Well, you see, this is what happens when you don’t tip…
I don’t usually read as lengthy an OP as this one was, but I gotta hand it to you j, not only was I captivated by your writing, but the whole thing was a hoot! There’s McNuggets all over my desk now and we’re not talking the chicken variety either. Heee!
Go to McDonald’s website. I did, and planned a trip down I-57 to Champaign. Here is the location in Kankakee:
1780 EAST COURT STREET
KANKAKEE, IL 60901-2671
I pretty much grew up in Kankakee County and that particular McD’s is probably the reason I never got to go to one as a kid. The reason may have been their service but the story I got from my parents is that it was the quality of the food. I think we’ll be stopping the one at 104 N. 7[sup]th[/sup] Street in Kentland, Indiana on our vacation next month; I hope that one has good service.
Um, Jeff? You are actually planning to stop at a specific McDonalds in Indiana? And you’re in Virginia? Even I’m not that complusive.
Also, keep in mind that you will be dealing with Ronnie’s House. “Good service” is a relative term.
That is strange, because I swear to God this Onion article is the damn truth.
My best fast food story is actually one where an a-hole customer gets their comeuppance. This complete beeeyaaatch had apparently ordered her royale with cheese with extra pickles. She comes storming back up berating everyone in sight because there weren’t enough extra pickles. Apparently a bit of a mix up on the exact scale that “extra” implies (FTR, it appeared “extra” to me). Well, she lights into the cook in back about “any idiot can make a hamburger, but apparently not this guy” and whatnot, gets her new burger and storms back to her seat. The manager shakes his head and goes to help the next person in line (me) when a blood curdling “Goddammit!” echoes from the dining area.
The same woman comes stomping back up screeching “Oh, this is funny huh” and such and slaps the burger on the counter and unwraps it.
All the customers begin to chuckle as we see the quarter pounder with a good two to three inch layer of pickles on it. The manager is trying not to laugh as he apologizes and gives her a new one. She refuses and heads out the door with “I’m never coming back here”. A customer responds “Lady, they’ve served 99 billion people. They ain’t gonna miss your ass”
Yikes, and double yikes. “I am the manager, and aren’t you still white?” Holy christ on a sesame seed bun!!!
Just to amend the McD pile-on, if you ever want to see the worst, by which I mean best, go to the McDonalds under 47th Street and 6th Avenue. It’s the opposite of every McDonald’s you’ve seen. It’s hidden, merely a couple of windows in one of the tunnels that lead to the 6th Avenue trains. You could walk right by it, think, damn, there’s a lot of people in there, and not think anything of it.
But if you go in! My god! The cramped entry opens up into a only slightly less cramped L-Shaped seating area, and if you squint through the raw, teeming masses of finance people in grey suits, you can almost see the counter, so you wade through the crowd, and get to the counter, where you are nearly blinded by the reflection of the fry lights off of their strip of plasterboard doubling as their trophy wall o’ plaques. You’ve seen ‘em. Some local McD’s might display “Best assistant manager,” and it’s from 1973 and it seems quite sad. Not these guys. Motherfuckers have “Most money per square fuckin’ foot. 2001” Yes, it does say “fuckin,” apparently when you own the category for ten years, and the neighboring plaques attest, you can write your own. They are the Chicago Bulls of the McDonalds Empire.
And they show it. They swagger up to their tiny, miniaturized counters, with their state of the art cellphone headsets, with the cold smile of competence, shouting Who’s next! Who’s next! And baby, you’d better be prepared to shout it out. People be like #1, no #6! Too late! Back of the line, chumpsey!.
And the teamwork! My god, the fullness of the counter could fit comfortably inside an SUV, and they’ve crammed the order-takers in six wide, and most impressively three deep, with space so tight they ride each other’s asses like a luge team. Then they order through their Tricorders, and cut right, to pick them up; the second teammember steps in like a well trained relay. “Who’s Next! Who’s Next! WelcometomcdonaldsmayItakeyourorderhereyougodon’tfogetyourreceipt!”
Wow. Tourists have been known to order four lunches, just to watch them fly. Just goes to prove the old saying: If you want to get something done, go to the busy McDonalds.
OK, perhaps I should explain. We’ll be driving from here to DeKalb, IL (via Kankakee) next month and bringing our ferret along, which means we’ll have to do drivethru lunches (or drive-in if we can find any). We plan to spend the night in Ohio, most likely outside Dayton but maybe Columbus. If we go as far as Dayton that means we’ll be in the Kentland area around lunchtime and McD’s is the only place there that I know would have a drivethru.
