Sucky Workers too

[yendorII]

If this is in the wrong spot I apologize and feel free to move it. TLDR people just skip the wall of text

First off an introduction, I am new to this site. My wife frequents this forum and tells me about some of the more interesting things she reads. I have worked retail, customer service and food service jobs in the past and I can completely understand how a bad customer can ruin your day. I usually tip quite well, as long as the server has done a decent job and I am almost never rude or mean to an employee, usually its management’s fault anyway. That being said there is another side to that particular coin. When someone comes down on you for a simple mistake try and keep in mind that they may not actually be mad at you, they are mad at the last person who completely screwed them over. That is NOT an excuse as we all know, but understanding it might help you get past it.

DISCLAIMER: I was a complete ass at the end of this story. You can judge for yourself whether or not it was warranted.

At a 24 hour McDonalds in Southern California at ~10:00pm

I pull in to the drive through with my wife after having seen the new movie 23 (pretty good actually, Jim Carrey didn’t screw it up like I thought he might.) and I place our order.

McD’s Manager: Can you hold on for a minute?

Me: yeah

3 minute wait

McD’s Manager: Ok can I get your order?

Me: Can I have a number 10 with a light lemonade, a number 3 large with a coke and a double cheeseburger.

McD’s Manager: (something unintelligible due to a thick Hispanic accent and broken English)

Me: Excuse me?

McD’s Manager: What size the number 10?

Me: Small.

McD’s Manager: So you (unintelligible) number (unintelligible) with a coke?

Me: Umm, I want a number three, large with a coke, a number 10 small with a light lemonade and a double cheeseburger.

2 minute pause

McD’s Manager: Ok that will be $10.73(or thereabouts) at the second window.

I pull forward thinking, “that was strange, but ok. I am pretty sure she got that wrong but we shall see.”

5 minute pause at the window

One of the other employee’s looks from the register area out at our car and, in Spanish, asks a question, directed at the manager, that seemed to imply confusion as to why we were sitting in her drive through.

2 minute pause

McD’s manager takes another order, I hear something about a Mr. Pibb, she seems to be having trouble communicating with this order too. She repeated the same thing 2 or 3 times. I am not paying too much attention though just talking about the movie with my wife. McD’s Manager, after filling our drinks and the next orders drinks, shuffles all the drinks around in the machine. Now I really know this is all going to go haywire but I need to give them the chance, maybe they will realize how retarded it would be to shuffle a drink order after filling it. Mr. Pibb and Coke don’t look that much different to the naked eye last time I checked.

2 minute pause

The employee, who was confused earlier, comes to the window

Employee: “Excuse me, what did you order?”

Me: Oh Christ. “ I ordered a number 10 with a light lemonade, a number 3 large with a Coke and a double cheeseburger.”

1 minute pause

Employee: Ok, that will be $10.73.

I gave her my credit card and she handed me 2 large drinks. One should have been small but at this point I am not going to correct her, hell I figured the $0.05 mistake was the least they owed for the aggravation.

2 minute pause

The employee brings our order and checks it before handing it off. Just before I pull away I say (WARNING, Asshole Alert)

Me:“ Helpful Hint: Maybe if she (McD’s Manager) could speak or comprehend English, this would go a lot easier”

Employee: Yeah (laughs while bending my straws in her hand.)

I pulled away after that. Yeah I was an ass, but I had a reason. The McD’s Manager had no business taking orders in the drive through as her accent and broken English made it even more difficult than normal to place an order. Her lack of English comprehension would become apparent soon after we pulled away.

As we are leaving my wife tells me I shouldn’t have been a jerk to them and there were nicer ways to handle the situation. She is right, and I know it, but I simply cannot contain myself. Stupidity drives me up the wall, I cannot stand it. When I see stupid people doing stupid things I simply have no choice but to respond.

Then my wife checks the order, ready to distribute the fries for the ride back home. This is where we discover how horribly wrong it all went. The only parts of our order that were properly delivered were my fries and my wife’s chicken nuggets. Instead of a number 3, a Quarter Pounder w/ Cheese, I received a Big Mac, instead of Coke I received Mr. Pibb (some may like it, I am not a fan) and instead of a double cheeseburger I received two regular cheeseburgers. My wife also received a large lemonade, not light, and a large fry. At this point I was laughing at the stupidity of it all, feeling an urge to cry for the future of the human race, and a dealing with a rather strong desire to go back so I could throw the food in the manager’s face but my wife convinced me not to when she said: “But you can’t taste stupidity, Baby.” (Kevin Smith reference FTW!)

I don’t mind waiting a bit longer late at night for my order, that usually means its fresher.

I don’t mind them making a few mistakes on my order, Big Mac = Quarter pounder roughly. 2 regular cheeseburgers = 1 double cheeseburger roughly, stuff happens.

I don’t mind getting Mr. Pibb instead of Coke or Lemonade instead of Light Lemonade again stuff happens.

I don’t mind having a difficult time communicating with a drive through operator its nothing to get pissed about.

I don’t mind repeating my order once if need be, no one is perfect.

