I have lived in Dickinson, North Dakota for a little over five years now.  I started this blog website approximately three years ago, mostly out of frustration with living in Dickinson.  Living in Dickinson, there was very little to do, no where to go, the people were unfriendly, and the restaurants were all bad, especially the waitresses.

Of the nearly five hundred blog posts that I have written, most of them are complaining about Dickinson.  About one year ago, I began to realize that one of the only places in Dickinson that I didn’t have any complaints about, was the Arby’s restaurant.

I began to realize that I never ever had a long wait in the drive through, or at the counter in Arby’s.  No one ever got my order wrong in any way whatsoever.  No employee ever irritated me, annoyed me, or did anything wrong.  The food that I ordered was always good or O.K.  I was never mischarged or given the wrong change.  I never saw the employees loose their cool, bicker, squabble, or argue.

I began to think that nothing ever went wrong at this Arby’s because of the employees who worked there.  How could this be, that each of these employees showed up to work, did their job, were pleasant, and got along with each other?  No place else in Dickinson has employees like this, how did this happen?

There are a couple of nation-wide franchise restaurants in Dickinson that have nearly closed several times because they were unable to get employees, assistant managers, and managers that would show up to work and work competently.  All businesses in Dickinson had a difficult time hiring and keeping competent employees during the Oil Boom that occurred from 2007 through 2014.  How was this Arby’s restaurant able to hire and retain good employees?

The manager of the Arby’s restaurant in Dickinson, I believe that her name is Sarah.  I think that the owners of this restaurant know that Sarah has done a very good job.  I don’t know if the owners of this restaurant are aware of the turnover and employee chaos that all of the other restaurants in Dickinson have.

I don’t know exactly how Sarah does it.  I think that she must have some unique ability to pick out and identify the good applicants from the bad ones.  I don’t know how she can tell which applicants are going to show up every day, do their job, take their job seriously, be pleasant, and get along with everyone.  All business owners and managers wish that they could pick the applicants that would be good long term employees, but hardly anyone can.

I noticed that the employees at this Arby’s restaurant are there to do their job.  They always seem to be 100% focused on their job, and I don’t see many businesses where the employees are like this all the time.  Especially in the restaurant business, I usually see employees who are thinking about and talking about everything but work, and acting like and saying out loud that they would rather be some place else.

Besides hiring good people, I would say that this Arby’s must have a good positive work environment.  A work place that is fair, competent, organized, well managed, and pleasant.  If it weren’t, they would have employee turnover, people not showing up for work, stressed out employees, and employees who were openly unhappy at work.  But they don’t have any of this.

I hope that I don’t mess this restaurant up by writing a complimentary blog post about it.