A burger a day...

I don't even remember how we got on this subject, but Holly and I were talking about (oh yeah, I just remembered how we got on the subject) McDonalds and the meaning of their signs that say "Millions served" or "Billions served" or even "Billions and Billions served".

At first we considered the possibility that each individual McDonalds has a sign based on their individual history. Consider this for a McDonalds that has been operating for 50 years:
1 billion hamburgers = 20 million hamburgers per year = 54794 hamburgers per day.

At first glance, that didn't seem too unreasonable for a large McDonalds in a good location. But if we break it down further:

54794 hamburgers per day = 2283 hamburgers per hour = 38 hamburgers per minute.

That's roughly a hamburger every 2 seconds. Every two seconds. 365 days a year, for 50 years without stopping to qualify for "Billions served".

Obviously then, it must be that the signs are representative of some larger entity than a single restaurant. Why then, do different restaurants have different signs? Ah, that is something to consider in another post.

Something about the image of McDonalds workers scrambling to serve a hamburger every two seconds without stopping for 50 years was very humorous to me. When could they train new people? I suppose if they started at 16 and worked until they retired, serving hamburgers without sleeping or eating, they wouldn't have to train any new employees...

-The Krunchy Krab