Chances are someone you know has probably worked at McDonald’s. What might surprise you are, and you might be surprised by the recognizable names among them – Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, former White House chief of staff Andrew Card, actress Andie MacDowell and LA Dodgers second baseman Jerry Hairston Jr., to name a few.
The lessons they say they learned as teens and young adults earning their first real paychecks – good work habits, being part of a team, taking responsibility – are the same values McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc taught his first employees more than a half-century ago.
They are the same ones that since have been taught to an estimated 20 million Americans who, at one point or another, have pinned a McDonald’s name tag on their shirts. That number grows each year by another nearly 400,000 new teen recruits.