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They were fortunate that it was a McDonalds and not a megachurch.

Golden arches to the rescue.

*McShelter

I really love the stories of people helping each other during this storm.

But still made then purchase something if they wanted to use the restroom.

That is real leadership and kindness in action. I would be so proud of these folks if I was their manager. I hope the owner and corporate thanked them all and rewarded them. Big love!

good to hear it

I remember a pastor installed water sprinkler around his church because homeless were sleeping around the church.

In Georgia state or something like that

Was this an "in general" sort of comment or did some shitty megachurch do that with this specific storm?

I will say, none of the megachurches in my areas would ever do society a favor.

Reference: Joel Osteen - Lakewood Church supposedly closed during and after Hurricane Harvey as well as during the Texas Snowpocalyse. Some sources indicate this is false.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/02/19/fact-check-joel-osteens-lakewood-church-open-texas-winter-storm/4503362001/

Keeping all them lights on is expensive.

Its a Mcsave

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Real talk - they’ll likely be reprimanded by their RGM, and the RGM will need to sit in on a meeting about why it’s irresponsible to allow non-employees into an establishment for an extended period of time.

The employees will likely be compensated in the form of a stern talking to during the middle of a lunch rush. The solace can be found in a store manager having to repeat the conversation six times while swapping employees out.

This is in Buffalo, the same place where a man broke in to a high school to save 20 people from the cold. He's being heralded by the local press as a hero.

Corporate McDonald's isn't stupid. They won't reprimand anyone. They might even give a small incentive for PR.

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Oh, there will be PR a plenty.

The store will be reprimanded though, I can assure you.

Especially if they were told by their management to close. If the AGM called and said close the store, and they instead kept it open against a direct order to close it, someone just may lose their job.

Double especially if any of the food was served.

They’re lovin it

You sure seem to be very confident about something you have no idea about. It's cute.

The media would have you think that everyone hates one another so this definitely qualifies as uplifting

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Work for corporate america, what he's saying isn't 100% of the time, but the odds are more than 50%. Higher if they didn't charge for the coffee and food.

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Mormon church did this just a few weeks ago: https://kutv.com/newsletter-daily/provo-temple-break-in-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints-utah-county-university-parkway

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Yep. Live in Georgia. Tons of megachurches down here, all of them with various scandals and rich ass pastors.

“Free Chapel” is a multimillion dollar company. My elderly MIL who lives on social security donates $100/mo to them to “help the children” and goes without food if she has to to afford the donation because “they need it more than I do”

(We can’t get power of attorney over her, we’ve tried, Georgia sucks)

Also, looks like the sprinkler one was at St Mary’s in San Francisco. The Georgia scandal most recently is a megachurch pastor who stepped down when it came out that he was soliciting (male) minors for sex. Love that for us.

Good people here!!!

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It was tragic in that so many people died but in terms of human response, it really shows the goodness of people that not more people did and so many helped one another.

When I was ~4, my family moved to a small town in Kansas from Southern California

We hadn’t found a house yet and were living in an apartment during that time. We were at a laundromat when the tornado sirens went off one day.

I don’t remember much, just being confused about what the alarm meant and why everyone was freaking out. Anyway, we noticed some folks across the street motioning for us to come over.

It was a McDonalds and we all ran over and went to the basement. I don’t really remember for sure, but I feel like they gave us cookies that were like shortbread maybe? They were the shapes of the McDonald’s characters if I remember correctly.

It’s kinda funny, thanks to that, my first tornado experience was a somewhat positive one, thanks to those McDonalds employees…which is kinda wild.

I’ll tell you, the real tragedy of the night was mom cutting us off at two packs of cookies each….we could have had as many as we wanted!

What a way to spin the fact that you had your employees come to and stay at work when it was unsafe to drive... At a drive through restaurant.

Thank You WKBW, whimpy kitty baby whiners!

you seem to think corporate cares. Which is very wierd.

I worked in the dining hall at a university. I guess one student came back the sunday morning at the end of spring break. I saw him sitting in the lobby at like 8am. I offered to let him sit inside and have some of the breakfast and subsequent lunch that was prepared for the crew before we opened at 5pm. I reminded him that there was limited options because we had a small staff getting restocked for the return of students and he was grateful. He just sat at a table and worked in his laptop. The one shift manager gave me a hard time for letting this one student in. Like give me a break.

Oh you just unearthed an ancient memory with those cookies! Glad you were able to find shelter.

What does this mean?

To be fair I do question why they weren’t sent home earlier, this storm wasn’t a big surprise. I would probably question that part.

But I’m glad they turned it into a humanitarian positive and something good came out of it.

Hoping that corporate doesn’t get too wild about it.

I hadn’t thought about them in years! I hope it was a good memory unearthed!

And thanks!

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They also tried to say what a great sense of community while ignoring a dozen households told those people to get fucked

No they won't. If that got out it would be a pr nightmare.

Seriously. What a world. Is it any wonder why people aren’t going to church anymore?

I love to hear it.

It was scary being there and hit out of nowhere. I'll praise those who helped, but I won't chastise those who didn't.

People literally turned them away when they came up to their doors seeking shelter…

Sorry, working for McDonalds tends to skew your view of corporate America.

