I figured it would be better if I went later on at night to the McDonald’s to order this odd dinner, so I went one day after work at around 9:30pm. I was the only person there waiting on line and there were 2 workers so they took my order right away. When I ordered the hamburger with 4 pickles and fries with no salt, the manager looked at me like I was weird. She must have thought she heard me wrong because she asked me twice, “Did you say 4 pickles?.” I said yes and then she screamed to the cook “That burger needs 4 pickles.” I asked to make sure that the receipt would indicate there were were 4 pickles and no salt for the fries. I’m pretty sure there was a dirty look there because she had to reprint the receipt. She told me that I had to wait 3 minutes for the next batch of fries to be ready. So I stepped aside for the next customer to order.

She punched in “pickle” 4 times on the computer and I think it confused the cook in the back because he screamed, “What’s with the pickles?”. The manager screamed that it needs 4 pickles but the cook still didn’t understand so she yelled something in Spanish and she sounded pretty agitated. I did not take that as a good sign at all. Finally, the next batch of fries were ready and she scooped my small unsalted fries. She put them in a little bag, got the hamburger, gave me the food, and I was off. The whole process took about 6 minutes, mainly just waiting for the fries to be cooked.

I did not think that it would really be an inconvenience since it was not busy at all but nonetheless, it was something that took up more time. When I got home and decided to check the food, it was funny. I open up the burger and there were 6 pickles! I’m guessing the cook did not like the 4 pickles idea so he thought it’d be funny to give me 4 pickles on top of the usual 2 that are in a small hamburger. On top of that, there were about a pound of chopped up onions on it too. That upset me since I was hungry BUT, I did eat the fries.

Overall, I did not think that this particular McDonald’s was that customer- friendly. They should know how to deal with customers without having to come off rude. She could’ve just tried to smile to my face instead of having an angry look the whole time. The order preparation was fast, it just was not prepared accordingly. They can’t expect for ALL people to not have certain specification on their orders. They ranked low in my book for customer service and food preparation. If I was brought in as a consultant, the one problem that most fast food restaurants have is being able to deal with special orders without having to come off like they are annoyed and then getting back at the customers in some way by either messing up the order or just spitting in their food.

I would go in to various McDonalds pretending to be a regular customer and see what it is that they do when I order something ridiculous like a burger with mayo and 3 pickles. I think that they could offer some customer service training to at least teach the employees how to better handle those customers who may drive them nuts instead of coming off aggravated. Maybe hire managers who understand the importance of a satisfied customer rather than those managers who thinks that it is acceptable for employees who roll their eyes at customers. Managers should lead by example rather than excuse poor behavior.

EDITT

So today, I forgot to bring out that receipt with me so I had to go into another McDonalds today to order it again. This McDonalds was even worse. The employee was nice about the order but when I asked to make sure that it would show on the receipt, then he became rude. When I saw the receipt, he only punched in “Extra pickle” once so I asked if he could punch it in four times. He told me that if he did that, it would charge me for each pickle which was a lie because the previous Mcdonalds said that pickles were free. Then he also did not punch in “no salt” on the receipt and when I asked about it, he said that there was no button that says “no salt” which was lie#2. I told him that the other Mcdonalds were able to punch that in and he told me that all McDonalds run on different systems which I really highly doubt. In the end, he had to sign off on the receipt that I ordered the hamburger with 4 pickles and fries with no salt.