Does anyone here work at McDonald’s?

[ReachersAbs]

DS has had a job there for about 6 months and we cannot work out between us how to use the online portal thing to request days off (as in, say on x week I can’t do Saturday but can do other days instead, when Saturday is a usual working day). Every time we’ve tried it’s gone down as annual leave and now we have a family wedding to go to in August and he may not have any leave left.
can anyone advise?

Hopeful bump

My DD works in McD’s and she talks about “taking days out of her availability”. So when she’s at uni she takes weekends out of her availability, or if she has a day out planned she’ll take that out of her availability.

Requesting holiday is different, because they get holiday pay.

I work there. Instead of time off you should be able to go onto day off on the left hand side on the menu. Click on that. Click add new and add the date you want off. If you want it as holiday click that on drop down menu when you add a new holiday date. If you look on your payslips it should tell you how much holiday you have left.

These are so helpful, thank you. Will look again when he wakes up

Surely he has access to a number of people who work at McD’s when he’s at work - why doesn’t he just ask them?

Has he asked his manager ?

Can he just ask someone he works with or his manager?

You’d think so wouldn’t you? Unfortunately he’s incredibly shy and spends his whole life apologising for his existence, so essentially he’s really anxious about rocking the boat and has this strange idea that he will get in trouble for asking. We’re working on that in relation to lots of areas and the fact that he got and is doing OK in this job is fantastic given his self confidence issues. I’m usually inclined to let him take his own actions on his own time but this is an important thing with a time limit, he can’t miss the wedding as it’s his brothers but he feels like he’s doing something wrong by asking for a shift change.

Can't speak for McDonalds specifically but everywhere I've ever worked similar your contracted day is your contracted day. If you want it off, then you have to take it as annual leave (or beg a colleague to switch with you). Is Saturday written into his contract?

I would imagine lots of McDonald's staff are on zero hours contracts

No, he’s contracted for 20 hours a week, but the usual pattern is one weekday and Saturday and Sunday. Which is fine 90% of the time but then he panics if he needs to change the days because he thinks they’re going to get annoyed with him.

@ReachersAbs I worked at McDonalds years ago. I was painfully shy with no confidence. Honestly working there was the best thing i did for it, it made me believe in myself and gave me confidence! I think being in a uniform than just 'me' helped do that. I hope it has the same effect on your son. I am now know at my current workplace as being one of the more confident people!

Aww I love this, brought a tear to my eye. He’s adopted and always struggled with finding his place in the world but I’m so proud of the young man he’s becoming. I keep saying to him that for things to change and to experience great things he needs to learn to be OK with feeling a little bit uncomfortable to start with and if he does these things often enough that won’t feel uncomfortable any more. I’m sure he will get there, and I promise I’m not normally a helicopter mum, it’s just because there is a time frame on this and I can’t work out the booking system either to advise him on how to deal with it!