I did five months, my wife was upper management for six years. She was fired because she didn’t go to work after ex landed her in the hospital after beating her senseless.

The person who fired her was her BiL.

So, again, tell me how awesome corporate America is?

They got a pizza party

Good thing McDonalds employees are barred from speaking to any form of media regarding their employment. If they’d like to keep their job that is.

And McD’s bread and butter is financially unstable, dependent and low skilled employees.

I mean, I'm pretty sure that's illegal to fire someone for missing work because they were hospitalized?

You mean you didnt have to pay for any of the food and drinks?

I think it was just cookies and water, still a nice gesture

People have been told since they are kids don't just strangers into your house. It is also the plot to a thousand movies about someone letting a kind stranger into their house.

I don't blame people who turned them away. You hear stories about bad things all the time in the news. It's fucked up that you can't trust people but that's the reality.

… it’s not a great sense of community that a man led a group of stranded people house to house getting denied 12 times forcing them to break into a school

Yea that doesn't sound like the fault of corporate America in this case. She was fired illegally. This sounds like a family member abusing their power over personal issues.

People started to circulate on social media that there was a group of people asking for shelter and then once inside, would rob them. No evidence that this ever happened, but I don't blame people for not letting someone into their home.

Nobody is blaming them, it’s not a sense of community lol. Nothing I said faulted their reasoning, but it’s absolutely not a sense of community

Where in Kansas? Always happy to see another Kansan

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Grew up in Emporia and now in the Kansas City area, you?

Yooo! Grew up in Erie (SEK) and recently graduated college in Wichita where I live. Gf lived in Topeka so I frequented emporia.

Erie sounds familiar, but I’m not placing it….I’m guessing Empo is “big” compared?

I drove through Topeka to Manhattan yesterday for work!

Small world….ever eat at Merchant Street BBQ in Empo?

Erie is a middle-of-nowhere town in Southeast KS. Easy to miss. Emporia is right between Topeka and Wichita, so it was a good halfway for us.

I haven’t eaten at Merchant Street but I’m always down for BBQ places! Thanks for the rec

One story doesn't dictate the entire event. The amount of stories coming out of this storm 100 percent shows a sense of community, even if they are not getting coverage nationwide.

Nice! I have had clients in Wichita some and my brother worked there for awhile, I enjoy old town, or I used to!

Yeah, I can’t remember if it’s called Merchant Street BBQ or Bobby D’s, but it’s the best bbq in town, IMO….and their cheesy potatoes are great

It’s right by the 5th and 6th grade buildings and the post office

Ice cream yeah?

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Maybe pay attention to the weather so you don’t get stranded, and then you won’t have to be mad at people for being afraid of stranger danger.

The real problem here is kinda the culture of America rn. We just don’t trust each other like that. It’s great that someone did help these people and I believe we should all do that when we see others in our communities in need. But with the extreme violence we endure in this country I absolutely understand those that choose not to help bc there’s always a chance some lunatic will take advantage of the situation, and that’s just worst case scenario. On a less extreme degree there could be some kind of disagreement between people that could escalate very quickly and end up violent. In this country u never rly know who’s just waiting to pop off, or what could happen to set someone off.

I'm sorry but no, I don't think this dystopia your painting is real. Retail jobs right now are dime a dozen, trust me, I KNOW. Retail stores are currently having great trouble retaining employees, and there are open retail positions anywhere and everywhere. Right now, managers will hire anyone with a pulse (for shitty pay, but that's at MCee-Dees too) and will jump at the chance to hire someone with previous retail experience.

My point is, I promise you that most of these employees would not be devastated if they were fired from their minimum wage McDonalds job.

Not in an at will employment state.

Joel Osteen could learn a thing

Yes, including in one of the 49 at will employment states.

As long as the company is of a certain size, fmla is a federal requirement. I think last time I checked McDonald's had more than 50 employees or whatever the small number is that requires fmla.

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Not sure if you’ve read “Let’s Not Meet,” but this culture is everywhere.

I like this story

Lol, this specific story was people trying to twist it as a great sense of community because 12 households not feeling the community enough to save them so they broke into a school to survive.

That specific community has a poor sense of inclusiveness. There’s no twisting it

That’s a cool argument that discredits nothing I said. It’s not a sense of community which is what they’re claiming.

It’s incredible so many of you are desperate to act like stranger danger makes this a sense of community making them break into schools.

Why are you changing what was said

They’ll be lucky to not be fired.

i spent one flood in a mcd's and never will forget

Some 30 years ago, I managed a Starbucks.

The Seattle area got hit with a freak blizzard no one predicted, and it rolled in so fast, people were just stuck.

We took in about 10 people who were utterly stranded. We all slept there overnight. Thank goodness the power stayed on, which was surprising since we could see substations blowing up around the area and most places were out.

We actually kind of had fun. 10 strangers, chatting, drinking free coffee, eating pastries, I taught a couple folks how to make drinks, which at the time was still kind of novel. We napped with blankets scrounged from various cars. A couple folks got rescued in the middle of the night, but mostly, everyone got a ride by 7am.

Not a bad night really.

...they're gonna get fired by their higher ups somehow. I just know it. No good deed goes unpunished.