Just checked Burger King’s site and I see they have one about four miles up US 41 from the McD’s, maybe we’ll go there instead. Who knows, maybe we’ll find some mom & pop deli and get a couple of sandwiches to go?
Ugh. I feel for you, jar. I hate McDonald’s with a passion. I’m convinced, until someone proves otherwise, you’re required to take an IQ test to work at that place. If you score too high, you’re disqualified. And by too high I mean spelling your name and address correctly.
One of my favorite McDonald’s stories involves The Crew Member with the Stringy Hair. When I entered the ‘restaurant’, The Crew Member with the Stringy Hair was arguing with The Customer with Three Teeth. It’s a very loud, very uncivilized argument. The Customer with Three Teeth is arguing he paid her with a twenty-dollar bill. The Crew Member with the Stringy Hair swears it was a ten spot.
I stand in line. The line, at this point, consisted of The Customer with Three Teeth and me, by the way. While in line, at least three other Crew Members are peeking from food prep area and giggling at the argument taking place at the counter. As I could care less about The Customer with Three Teeth, his twenty-dollar bill or his argument with The Crew Member with the Stringy Hair, I ask if there’s someone else who wouldn’t mind taking my order. All of a sudden the remaining crew members are stricken with some sort of mass hearing loss. At least I think that’s what happened because they all ignored me. I ask again, this time inquiring if there’s another register open. This time hearing has been restored to one of them, but at the expense of higher brain fuction. I’m told that The Crew Member with the Stringy Hair has to wait on me because the other two registers don’t work. Why The Crew Member with the Stringy Hair and The Customer with Three Teeth can’t take their argument over to a non-working register is beyond my realm of comprehension.
As my patience is wearing thin, I wait for a pause in the argument and, when one presents itself, ask if The Crew Member with the Stringy Hair wouldn’t mind taking my order. I’m not sure if it was code or not, but she kind of blinked at me several times. At this point, McDonald’s must have hired The Customer with Three Teeth because he tells me, “She ain’t waitin’ on nobody until I gets my money back.” Maybe the blinking deputized him as a McDonald’s employee. Yes, that has to be it.
I ask the Crew Members in the back if there’s a manager on duty. The Crew Member who had her hearing restored answered, “Yes.” Then her attention went back to The Crew Member with the Stringy Hair and The Customer with Three Teeth. After my interruption, they resumed their argument, post-haste.
I ask again if there’s a manager on duty and again my query was replied to in the affirmative. I ask if she wouldn’t mind getting the manager for me. After a sighing and rolling her eyes, she shuffles off to the back. I don’t know if she ever produced the manager. I don’t know if The Customer with Three Teeth got his money or if he was trying to cheat The Crew Member with the Stringy Hair. I don’t know if hearing was ever restored to the remaining Crew Members. Much like the uniform that strained to contain the girth of The Crew Member with the Stringy Hair, I felt I wouldn’t be able to keep it together much longer. I left.
All I wanted was an apple pie 
My favorite McDonald’s is the one referred to as “Barstow Station”. It’s in (duh) Barstow, CA, and is a tourist destination as well as a McDonald’s. It features tons of gift shops as well as converted train cars in which you eat your meal. Seems like a great idea, huh?
On my way from Las Vegas to L.A. with a couple of women from work and their six kids, we stop at this hellhole in the middle of the California desert. When we walk in, the kids scatter and head toward the gift shops. I have no problem with this. We’ll get them something. It’s busy in the gift shop/non-McDonald’s food areas, but not overwhelmingly so.
Then we round the corner into the McDonald’s area. Lines are about ten people deep. There are eight registers open. I’m sure we’re in for an efficient experience. Not friendly, necessarily, but efficient. Well, we get to the front of the line. They had a large sign that featured some breakfast sandwich at two for $2.22. Between the three family groups, we order 8 of these sandwiches, an order of hotcakes, and two of the fruit and yogurt dealies.
Let me make a long enough story shorter: we wait an hour, an honest to goodness hour to get this food. Worse, the woman with the three youngest children (who ordered first) got her food about 20 minutes after everyone else. When she asked if they had called her number, the woman was really snotty, “Sure, on the other end. That’s where the ‘4’ numbers get called. I called it twice.” “Okay, but why did you call the other ‘4’ numbers on this end.” “I didn’t,” the McDonald’s worker started, and proceeded to a full-blown rant about how she would never call those numbers from her end, blah blah. She threw around curse words like they were Mardi Gras beads. But at least the rest of us cattle rebelled and started asking where their food was. We got the frick out of Dodge.
We haven’t gone to McDonald’s since. But we also haven’t called the company, and that seems like a really good idea.
