Raymond Boyd/Getty ImagesMcDonald's has 99 problems and a chicken wing is one (they have 10 million pounds of Mighty Wings to get rid of—oops!). And this report certainly isn't going to help: McDonald's is the most hated company in America.
(For what it's worth, we don't hate them—they came in 12 out of 20 in our fast food ranking!)
24/7 Wall St. recently released the report and explained that companies who made the list this year "may frustrate customers with poor service, anger employees with unpleasant working conditions or low pay, and fail shareholders with poor returns." (Get a detailed description of the data used to compile the list here.)
So what sins did McDonald's commit? 24/7 Wall St. explains:
"The company has, between its owned and operated stores and franchises, hundreds of thousands of employees who earn barely more than the minimum wage. A recent study conducted by the National Employment Law Project (NELP) found that McDonald's employees rely more on public assistance programs than any other large fast-food company, with an estimated $1.2 billion in costs to the public."
"Making matters worse, McDonald's advised some of its employees to sell their possessions to make-up for holiday spending debt," they claim. "[Their] hotline designated to help its workers live on their modest incomes encouraged employees to apply for food stamps."
Other companies who made the list include Abercrombie & Fitch, lululemon and Blackberry.
This literally could not come at a worse time for Mickey D's. Not only are they dealing with the backlash from unhappy employees (see above for why), but they also have a very contentious group of old men on their hands.
The New York Times (yes, the New York Times) reports that a McDonald's location in Queens, N.Y. has been plagued by 70-something year old men who arrive "as early as 5 a.m. and often linger until well after dark."
The McDonald's recently took action by calling the police:
"They ordered us out," Mr. Lee said from his seat in the same McDonald's booth a week after the incident, beneath a sign that said customers have 20 minutes to finish their food. (He had already been there two hours.) "So I left," he said.
"Then I walked around the block and came right back again."
"It's a McDonald's," the manager of that particular McDonald's said. "Not a senior center."
Good news for Mr. Lee and his gang of old men who are spending 12 plus hours a day in a fast food restaurant (who has that much time on their hands?! And why would they want to spend it at McDonald's?!) and bad news for everyone else, here is a map of all the McDonald's in the U.S.:
Stephen Von Worley compiled this map for Data Pointed in 2009, showing "the distance to the nearest McDonald's." At the time there were "13,000-or-so" U.S. restaurants, though, in 2012, McDonald's corporate offices claimed there were more than 14,000.
The furthest you can get from a McDonald's? 107 miles in South Dakota.
That's a lot of McDonald's. Maybe if you ration the amount of hatred out per restaurant it doesn't seem so bad!