Drive throughs are humorous..

So I'm going to McDonalds. I'm going to have a salad. I never realized how some things can be made to complicated

Employee: welcome to McDonalds, what I can get you?

Jules: Uhm.. *looks* I'll have a crispy bacon ranch salad please

Employee: What kind of dressing would you like?

Jules: *long pause then blink* pardon?

Employee: what kind of dressing would you like on your salad?

Jules: *looks at sign again to be sure she ordered the right salad* ...uhm.. ranch? *double checking to be sure she didn't read that salad wrong*

*pulls up to drive through and notices a sign next to the window*

"Menu's also availble in brail"

Jules:

Yeah, the problem was you said 'crisby bacon ranch salad' in one sentence. You must have overloaded the stack. They can only process (obviously) two words at a time, and by the time you got to ... 'salad, please', the rest had been pushed out.

I hereby propose we find a way to upgrade McDs employees to have more than 2 bytes of storage.

I used to do that too.. I figured I'd make it take less time by saying "Give me a combo #3, super size, with a Dr Pepper." The response was inevitably "What kind of drink would you like with that?" or massive errors which required going "no, not a #3 and another Dr Pepper, a #3 with Dr Pepper as the drink".

Now I make them ask me every step of the way.

We huv sum rite schmaht peepul werkin' at ar MicDonalls restahrants heer. Y'all mus be in Califurnyah er sumwheres.

Keep in mind that those menuboards were built to withstand weather and vandals, but they sound crappy. At either end, we all sound like Kenny with an electronic twang. If I drive past one, and I see no one in the store, I'll park and order in person. That way, I sound clear, and the guy behind the counter sounds like Kenny with a thick foreign accent.

This was a real conversation I had in McDonalds not to long ago. Inside, not the drivethru

Me: Hi, I'll have a 1/4 pounder with cheese, small fries and a large orange soda, to go please.

employee: Did you want fries with that?

me: Um yes, small and a large orange soda to go.

emp: Large?

me: small

emp: To drink?

me: Orange soda, large, to go

emp: did you want to supersize that?

me: No, just a large, to go

emp: for here or to go?

me: (going crazy!!) TO GO!

AAHHHGGGG!!!!

Ha! That's great. I had a similar *real* experience while ordering breakfast at the McEvil's:

CASHIER: Hi. Can I take your order please?

CUBEY: Yes, I'd like a BLT bagel meal to go, please. With black coffee.

CASHIER: Is that the meal or just the bagel?

CUBEY: The meal. With black coffee.

CASHIER: Would you like to Super Size that?

CUBEY: No.

CASHIER: With cream or sugar?

CUBEY: No. Black, please.

CASHIER: And will that be for here or to go?

CUBEY: (bashes head on counter)

I actually work at a food place where you order at the register (we're a hybrid fast-food place and restaurant... It's Schlotzsky's Deli), and I'm the person on the other end of the speaker.

Customer: Yeah, gimme a number 1.

Me: ....

Me: What size would you like?

Customer: What?

Me: What size would you like?

Customer: Well... what sizes do you have? (Two of the three are listed on the menu board, I guarantee it. The third is -huge- and not many order it.)

Me: Small, Regular, and Large.

Customer: Oh alright, gimme a small.

Me: Alright, and what kind of chips and drink would you like?

Customer: Coke.

Me: ....

Me: And what kind of chips?

Customer: What kind do you have? (Listed on the board.)

Me: We've got... (and by this point in my job I've gotten so good at this that I can rattle these off in literally five seconds) Regular, Jalepeno, Sour Cream and Onion, BBQ, Salt and Vinegar, Cracked Pepper, and Baked Lays.

Customer: Oh ok, gimme regular chips.

------------ Or...

Customer: Yeah, I want a number 2.

Me: What size?

Customer: Large.

Me: So you want the nine dollar large?

Customer: Yes.

Me: Alright, what kind of chips and drink?

(Same spiel as above, they get to the window, hear their total is $10 something for a sandwich, chips, and drink)

Customer: HOW much?!

Me: $10.78.

Customer: For a SINGLE sandwich with chips and a drink?!