Okay, this is going back to the late '80’s, so the dollar amounts are going to seem miniscule. Please keep in mind that I was young, poor, and about four days away from payday.
Anyway, a friend of mine and I met at the brand spanking new mall food court. We intended to get something to eat, and then see a movie. (For those familiar with the Albany area, this was just before they put the Pizzaria Uno next to the entrance. That sucked too, by the way, but at least you could get beer.)
I saw a sign for a booth/kiosk/ptomaine-pit that promised “Real Philadelphia-Style Steak Sandwiches.” There was no line.
I should have realized what would happen.
I walk up and order a “cheese steak.” Counter Genius doesn’t know what that is. I point to the menu board and, after some palavering, Counter Genius figures out what I want. But, then I have to order mushrooms seperately. Okay.
I get a sinking feeling when I suddlenly realize that Counter Genius is also Griddle Genius. And that he doesn’t know what “cheese” is.
Evidently, he thinks that a steak sandwich is meat and bread.
I ended up instructing the useless mouth breather in the fine art of constructing a cheese steak from across the counter. Every time I reminded him about the onions, the peppers, the cheese and the “extra” mushrooms, he rolled his eyes, sighed, and did something to the cash register. Then I get my damned sandwich and fries.
CG: That’s $8.25
Me: Huh? The cheese steak and fries is $3.25, but I ordered mushrooms.
CG: No, you didn’t.
Me: Yes, I did, three times, in fact. You put them on the sandwich. But it doesn’t matter, I’ll pay for the mushrooms, but they can’t be five bucks.
CG: All that extra stuff you ordered costs more money.
Me: What extra stuff?
CG<exasperated>: The cheese, the onions, all that stuff.
Me: All that stuff comes on the sandwich that I ordered.
CG: No, it doesn’t.
You can all fill in the ensuing argument, I suppose. I finally pushed the tray back across the counter and told him he could keep it. He threw it at me (missed) and said I had to pay for it or he would call Mall Security (oooh, scary) and the police.
The next booth was Taco Bell. I went over there and got food for about fifty cents per pound.
I took my time eating my meal while Ed (my friend) laughed in my face, and waited for security and/or the police to show up.
They didn’t.
Oh, and Jeff? Burger King and McDonalds are just two sides of the same sloppy burger at this point. Try to find a decent diner. you won’t regret it.
[sub]Geeze. Preview indicates that this post is insanely long. Sorry about that. I’ve had a couple of beers.[/sub]
It amazes me that people always think “I’m never coming back here!” is going to make us workers go “Ooooh, noo, the bitchy screechy lady is leaving forever! Quick, be nice to her.”
My company has a pretty large presence in Kankakee (not at Mickie Dee’s though), and I’ll c&p and forward the OP to the managers tomorrow, with your permission, jar. They’ll get a kick out of it. Next time I’m there on business I’ll make sure to stop in this place and complain.
Go ahead. If I could I’d stand outside and sell tickets to this miraculous place.
The fun part of having worked at McD’s is that you learn the key stores to avoid, as well as the key names to throw around should you receive bad service. I went to a store down in Fall River a few months ago, it was just horrible. I waited about 10 minutes to order, another 6 after the speaker, and then my fries were ice cold. My burger wasnt even completely cooked. I went inside, asked for new food, the counter girl ignored me. I asked to speak to the manager, was finally presented with a woman I didnt remember from my time at McD’s. I told her about my service, she shrugged her shoulders. As she walked away, I calmly asked which profit center they were in, Boston or Hartford. Score: Hartford. My old group, and my old bosses. “Is Charlene still in charge? Her pet peeves were always TTL’s…I wonder how she’d feel if she knew her managers were giving out this kind of service?” I threw out a couple of names, mentioned a few highlights upper management focused on.
I got fresh food, and coupons for future visits. The lady was singing a whole new toon.
God I dont miss Mcdonalds…
Next time I’m in that area, I’ll make sure to stop at that McDonalds. I’m quite curious to see what surprises will be in store.
Yeah, I know. We found a couple of places on our way back last time we made a trip to Illiinois. Somewhere in rural WV we stopped at a house that had been converted; Angie didn’t want to go in until I convinced her that some good food comes out of converted houses. It’ll be a bit difficult to do that this time because we don’t want to leave the ferret in the car by herself so diner food will be for dinner after we put the ferret in for the night.
Can someone translate Jeff’s post for me? I’m so boggled by it, it’s funny. Was the ferret converted too?
Or be members of groups that don’t drink caffeine. Of which there were not a few of in the area where I grew up, so huge orders of Sprite (or 7-up) were not infrequent.