McDonald's bashing

[ynkeesfn82]

If anyone is ever in Connecticut do not go to the McDonald's on the corner of East Street (Connecticut Route 10) and Maple Street in Plainville. The employees there are rude and crude and clueless.

A couple of weeks ago I stopped in their to use the restroom and buy a shake. As soon as I walked in the restaurant I heard an employee very loudly using the "F" word. I used the restroom and left without buying anything. I sent a complaint email to McDonald's and the local owner sent me an apology email and a letter with a coupon for a free sandwich.


So Friday afternoon I went there to get my free Fish Sandwich and buy a soda. All the employees were of Hispanic decent and they were making fun of this Hispanic guy that was sitting in the restaurant saying that he looked like he just got off the boat from Puerto Rico.  After they took my order it was about 5 mins before someone took my money. I got my Fish Sandwich and filled up my cup with Coke sat down to eat and drink and the Coke tasted watered down. *Nasty*

I should've went the extra 2 miles down the road and went to the one in the Plainville Commons where the restaurant is newer and nicer.

Anyway these 2 McDs along with West Main Street in New Britain and MLK Drive in New Britain are owned by the OurMac Corporation of Plainville. (The Santacroce Family). I'm sure old man Santacroce is rolling over is his grave. He passed away several years ago.

[TheFugitive]

I was doing some work over at my mother's house getting it ready to put on the market (she passed away a few months ago).   
It was late and I did not feel like cooking, so I took a run through McDonalds drive-thru.

My total came to $5.96.   The cashier was a very young guy.  It was likely his first job.
I gave him a ten dollar bill and six cents in change that happened to be rolling around
my dash console.

He was totally flummoxed.  He had absolutely no idea how much change to give me.
The line backed up as he just gave me this panicked look.  If he had keyed $10.06 into
the register it would have told him how much change to give me, but that did not occur
to him apparently.

He called his manager.  I waited.

The manager came to the window.  He too seemed to struggle with calculating my change!
He got it WRONG!  Overcharged me by a dollar and ten cents!  I was tired and hungry and
sick of sitting there, so I just thanked them, took my order and drove away.

This is less about bashing McDonalds than it is an absolute indictment of our public school system.  When a sixteen-year old kid could not figure out the change on this order it was bad. But when the adult manager could not do it that was way, way worse!  My uncle used to teach Special Ed.  Lots of kids who were barely functional.  And it was at a rough inner-city school. One of his main goals was to teach them all to count change so they would not go through life getting ripped-off.  And he was successful.

Twenty years later and it seems the public schools can't teach ANYONE to make change.

[JJBers]

When a sixteen-year old kid could not figure out the change on this order it was bad. But when the adult manager could not do it that was way, way worse!  My uncle used to teach Special Ed.  Lots of kids who were barely functional.  And it was at a rough inner-city school. One of his main goals was to teach them all to count change so they would not go through life getting ripped-off.  And he was successful.

Twenty years later and it seems the public schools can't teach ANYONE to make change.

Since I'm part of a much more rural, and in that sense, individualized school system, (If you can't tell at this point, I don't actually live in Willimantic)
while it'll be a lot quicker and easier to do it on a computer, I can still do it in my head, or at least on spare paper if the order is very large.

[BillyGr]

Good thing you didn't give him a $10 bill and a $1 bill - he might have just exploded ;)

It is unfortunate that people don't learn that simple math anymore, but probably even worse that they don't know enough to use the tools available (the register in this case) to help when they need it...

I was doing some work over at my mother's house getting it ready to put on the market (she passed away a few months ago).   
It was late and I did not feel like cooking, so I took a run through McDonalds drive-thru.

My total came to $5.96.   The cashier was a very young guy.  It was likely his first job.
I gave him a ten dollar bill and six cents in change that happened to be rolling around
my dash console.

He was totally flummoxed.  He had absolutely no idea how much change to give me.
The line backed up as he just gave me this panicked look.  If he had keyed $10.06 into
the register it would have told him how much change to give me, but that did not occur
to him apparently.

He called his manager.  I waited.

The manager came to the window.  He too seemed to struggle with calculating my change!
He got it WRONG!  Overcharged me by a dollar and ten cents!  I was tired and hungry and
sick of sitting there, so I just thanked them, took my order and drove away.

This is less about bashing McDonalds than it is an absolute indictment of our public school system.  When a sixteen-year old kid could not figure out the change on this order it was bad. But when the adult manager could not do it that was way, way worse!  My uncle used to teach Special Ed.  Lots of kids who were barely functional.  And it was at a rough inner-city school. One of his main goals was to teach them all to count change so they would not go through life getting ripped-off.  And he was successful.

Twenty years later and it seems the public schools can't teach ANYONE to make change.

