HouseofMike

McDonalds use to be about fast food fast. Now apparently it is about fast food with slow and annoying service. While I worked at McDonalds for 6 plus years and always enjoyed the food, I am now done with McDonalds. I am annoyed with the service and the change in procedures, no more McDonalds for me, at least from the restaurant in Littlestown, PA.

Back when I was in high school I worked at McDonalds, flipping burgers. Back when cooking burgers were actually flipped. A few months into my stint at grill the clamshells were introduced. The small burgers cooked in roughly 40 seconds. I remember cooking and having assembled 12 ‘regs’ or regular hamburgers in a little over a minute.

There was a point where I was looking at McDonalds as a career. Working with one of the shift managers I learned many of the policies and procedures. I could tell you how many small fries in a case of French Fries. Also temperatures and cook times of various food products. I was pretty gung-ho about the whole thing. But it didn’t happen, upper management (I worked at a franchise store) didn’t think that I was right for it. They thought I was going to be doing bigger and better things. I ended up in the IT field which probably worked out better for me.

When I started working at McDonalds I was flipping burgers and making McDLTs, remember them? When I left I was doing staging and making fajitas, along with the rest of the menu. Staging was basically precooking the meat, it was kept warm and moist in staging cabinets. The grill procedures had really changed in those years.

At some point after I left working at the golden arches McDonalds stopped pre-making food even during the lunch and dinner rush. Now I could see doing this during the slower periods, that way the food is bit fresher. But why during the lunch rush when the place was packed? Waiting on the food to be assembled slows down everything. A little annoying but I lived with it.

Back in October the area McDonalds was razed to the ground and rebuilt larger. A week after reopening I went in on a Saturday afternoon and it was packed which leads me to the next annoyance. Back when I worked at McDonalds the frontline order taker would assemble the order while the customer got his money out and organized. It doesn’t happen like that now. Now the order taker just stands there and takes orders. There are 2 runners that assemble the orders for the 5 registers. There are a couple problems with this. First, the runners have no clue where the orders go so they end up yelling out the order trying to find right customer which makes a loud and chaotic restaurant louder and more chaotic. So much for service with a smile. Second, instead of just waiting for the order taker to assemble the order, now you have to wait in queue until one of the runners get to your order, it just slows things down even more.

At this point I am irritated with the service enough not to want to deal with the lobby service, and then the drive-thru incident happened. When they rebuilt the McDonalds they put in a 2 lane drive-thru. Basically the drive-thru goes from one lane into 2 lanes so 2 customers could order at once, then back to one lane, with 2 windows.

I head into drive-thru pulled right up to the speaker in the first lane. After about 30 seconds I say ‘hello’ since I haven’t heard anyone thru the intercom. I wait another 30 seconds then pull up to the first window. There was absolutely no one in front of me although there was someone placing an order in the second lane.

So I pull up to the first window, the girl opens the window with a confused look on her face. I explained to here I sat at the speaker for over a minute I didn’t hear anyone so I pulled forward. That and I just wanted a large shake. (I had broken a tooth the night before. I really couldn’t chew so I figure a large shake would make due for lunch.) The girl takes my order and must have hit at least 10 buttons placing the order. So I pay her and pull up to get my shake. Window is opened and a happy meal is thrusted at me. I explained to that girl that my order was just a shake. So the window shuts for a few seconds then reopens girl pops back out and wants to park me. Park me?! Over a shake? A quick glance behind me shows the one other car in drive-thru still sitting at the first window. So I inquire, is there something wrong with the shake machine? No, was the answer. At this point the proverbial straw had broken the camel’s back. I told the girl I was not going to park over a shake. About 15 seconds later I was pulling away with my shake, with the car behind me getting their change back at the first window.

I know this sounds a bit petty and I wasn’t in the best mood cause of the broken tooth, but I have had it with the service. Having someone park/pull forward for a shake? I don’t know, maybe McDonalds is somehow making more money with the slower service. I just know they won’t be getting anymore of my patronage.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 9:47 pm and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.