I mind that all of these things went wrong with one simple order, I cannot imagine the number that would describe the random chance of this many things going wrong in so short a time to a person of even average intelligence. I mind that someone so inept reached the level of Manager in a McDonalds. I understand that McD’s isn’t exactly Trump Enterprises but how the hell did her boss understand her in the interview?

I will try my best to not let this experience flow over into my next fast food order as it really wont be the next persons fault if something goes a little wrong. I probably will not go off on anyone for it, but I am a bit more patient than most consumers. Imagine someone with little patience who gets into another drive through after that and has trouble understanding the drive through person, or has to repeat their order more than once. This is how the crap you don’t deserve gets dumped on you. Again, it isn’t an excuse for the behavior but perhaps now you will understand why it does happen, and for God’s sake if you are working with someone like that don’t let them work the drive through!

[Rapscallion]

Part of me says he would have been pretty good with the hispanic customers.

Rapscallion

[purplecat41877]

yendorII, is the McDonald's menu different in each state by any chance? I'm just wondering because I sometimes go to McDonald's and get a #10 which is a fish sandwich where I'm from.

[Arachne]

You know the old saying about how if someone is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, they're not a nice person?

One of my standards of judging whether someone is a nice person (because I have to have rules for this -- I have a strange tendency to glom onto people who later turn out to be mean and controlling, so I can't just trust my judgement) is what sort of action on another person's part is enough for them to feel justified in saying something cruel. While I don't really think it's the best thing, I can understand being short with someone and even downright mean if they're being rude and abrasive to you. Someone who goes into a situation with an attitude and gets attitude back is just reaping what they sowed. If they're just being stupid and/or incompetent, it's another story. I've done my fair share of eye-rolling, 'well, people are stupid'ing, and ranting after the fact, but I have always regretted losing my cool and saying something nasty in the hearing of someone who was just unsuited for what they were doing.

In short: Listen to your wife. She is a wise woman, and you are embarrassing her.

(That aside, I can understand the frustration. The single most useful thing that came out of my 10+ years of study in Spanish is the ability to be understood at fast food counters.)

[blas]

Oh, it had nothing to do with the accent or lack of English skills. I have found that a lot of people that work at McDonalds just do not care to listen to orders given. Before anyone starts throwing stuff at me, we have had threads like this before, and I have mentioned going around and out of the way constantly to find a McDonalds where I can get an employee with half a brain who understands what "only ketchup" or even "plain" means. I gave up with only ketchup and starting saying plain at the one by my parent's house, and the morons still couldn't understand that, and I'd unravel a double cheeseburger with everything on it.

Should I find somewhere else to eat? Yes, probably better for my health. But I only eat it once or twice a week, and what I order is NOT hard at all to understand.

I went through the McDonalds drive thru Friday afternoon and articulately and politely ordered a #6 with ONLY ketchup on the burger, and then another double cheeseburger, ONLY ketchup on that too please.

What did the little order screen say as I rattled that off?

dble cheeseburger meal
extra onions
dble cheeseburger
only onions

I kind of lost it and yelled "No, No...I said ONLY KETCHUP!"

Who is honestly that fricken stupid?! No way am I the only person on earth who wants a plain cheeseburger.

[Arachne]

I've had the same experience, believe me. I'm allergic to milk, and at some fast food places I've been to, you'd think that a hamburger with no cheese is like the sky turning purple with green polka dots -- absolutely unthinkable. This isn't a matter of me not liking onions or pickles or what have you, it's a matter of the food being impossible for me to eat. I've learned the hard way that before we pull out of the parking lot, I MUST check the burger for cheese. If it winds up having cheese, I have to go in and get a new one.

It's a pain in the butt, but I'm paying less than ten dollars for my dinner, so it's not like I'm not getting what I pay for. In the grand scheme of things, it's really not that big a deal.

And all of that aside, I could totally understand complaining about someone who seemed willfully to not be paying attention. I wouldn't do it myself, but I could understand it. However, that's not what was going on here.

[Rapscallion]

Thinking about it, this thread fits best with 'Sightings', so I've moved it.

Rapscallion

[yendorII]

@Purplecat: I was unaware that they were different from state to state but a number 10 is a 10 piece nugget meal here in So Cal.

@ Arachne: Saying something cruel? That seems a bit harsh to me. While what I said was rude, I am not sure it falls to the category "cruel". As for my wife she may indeed be right but she wasn't embarressed, we all deal with things in our own way. In the end it comes down to a matter of opinion, do you feel that people should be told what their faults are or do you feel that they should be ignored. People have different opinions and there is nothing wrong with that. I only said what I said so that the next person to come through the drive through would not have to deal with this same situation. Even my hatred of stupidity is not enough to make me speak out, that stupidity effecting others is. As for whether or not they were not paying attention "willfully", I dont know that to be a fact. It seems willfull of the other manager to make the choice to work drive through when there was an obvious communication problem.