Me: *holds up the eight-inch in diameter sandwich bun we keep on hand for just such an occasion* This size? Yes, you did order the large sandwich. (Go measure eight inches. It's HUGE. You can hardly hold the thing in TWO hands, and one is impossible!)

Customer: Holy crap, I didn't want that much food, what other sizes do you have?

Me: Ma'am, the sandwich is already made, we can't cancel the order now.

Customer rants and raves around this point about how she shouldn't pay for a sandwich that has already cost the store something like three dollars to make.

---------------

And in reference to 'ranch salads' with 'what kind of dressing', you wouldn't BELIEVE the number of times people say they want something like Italian dressing with a Caesar salad. It's -required- to ask.

And for those with the other "I have to repeat myself" stories... Most of the time they're going in the order the register allows them to, since they can't deviate from that. Someone telling me they want no onions on a sandwich they ordered five sandwiches ago in a long order makes me have to spend 15-20 seconds of silence on the speaker (Usually with them going "Hello? HELLO?!" going up to cancel the sandwich and re-enter it into the register.

Try ordering something in the order they've asked questions in the past, you'll be surprised at how smoothly things go (assuming they're not new to the register, or slow.)

I don't eat at McDonalds or Burger King or In n' Out or any of those because it's made from crap, crap for your body, and it just tastes like fucking crap.

ROFLOL!!

Best thread of the day - very tasty!!!!!!

Hm. I really have to wonder -- and I know there will be people jumping down my throat when I suggest this -- how many of the people complaining about the staff at fast food places have ever had such a position for any length of time.

Maybe you have, long ago. But it really astounds me how anyone can be so overwhelmingly self-righteous when it comes to ordering a Big Mac.

Moleculor's provided an alternative perspective. I'm going to provide the rhetoric.

I've worked in a number of different service positions. I've done retail, I've done supermarkets, I've done fast food, as well as a number of service positions that don't deal directly with customers. And really, before any of you complain about whatever "substandard" service you get from underpaid, overworked people at establishments where you quite naturally expect the top-level service for bargain-basement prices, perhaps you should reflect on the fact that you're just one of hundreds of nameless faces these people are going to see in a day's work, and that your order is just one of dozens that will pass through their hands, and so, you know, I'm sorry you feel the universe is unjust if we just happen to get your order wrong or aren't really parsing your sentences as quickly as you'd like after we've been on our feet for three hours without a break because our managers and their managers are absolutely adamant about the enforcement of company policy on breaks but much less worried about, much less cognizant of, federal labor laws, but I'm really not that sorry.

Really, I feel kind of sad for you, that your lives are so pathetic you feel the need to gloat over the moment of mental triumph you've attained at the drive-thru, because it indicates that there must be little in your own lives you're particularly proud of or that you're really just a petty, ignorant twit when it comes right down to it. I mean, these people who are taking your order, they have lives, they have dreams, maybe some of them are working through college or are struggling to get there, maybe they're supporting their families or they're supporting their art, and they're working in an environment full of intense pressures from all sides.

Hey, do your fellow McDonald's workers a favor next time you're thinking of ways to diss them at the register. Look around. You might be able to see one of many reminder signs giving them a script they must follow on every order. Imagine yourself saying that every time you see a human face, imagine yourself doing that for eight hours a day, five days a week, and then come to me and assert that you'd maintain perfect mental acuity after so much propaganda and would pay perfect attention to every single customer's every last word. You know, you won't. It's really a point of terror to realize after working months in a job like that that it's become your world, essentially, that you come home and you close your eyes and you see those keypads, that your inner monologue becomes a montage of numerical codes corresponding to fruits and vegetables.

It becomes all so mind-numbing. These people are not to be vilified. Let's lift them up instead of mocking their fate.

It's not a manner of expecting "top quality service" hell no. It's just expecting enough short term memory to remember 3 items "#3, supersize, dr pepper".

I dont even know why the heck we have to talk to someone and get them to operate a machine, when we could damn well operate it ourselves.
When will people realize that we have these things called computers that could easily replace most of the idiots behind the counter?
I would like to order my food from the comfort of my seat thank you very much.

Naw, I'm more into mocking their fate.

