat begins to form on my brow as the mother tells her child to tell me which meal. An eternity elapses before mere infant utters its first, incomprehensible words. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” Once again, child whispers something in Gaelic. “Uh, I’m sorry I didn’t quite get that.”

Small baby babbles, parent will not clarify. Time to guess! Orders a large sweet tea, three mcdoubles, and a large fry. She’s watching her weight so she asks for no salt on the fries. sees no irony in this. We have to make a whole new batch of fries for this request. She stops talking. “Will that be all for you?” She says yes, but what she meant to say was no because she continues to order more food almost as soon as I press the pay now button on the register. Orders more lard. “Alright, will that be for here or to go?” “uhhhh…..” looks to child, gazes towards dining room, looks up for something, *anything, she just wants a sign* “uhh forrrrr….. go.”

My brain has now melted. Blood trickles out of my ear. There is no “for go” button on my register, so I make a guess once again. I know there’s no way I’ve gotten this order correct. I accept defeat.

“Alright, that’ll be $23.67” The woman’s face drops. The room is absolutely silent except for the racing beat of my heart. “I thought sweet teas were a dollar. They used to be a dollar all over the country.” Her rage is building as I stutter,” They used to be, but now they’re $1.19.” That extra nineteen cents is blood money in this business. Nostrils flare, a pissed off sigh, she wants me to change the price even though I am clearly a minimum wage employee, not the CEO of McDonalds. “You people are robbing us blind!” Woman has mistaken me for a commissioned salesperson instead of a cashier. She now proceeds to go through the price of every item she ordered only to find that yes, indeed, our register is capable of simple addition. She hands me a twenty,three ones, and a bucket of change that somehow only amounts to sixty-five cents. “I”m sorry, I still need two more cents.” Rolls her eyes, but forks it over. “Alright, your order number will be 267!”

The order has taken all but two, maybe three minutes tops, but by now the once orderly line has turned into an impatient lynch mob. They feel hunger, not for McChickens or those precious McNuggets, but for blood. I, on the hand, thirst for liberation. My lips manage to bend awkwardly into a smile as I say, “I can help whoever’s next!” A large man walks over and O Fortuna begins playing.

“Are you guys still serving breakfast?”

It is 2 p.m.

“Oh, alright then. I’ll just have a shamrock shake.”

It is December.

8. Played hard

Two teens hid in the ball pits and went at it :/

9. Ergh, ugh, that’s really gross

Some fucking kid climbed all the way to the top slide and took his goddamn pants off and slid down the slide. Problem is, he shat the whooooole way down. There was a fucking trail of shit spanning the entire second-half of the slide.

We only found out because some other fucking kid slid down that slide and came out covered in chunky-liquid shit and crying uncontrollably.

10. A dare

I’m not an employee but when my brother and I were younger I dared him to take a shit under the slide, then we put some rocks over his shit. Every time we went back there we’d visit his shit. One time when we lifted the rocks the shit had turned white. After a few years when we went back it had gone and we were both a little sad.

11. Disgusting parents, they deserve a punch to the guts

Had this fat kid get stuck in it and when I was sent in to pull him out, I got sued for “reckless endangerment of a child and inappropriate contact with a child.” I seriously wanted to punch the parents. Fuckers got me fired and held up in court for 3 months.

12. Not McDonald’s, but…

I will now tell the story of the best thing I ever saw in playland. This was at Burger King, not Macdonald’s. In the South these things are all simply called “playland”.

A few years ago me and my kids were eating at Burger King and of course we had to eat in playland because kids. Burger King had at this time installed talking garbage cans in there. It was probably intended as a way to get kids to throw their own trash away so employees wouldn’t have to do it so much. Whoever designed those things knew nothing about children.

When you put trash into the talking trash can, pushing your garbage in past that plastic spring-loaded flap which says THANK YOU on it, the trash can would say “Thanks for the garbage!” or something like that. You know, things a talking trash can would say.

ANY PARENT could tell you what would happen next. Children know that trash cans can not actually speak. So each successive child, having been congratulated by the trash can, would do the obvious thing, and put his head inside the trash can to see who is in there.

Then the spring-loaded THANK YOU flap would swing shut and grab the children by the neck in the manner of a squirrel trap, and they could not get their heads back out, and there would be flailing and muffled screaming, and they would have to be rescued by their Mom.