@Blas: You may indeed be correct, they hear alot of orders it may just be that they assume they know what you are going to say before you say it. Perhaps it is the training or hiring practices at McD's that we should be mad at but its hard to yell at a hiring practice when every part of your order is screwed up :P

[RentalRacer]

do you feel that people should be told what their faults are..........
Even my hatred of stupidity is not enough to make me speak out, that stupidity effecting others is.

I don't want to turn this into a language thread, as that is not allowed, and I am not trying to pick a fight with anyone...thats not allowed either.

But, just because someone does not speak english very well does not qualify them as stupid...and I would not say it is a character fault.

Bottom line, IMO, is that you had a sucky experience at Micky D's, but you went about your complaint in the wrong manner by insulting the Manager.

[Knifeman]

I stopped going to one Jack in the Box close to where I live because they kept screwing up my orders and are completely unapologetic about their behavior.

Two screw ups in one week warrants no return visits whatsoever.

The first one, my dad went to get us some food.

I asked for an Ultimate Bacon Cheeseburger plain and a medium order of seasoned curly fries.

He came back, no fries, so he went there and returned hte order and got his money back.

So I figured I'd give them a second chance and ordered just an ultimate bacon cheeseburger plain.

10 minutes wait, it came out. I asked them "This is a Plain Ultimate Bacon Cheeseburger right"?

Guy checked the screen "Yes, a Plain Ultimate Bacon Cheeseburger".

So I went home, opebned it up... it was plain alright. no Bacon.

By that time I figured "Hell, I'll just cook my own bacon"

Whcih I did...
But afterwards, I called them and told them they lost my business with them and they need to fix the problems they had in their afternoon crew, and the manager just said "Whatever"

[Rahmota]

I'll agree the language thing is more suited to fratching......

As for the rest. YOu had a bad time, got grumpy and kinda took it out on someone who didnt deserve it. Didnt the MCd's have a working video screen at the drive through to check your order? If not then that's a problem with the store.

As for the communications problems you could put richard attenbourgh on a mcd speaker and he'd sound like donald duck. One of the reason's I hate going through the drive through.

[Arachne]

As for my wife she may indeed be right but she wasn't embarressed,

If she took the time afterward to tell you that you behaved badly, I'm betting that she was, even if she wasn't willing to admit it. Either way, she's right when she tells you that you behaved badly. There were plenty of more graceful ways to handle the situation, and none of them would have really cost you anything.

In the end it comes down to a matter of opinion, do you feel that people should be told what their faults are or do you feel that they should be ignored.

If I have a friend who's really overweight, and people stop her in the street to tell her she's really overweight, and she should really do something about that, is that okay? No. She KNOWS she's overweight. She KNOWS what the potential effects are, and what the consequences will likely be both to her and to the people who care about her. I can promise you that the fast food server and all of her co-workers were very aware that her lack of mastery of English was a problem. But you know what? Learning another language is really hard, and understanding it when the speech is all distorted through the crappy fast food speakers is even harder. This woman isn't going to magically get better at speaking English because you point out that it's inconveniencing you.

Even my hatred of stupidity is not enough to make me speak out, that stupidity effecting others is.

As RentalRacer said, she speaks at least two languages, her native one and English. That doesn't make her stupid, even if she doesn't speak English very well. When I'm speaking in Spanish, I sound pretty uneducated and childish as well, because my grasp of the grammar isn't terribly good, and my vocabulary isn't so hot, either.

I'll grant that she's not suited to work the drive-through, but it's entirely possible that they were short-staffed, and there was no one else free who could do it and was trained to do it. You don't know what the situation was.

[KuzcoLlama]

Everyone keeps saying the language debate is better suited to fratching, and yet I'm watching it sloooowly lean towards a debate. Odd isn't it.

Language debate, fratching. Everything else regarding the OP, here is fine.

[myswtghst]

This one is tough for me, because man, I'd be beyond frustrated as well. I get this occasionally at drive-thrus, when I feel like the employee is being short with me because I can tell they're not listening/getting my order wrong, so I repeat myself. If something shows up on the screen that is incorrect, I'm gonna stop you and tell you, that's why the screen is there! When everything goes wrong like this, its hard to keep your temper in check. Granted, I'm sure there are nicer ways/more PC ways to go about complaining, but I don't really blame the OP. It should be common sense to not put someone who cannot speak English very well on the drive-thru, taking orders.

I too order my food all picky-like (apple dippers instead of fries/hash browns, cheeseburgers plain/no pickles-depending on my mood ) and get annoyed when I have to go back, or pick things off my food. I've also noticed that they can be bad about subbing Coke for Diet, which is no good for my diabetic father. It only takes a second to listen to the customer and double check the order, and that's what they're being paid to do.

[blas]

After two times coming home and screaming at my burgers with the "PLAIN" sticker on them, only to have everything on them, and scraping off the onions pickles and mustard and practically whipping them at the garbage and throwing a fit about "retards" (not my most mature moment, I know)......I now pull over and check after every drive thru and even when I order inside to make sure that the burger is honestly plain or only ketchup. Sticking the sticker on it doesnt convince me anymore.