Actually, I *have* worked in a fast-food restaurant (DQ). Good customer service isn't too much to ask from a cashier.

My point, Cienna, is that while it may seem perfectly reasonable to expect the cashier to be able to parse and retain that information, it's not all that unlikely that the cashier will mishear or will lose that bit of short-term memory or will confuse your order with any number of "#3, supersize, diet cokes" they've heard throughout the day. And they'll screw up. Every now and then they'll have to slow down a bit in recoup their mental powers. And every now and then, they'll make simple mistakes.

If you've done fast food, you know this. Customers change their mind mid-order. They're not always clear. Sometimes they mean something other than they say, and expect you to understand. And sometimes you ring things up wrong. You give the wrong change. You mix up orders. It happens, and in work like this, it's inevitable.

So, when mistakes happen, be a mature adult and don't gloat over the stupid people who work at your local fast-food restaurant, don't come on here and roll your eyes to what you perceive to be a similarly egotistical and holier-than-thou crowd crowd. Be a mature adult and be patient with these people. Your contempt means nothing to them -- it will only make them hate you and then deliberately mess up your order in any way you know. 99 times out of 100, they will respond to maturity with maturity; if something goes wrong and you patiently make your case, they will fix it and let you be on your way.

That's all I'm trying to say. These people are human too, and deserve our respect.

No, it's not too much to ask that someone have a good attitude or that they try to apply themselves in their work, however mundane it is. It is too much, however, for us to treat them like peon, or for us to expect 100% perfection in their dealings with customers.

Surely you can't claim, in your "career" at DQ, to have perfected every transaction, to have captured every order, to have done everything like a well-oiled machine. You can't claim that you've never been treated like crap by a customer, you can't claim that you've never miscounted change.

It happens, it goes with the job. And coming away from a less-than-perfect encounter with a fast food employee as though you've mastered them in a battle of wits surely must strike you as a little snide and a little contemptible.

Ok, lets take a particular order, and run it through the Schlotsky's Parser.

#1
Regular Chips
Regular Size Dr Pepper

Just about as much detail as you gave, K? (The number three in Schlotsky's is a pizza, and that's a rather rare order.)

You've already skipped: What size you want, what kind of bread you want, whether you want everything on that, and whether you want anything else.

Plus, when you say "Number one, regular chips, dr pepper" I can't go *whamwhamwham* and have that in the register. I've -got- to enter in the size first (before the actual type of sandwich), I MUST enter the type of bread immediately after the sandwich, and by the time I've found out precisely which of those you want, I've forgotten your chips and drink, because you're the fifth customer I've processed in a single minute.

I know that for at least three major fast-food chains here in Canada, it's standard procedure for cashiers to ask the specifics of each individual order, even if you've already rattled it all out.

As Moleculor correctly points out, this is due to the way most point of sale systems work, as well as the fact that someone simply cannot be expected to remember that much information even in the short-term.

Moreover, they're instructed to ask about each individual item, not because they're necessarily stupid, or because you, the customer are necessarily stupid, but because in practice, to assume that neither of you are stupid is to be wrong at least half the time.

Yes, but it's deep fried crap Mmmmmmmm

Speaking of deep fried stuff, can you believe Arby's is getting rid of most of their unhealthy stuff and replacing it with salads and crap?

They've already gotten rid of the potato cakes *sob*, and they ALMOST got rid of the curly fries (the homestyle are definitely going away, as are the cheese sticks and onion petals). Bah.

Hopefully when their sales decline, they will figure out why, and bring back the stuff we REALLY wanna eat.

I remember one time walking into Arbies and trying to order a burger. LoL.

Needless to say I learned fast. Pfft.

I love salads. I think a person body needs to be taken care of but if folks want to eat burgers, then they shall. Nothing wrong with some indulgence (sp) sometimes.

If you have not seen Super Size Me see it now...you will never want to eat fast food again.

http://www.supersizeme.com

Wanna bet. I eat what I like, with no worries about health consequences. I don't wanna live forever.

The daredevil of fastfood? "Don't try this at home kids. I'm a professional". Hehe

I shiver when I read reports from the movie.. ugh..