[giantsfan2016]

I have been a cashier different places - Walmart, Hobby Lobby, Price Chopper, etc. I have fat fingers and sometimes my fat fingers have typed in the wrong amount. If I have a piece of paper and a pen or pencil I can do the math. I need to see it in front of me to do the math in my head. (It's part of having ADD). If worse comes to worse a calculator can be used.

[busman_49]

I was doing some work over at my mother's house getting it ready to put on the market (she passed away a few months ago).   
It was late and I did not feel like cooking, so I took a run through McDonalds drive-thru.

My total came to $5.96.   The cashier was a very young guy.  It was likely his first job.
I gave him a ten dollar bill and six cents in change that happened to be rolling around
my dash console.

He was totally flummoxed.  He had absolutely no idea how much change to give me.
The line backed up as he just gave me this panicked look.  If he had keyed $10.06 into
the register it would have told him how much change to give me, but that did not occur
to him apparently.

He called his manager.  I waited.

The manager came to the window.  He too seemed to struggle with calculating my change!
He got it WRONG!  Overcharged me by a dollar and ten cents!  I was tired and hungry and
sick of sitting there, so I just thanked them, took my order and drove away.

This is less about bashing McDonalds than it is an absolute indictment of our public school system.  When a sixteen-year old kid could not figure out the change on this order it was bad. But when the adult manager could not do it that was way, way worse!  My uncle used to teach Special Ed.  Lots of kids who were barely functional.  And it was at a rough inner-city school. One of his main goals was to teach them all to count change so they would not go through life getting ripped-off.  And he was successful.

Twenty years later and it seems the public schools can't teach ANYONE to make change.

I had something similar happen...my breakfast total came out to $4.29.  I handed the guy $5.04; you'd think I'd get $0.75 back, right?

WRONG!!!  The guy looked at what I handed him with a quizzical look, but he keyed in what I handed him (or so I thought).

What did I get back?  Two quarters, two dimes, and five pennies (4 of which I'm pretty sure I handed the dude in the first place).  If I wasn't in the drive-through, I might have explained to him what I was trying to do.  Yeah, that was pretty annoying...  I looked at the receipt later on and he only keyed in $5.00.

[busman_49]

Anybody tried ordering through the app?  Results?  I must have a junky phone, because I can do everything (though ordering takes a 3-day weekend...I'm starting to despise the "jumping fries" as a "please wait" indicator) except when it comes time to pay, there's always an error...we could not process your payment.  Every time I have to go inside, which kinda negates the whole point of ordering through the app.

[TheFugitive]

Went through the drive thru this morning as I was running late.  Ordered two Sausage McMuffins and a cup of coffee.  Had a very tight squeeze to get into the drive thru because a McDonalds delivery truck was partially blocking the lane.  (this same truck was also blocking ALL of their handicapped parking spaces).

Line was moving VERY slowly because one obnoxious man in a BMW insisted on keeping a minimum of eight feet between himself and the car ahead of him.  So it took a long time to get up to the speaker.  Paid the cashier, she handed me a receipt an literally BEGGED me to take their online survey and put in a good word for her.  (I did.  I got the creepy feeling that if she does not get five good survey comments today she was going to get canned).

Picked up my order and drove away.  Got to the office and discovered they had given me
EGG MC MUFFINS and not the SAUSAGE MCMUFFINS I had orderd.   Aaaaaaaaarrrrggggghhhhh!!!

[TheFugitive]

Back to the same McDonalds this morning.
Again I ordered 2 Sausage McMuffins without egg.

What they gave me was 2 Egg McMuffins without cheese (??)
I suspect it's a problem with their speaker system as the guy had
to ask me three times before getting the right cream order for my coffee.

This is getting hard to understand in an age where you can receive a digital
phone call from India where it's so clear it sounds like the guy is sitting next to you.

Both young people at the drive-thru windows were polite and engaging,
unlike the schlub I had just encountered at Wendy's. 

[TheFugitive]

I had to run an errand at lunchtime and decided to swing thru the drive-thru on my way back to the office.  Both lanes were severely backed-up so I decided to go inside and order instead.  This store has been remodeled and you could only order from the kiosk. I did not have any problems with my order but there was an older lady using the kiosk next to me who was having a very difficult time.  She was totally confused by the screens which frankly were throwing way too many choices at her.  I had to go over and walk her through screen-by-screen in order to help her place her order.  Screens that were selling add-on items, asking for charitable donations, etc. particularly seemed to be flustering her.

I finally got her to the payment screen and explained to her what to do next.  She said "Thank you, young man" (though I'm probably not nearly as much younger than her as she thinks I am).  McDonalds really needs to revisit the workflow of their kiosk screens as they are too confusing for older customers and other non-techie types.  I think I may have walked her through as many as eleven screens to get her to the payment.  That is just too much for most people to want to have to deal with.  People basically want to make their selections, pay, take their food, and go.  McDonalds has a pretty loyal senior citizen customer base and they shouldn't be alienating them with ill-conceived technology.