No surprises there

Some wise-arse 16 year old must have typed that in the system?

Looking at Meghann's Wiki -- who knew there was a 5 second rule for taking someone's seat? Try that at the next company meeting

I called the Long Lake location shown in the reciept above and they have no knowledge of any 10 second rule. The manager offered to ask his supervisor and get back to me. I wont be holding my breathe for a response. I second the idea that some young kid had is having a laugh or someone with PhotoShop skills is pulling a Photo Spoof.

not to mention that they cant spell "second"

Mcdonald's sure has great spelling skills.

that receipt looks hella fake!
but if its not..thats just plain bad.

That's funny. If I had known it was possible to type messages like that into the system I might not have avoided working for McD's like the plague. Just think of all the fun you could have.

Kudos to Tim Matheson for putting the detective skills to work. There's no better way than to go straight to the source.

Would be freakin funny if Tim Matheson got a call from headquarters telling him it was true, and why did he want to know? (no reason, just confirming...)

The "five-second rule" is obviously a myth. But a few years ago a high-school student decided to test it.

From Snopes.com: "In September 2003, Jillian Clarke, a high school student at the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences, released her findings regarding the 'five second rule.' She performed her tests by dropping Gummi Bears and fudge-striped cookies onto ceramic tiles, some of which had been treated with E. coli, a form of bacteria commonly found in human feces and raw meat and very much a part of our ordinary environment. Cookies and candy have low levels of naturally occurring microflora and are dry, which is why we suspect she chose them for her test. (A wetter foodstuff, such as meat or cheese, might have pulled detritus from the testing floor more quickly than a dry item, making the test results less accurate.)

"Through microscopic examination of the dropped cookies and Gummi Bears, Miss Clarke found E. coli bacteria certainly adhered to the items before five seconds had passed, thereby disproving the 'five-second rule.' "

I wouldn't be surprised if some fast-food restaurants serve food that's touched the floor, but doing so definitely increases the likelihood that people will get sick from eating it.

See now, the version of the '5 second rule' I heard was: if it touched the floor for less than 5 seconds AND you put it back on the grill for 5 seconds then it is okay.

Still gross, but not covered by most of the 'tests' I've read about.

On the other hand, even the technical definition of 'sanitary' is "free of harmful levels of micro-organisms and other contaminants" per the health department's sanitation management classes. (Clean, on the other hand is defined as: "free of visible soil, including but not limited to food particles and dirt"). Just because ecoli is present on something, doesn't mean there's enough of it to make it unsafe.

Consider this: the food you are served in a sit down restaurant is exposed to the air. Air which frequently contains airborne yeasts, molds and other microorganisms. The reason they can bring you food out on trays, exposed to the air is NOT because it is 'hot'. Food is rarely, if ever, served at the 140-180 degrees needed to kill off the nasties. It is allowed to be served because it's still sanitary, not very likely having been exposed to enough airborne organisms to be considered 'harmful levels".

Maybe the "10 SECOUND rule is something completely different and way cooler than the tried and true "10 second rule."

Greet you within 10 seconds.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but even in nice restaurants (mainly during buffets or banquets), if something falls on the floor, it is normal to pick it up and cook it. The first time I ever saw it, my boss, the Exec Chef, stated that he wouldn't serve something he wouldn't eat himself. This was after a Chicken Courdon Bleu fell onto one of those nasty black mats that cooks have behind the line. (I could never do it--too nasty).

BTW, this was a place where eating for two could cost near $100 bucks. >:(

I have no problem with a 10 second rule PRIOR to cooking, hell that's why we cook stuff(well one of the reasons).
The mythbusters also did a test on this I think down to 3 seconds, didn't matter the bacteria got on there just as quickly.

Hopefully this was a joke or what robertseaton said, greet you in 10 seconds.

My first job was at mcdonald's 10 years ago (not that i'm proud of it, but without a car, it was the only option in the small town i grew up) and was told right from the start that if ANYTHING (even wrapped forks, etc) hit the ground for even a second it was gone, even in the walk-in freezer. In 2 years I'd never seen anyone pick up anything off the ground and serve it. It was horrible working there, but if anything their sanitation policies were pretty decent.

Anyone else notice that the zip code for Long Lake, MN is incorrect. According to http://www.usps.com it's 55356-9741 not 00005-5356!

I agree with MarcAnthony, I believe it's fake. The way McDonalds is spelled gives it away (MC.Donalds) Unless the employee that works there is just a tard. Oh wait... it is McDonald's.

Ditto here, when I worked fast food, if it touched the floor it was TRASH. Sad that at a Burger King we had higher standards then a $100 for 2 restaurant.

As well, when I worked at a 'fine' restaurant, the cook was also the same way - it hit the floor? It's no good.

All the restaurants I worked in, if it fell, it was trash as well. Also, I never once saw a waiter do something to a difficult customer's food.

If you kind of tip the monitor of your laptop back so that you're looking at it at an angle, all of a sudden the digital-ness of the letters (and only around the letters) becomes incredibly obvious. You can even see tell what letters some of those used to be. Like: the "e" in "rule" used to be an "s" The "m" in "promote" is a bit dodgy as well. Obviously a photoshopped project.

This is not a fake or a photoshop job. This is the real deal, (I should know, I received the receipt). Why this is showing up now is beyond me, I just know it suddenly became the most popular picture in my wife's flickr collection.

For ritcs09

"Anyone else notice that the zip code for Long Lake, MN is incorrect. According to http://www.usps.com it's 55356-9741 not 00005-5356!"

If you look at the last five digits there, it's obvious someone didn't know what they were doing and only typed five in and and it didn't fill the whole field in...

For RapperMC

Why would the e in rule have been photoshopped from an s? You're saying that the original receipt said "We promote the ten secound ruls" and that the photoshopper took the time to fix "ruls" into "rule" and not fix the spelling of "secound" or fixed up the "MC.Donalds"

If this had been a fake, it would have been pushed around to sites long ago. This was published to flickr on January 23, 2006... Why would someone fake a receipt to a restaurant and wait a year to generate buzz about it? You'd have to have way too much time on your hands and what would be the point?

This is obviously someone working there having fun with the machine. Nothing more, nothing less. It was posted to flickr to show it to friends and a year later got blogged

Of course, then again, why am I bothering to defend the validity of this receipt... none of you know me, so I could just be trying to fake you all out. It must be a conspiracy, like that episode of South Park... this is why terrorists hate us.

Yeah, I'm a manager at one of my local McDonalds.. I have always had my people throw things out if it hits the floor. Whatever hits the floor, even if it's sweet and sour sauce...that sauce packet is going in a bag with food in it, everyone seems to agree.