On the one hand, I loved working for Wendy's during my college years going into my adulthood when I had a chance to work for the company during the years Dave Thomas was our mentor. I met his several times and he was everything he was on commercials and more.
Then, on the other hand, I left a year after he departed the company.
And everything went to hell very quickly.
Instead of promoting from within and using the bench strength that was well schooled in Dave's Way, the company started hiring the most worthless and unethical people ever to be employed - the Pepsi people - the Pizza Hut people. These people were without equivocation the dirtiest and most unethical people I've ever met or worked for.
I beat feet taking my 16 years of Wendy's experience that included being a training store manager for a unit doing $1.5 million annual sales in 1997 dollars.
It is now with this contempt for Wendy's that I view their recent issue with a sense of glee. After ruining Frosty's (making a contemptible vanilla flavor that violates Dave's vision of chocolate only), taking the french fries that were substantial and industry best and turning them into cardboard with peels, and screwing with burgers by removing the human hand from cooking a proper burger and employing the worthless McDonald's clamshell, two sided cooking system (Dave would be rolling over in his grave if he saw this), news is out that Wendy's is going to fuck with its chicken sandwich - again.
I started with Wendy's some two months after the chicken sandwich was added to the menu in 1981. At that time, this was a great product - it arrived in bags as frozen raw chicken (don't fret, that is how your chicken breasts come to your grocery store from Perdue today) - and we thawed it - then we took the thawed raw chicken breasts and dipped them in real butter milk and then hand breaded every chicken in flour with pepper. And then we fried it.
Without a doubt this was the best ever chicken sandwich you could buy and would make the people over at the mad cow chicken place jealous. They didn't invent the chicken sandwich. They just added the sugar and pickles.
Along the way, Wendy's fucked with its burgers around 1986 by changing the orientation of the meat fibers which was supposed to prevent the burgers from needing to be four corner pressed. What resulted was a tough burger with no flavor even though pepper was now mixed with the salt which was the previous method of seasoning.
After the public hated the revised burgers, we went back to the original way and all was well.
Fat old fashion cut fries were replaced with thinner ones (though fatter than McDonald's). Out went the open french fry boats that had it so you could put ketchup on the fries without dumping them onto something else out of a stand up fry container.
Did you know that Wendy's pattied its own meat several times a day in the restaurant out of 20 pound bags of fresh ground beef? This stopped when fingers of stupid employees started to get mixed with the burgers after being lopped off by the machine. The meat then came in fresh but it was pre-pattied in 4 sleeves per case.
The Chicken Sandwich got its first disgusting makeover when the fresh and great product was replaced by a dead common frozen patty that was joined by a spicy chicken alternative and chicken nuggets that were supposed to be crispy but never were.
After I left, another tampering with the Chicken Sandwich resulted in the one that has been panned by many leading up to the $30 million search for a better chicken.
Meanwhile Wendy's has, since I left in the late 1990's, been historically incompetent at holding times and serving quality products by people who gave a flying fuck. This is not due to my departure, but it is due to the changes happening when I couldn't take any more. Not only is it hit and miss at Wendy's (busy periods might get a fresher product) but dare not ever visit a Wendy's outside of noon to 1:30 p.m. You have been warned. I've tried this so many times that I've given up. Even one of the busiest Wendy's that gives the best product I've had in years during lunch gave me the worst meal at 4 p.m. that I've ever had.
And now you can read about Wendy's changing their chicken sandwich.
It is a shame they don't change employees, managers, and the assholes at corporate who have driven this company into the ground.
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