This happened over and over and OVER. Kids of a certain age will put their heads in a talking trash can even if they just saw the last kid get garroted by it. It kind of makes them even more curious. Just one kid after another getting choked by this evil instrument of torture. “THANKS FOR THE TRASH!”

It was the best thing I have ever seen. Kids leave, new kids take their place, new victims for the magic trash can. I never got tired of it. Next time we went to Burger King they weren’t there any more but I hope someday they will come back for another try.

13. If you’re morbidly obese as a 12-year-old, your parent’s shouldn’t take you to McDonalds

One time, a fat kid. not just a kind of chubby, but morbidly obese 2-300 lbs 12-year-old decided he wanted to go in. I see him go in. About 2-5 min later, I hear crying coming from the tubes. Apparently the kid got stuck.

14. This guy had a good time, though

Not bad at all, I found like 4 original gameboy games in the ball pit once. Games including Tetris and Donkey Kong.

15. Kids are double shits

Never seen any shit at McDonald’s, but as a parent I confirm the PlayPlace is full of fucking turds.

Raise your kids better, McParents.

16. Okay, not the PlayPlace, but this is just disgusting

I can recall one time our shake machine wasn’t running well, the shakes would come out very slow, they took forever to fill the cup. It was like that for quite a while. When they finally brought someone in to take it apart, he discovered a cockroach stuck in the shake tube. All of the shakes we had been serving were filtered through that roach.

17. Is this like, a thing, smearing shit, taking a shit, inside tubes

Some kid smeared his shit on the inside of the tube, had to call in a cleaning company to take care of it.

18. Not an employee, but…

Not an employee, but I found a pair of rusty scissors in the ball pit when I was 6. Gave them to a staff member and got free ice cream!

19. “Never finished my chicken nuggets”

Not a McDonalds employee or the main character in this story, but I knew this kid. We were both playing in the PlayPlace and running around and what not, normal stuff. He’s playing in the truck with the elevating dirt scoop that you can control. As I approach it smells really bad. I look around the corner and he’s sitting there having a blast screaming and making noises, with a pile of his fresh shit sitting right next to him. No fucks given, he just kept on playing. I never finished my chicken nuggets.

20. This is so sad

Hard times at the PlayPlace. Got a call from central dispatch, they asked me to check in a tripped alarm at the local Mickey D’s. It wasn’t a big PlayPlace only a 2 on the Ronald scale, but I had a feeling something significant was just waiting to happen. The big surprise, though, was that nothing happened, until I looked into the double immelman exterior slide. A small girl, only about five or seven years old, clutching a greasy take out bag, it looked heavy, plump full of the unknown. I took the girl inside to the kids section and asked her a couple questions, she was homeless, got forced to rob the place by her street friends, thought it would be an easy job. When I finally looked into the bag to see what the loot was, I was taken aback.

McNuggets.

Patrolling the McDonald’s almost makes me wish for a nuclear winter

21. A petri dish

Our PlayPlace was replaced with videogames and a giant crawl-in happy meal box quite a few years back. It’s all in a glass room. That place is disgusting. Children leave food in there, puke, and even go to the bathroom. Also, quite a few employees have hooked up in the giant happy meal box.

22. But starting at the top makes most sense

My sister had to clean piss that went from the top of the slide to the bottom. She started at the top like an idiot, and lost her footing.

23. Why is this all about poop

Mcdonalds employee here. Hired April 10 2014. A few days go by and I start my first day. Manager shows me how to clean the lobby and than the PlayPlace. I just finished mopping the lobby and move into the PlayPlace.

Before work I eat a family size bag of Lays chips to myself and a bowl of rice, I haven’t eaten all day so I didn’t think I would have a problem at work. As I’m mopping I can feel the rumble in my stomach and I knew that I was going to need to drop one of the biggest shits. I didn’t want to use the employee bathroom because it’s on the other end of the building and near the people I’ll be working with for the next while. Soo.. the closest bathroom is in the PlayPlace.

It was perfect for me because the restaurant was dead and I knew no one was going to come into the PlayPlace as I’m cleaning… Wow was I wrong. So I finish the first round of the shitpocalypse in the smallest bathroom I’ve been in. I walk out and of course a family are right outside the door eating and watching their children play. Instant regret hits me like a ton of bricks.

