There are about sixty-nine million McDonald's customers served each day. Many people don’t notice their social movements and interactions. Everyone uses them and carefully judges and analyzes other people. I went to a local McDonald’s and analyzed the location, their clothing options, and how they interacted with one another. With the information at McDonald’s, I will present a Sociological Observation.
The physical setting of the McDonald's was very clean during my time there they wiped the seats and tables and swept and mopped the floor. Due to the fact, that McDonald's is a fast food restaurant key objects are cash registers, tables, seats, and public restrooms. The mood of the McDonald’s was very calm and serene because there tended to be fewer customers in the afternoon around 5-10 pm. A mores is employees have to follow are being polite and having great customer service. Showing teamwork, respect, accountability, integrity, and innovation. According to McDonald’s website, “Workers should have ethical, truthful, and dependable and reflect through standards of business conduct.” In this particular McDonald’s the 3’s rule is enforced no shirt no shoes no service. During my stay, I saw a worker getting in trouble for violating the rules for talking to customers for non-related reasons to his job.
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Most often customers just ordered their food and had limited interactions with the employees. Workers would interact more when there were no customers. During the observation, a total of 12 dyads, 3 single, a group of 4 men, and one family. customers showed up. Which meant most people came in with some other companion. Out of those groups, only 2 stayed to eat. People stayed no longer than 15 minutes. People tend to be louder when they are not alone. For example, a group of 4 men seemed to be louder than a man who came in by himself. Most often people interacted more with their group than with others because they knew themselves personally. (Chapter 5: Groups within society) Another observation was kids usually order more when their parents are present rather than alone. Two friends came in and knew what they were going to buy with the money they had. On the other hand, the children in the family took their time to decide what they were going to order. Customers mainly dressed very casually. Employees wore a uniform. (Chapter 2: Material culture)
Ascribed statuses are siblings, mother, father, male, and female. Examples of achieved statuses at McDonald’s are customers, cashiers, and managers. (Chapter 4: components of social structure) A cashier's role is to take people's orders and make sure the customer is satisfied. A customer's role is to purchase an item. A manager's role is to manage the worker's tasks and avoid chaos. All of these statuses are at this location because it is a fast-food restaurant. People at McDonald’s are part of an aggregate group. There are other types of groups a family, for instance, would be a primary group. (Chapter 5: Groups within society) The leader of the McDonald’s workers is the manager and they are an instrumental leader and the style would be authoritarian. What I learned by observing McDonald’s sociologically is lots of people are afraid to break their comfort zones and stay within the boundaries they know of and why workers and customers act due to social and cultural norms.
To summarize, I observed customers and employees to give a sociological observation. Many different people visit McDonald's every day. They all have a common factor the way they dress, how they interact, statuses, and roles. And most of it is influenced by social and cultural norms. “People act to the outside the way they feel on the inside.”- Tracy McMillan
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