I leave the PlayPlace and tell my manager I finished cleaning, I get told “I just checked and you need to change the garbage”. “Fuck!” said my conscious. I go back and BOOM.. I’m either going to shit my pants or I need to get to the bathroom and start round 2. I didn’t think to knock and as I open the PlayPlace bathroom I see a kid taking a shit with her parents right behind me giving me the dirtiest look. I apologize profusely and run into the lobby to use the guest bathroom. Nope, locked.
Female bathroom was my only choice and I didn’t give a shit if I was noticed. I destroyed that bathroom, if you entered it I know for a fact you’d be gagging. I’m relieved and go back to the PlayPlace to change the bathroom garbage. Before I enter I apologize again for walking in on their daughter taking a shit and I ask if anyone is in the bathroom. The dad replies with a smirk “Oh there’s no one in there anymore, just the smell you left”.

24. And that’s how you close an establishment

It started as a fairly average Monday morning. Began my shift as usual and watched over the kids. For the most part there weren’t too many incidents. A couple of kids got into a small fight but we usually don’t step in unless it’s anything serious.

Anyway, it was getting kind of late, and I only had an hour left. Two kids got into a pretty big argument, (lots of hair pulling, pushing etc.) I was feeling pretty tired that day, probably still hungover from the night before. Didn’t really bother to do anything because it looked like their parents noticed anyway.

One of the kids was fairly older than the other one, and the mother of the younger kid was pretty pissed off that her kid was being bullied. The mother of the older kid was your typical lazy parent who doesn’t give a shit about what their child gets up to, and insisted it wasn’t her problem.

Now, the mother of the younger kid looked extremely pissed off before they had even begun to talk. I could visibly see her face growing redder and redder as each second passed. She told the other mom that she should bother to raise her kid properly, and said that her daughter should give her child an apology.

The mother just shrugged it off and turned away. Apparently the mother of the younger girl didn’t like that, because within seconds, she had grabbed her by the hair and slammed her face into one of the plastic slides.

The rest of the kids simply watched in horror as the mother proceeds to push the woman headfirst into the ball pit while desperately trying to kick her in the head. The last thing I saw, she jumped up and tried to elbow drop her pro-wrestling style.

Quickly got my manager who called the police. The mother was thrown into the police car, and I’m pretty sure they had to get an ambulance for the other women. Needless to say, the playplace was closed early that day. They didn’t reopen it for almost a week.

25. Kids are awful

My friend used to work at McDonalds. He says that once, a kid pooped in the tubes above where people ate, so everyone smelt poop when they ate. It was found a couple hours later and he had to get rid of it.

26. I wish she was institutionalized instead

Kid vomited and proceeded to pick up fistfuls of chunks and throw them at other children, who then vomited.

We closed the playplace for like two weeks to have the whole thing heavy duty cleaned and sterilized by a hire-out company. A woman got pissed off that her kids couldn’t play. She yelled “I’ll show you clean,” ripped the hazard tape off the door, broke the lock on the door, and proceeded to put her finger down her throat and barf all over.

This was right before I quit. The last thing I heard she was trying to sue our owner, stating that the chemicals in the playplace (which she broke into) made her so sick she was hospitalized.

27. Ya’ll ain’t getting paid enough to deal with this shit

One time I was working the late shift on a Saturday and I start to see people leaving the play area in a hurry so I poke around and try and see what’s going on. When I finally get a good look I see a man that looks like a an average joe walking around the play place. I did a double take and saw VERY large knife on his side, and he wasn’t trying to hide it. He was pacing back and forth and it looked like he was talking to himself. So 16 year old me was freaking out. So I called the police then got my manager and she instructed all of us to stay in the back (it was real late and close to closing so we weren’t worried about customers) while she handles it. Soon the cops show up get the man in cuffs and take him away. I wasn’t in any real danger but that was the weird/creepiest thing that happened… well until this crack head lookin mother fucker busts open the doors and starts yelling about how we need to let him use our phone.

28. Not a McDonald’s employee, but…

One time my son pooped his pants in the play area. When I realized it i went up and cleaned it up. Before I was done someone told the staff about it. So I’m up there cleaning up poop and see the McDonald’s employee. I said “Don’t worry about it I got it all” and he said ”thanks, that’s the first time that’s happened.” Feeling embarrassed I said “The first time a kid has pooped on the playground?” “Oh heck no, ” he said ”that happens about once a week. This is the first time a parent has cleaned it up themselves.”

That was enough to make me change my mind on how much McDonald’s employees deserve to get paid. Sheesh. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

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