A burger, Fries, and Mac Sauce on the Side

            One day after school, I decided to stop putting off going to a McDonalds to get the extra credit assignment done.  The goal was to order a hamburger with five pickles and fries that are well done with a side of big Mac sauce for dipping.  Besides getting the actual food exactly as specified, the receipt itself has to indicated that the specific additions to the order.  Pictures will have to be taken to prove we actually did this successfully.  Now let’s get onto what happened.

            I actually had to go to two McDonalds before I was able to accomplish the task.  The first one that I went to was the one on Canal Street in Chinatown that is right next to the subway station for the 6 train.  It was around one o’clock or so, so the place was pretty packed with a lot of people waiting on line.  When I had first found out about the assignment, I thought it was going to be a nightmare because I usually don’t like to give people trouble.  Then I didn’t think about the project for a while.  During the couple of minutes that I waited in line for, I was no longer worried about how annoyed the cashiers might be and started to really think about how I was going to tell them exactly what I wanted in the clearest possible way.   After a little bit of thought, I decided to just go with the flow because the cashier would most probably mess up anyway, since this was such an unorthodox order.  Finally, it was my turn to order.  To give her a heads up, I told the cashier that my order was going to be weird.  She didn’t seem to be troubled by this, however.  So I began by saying I want my hamburger with 5 pickles.  Simple enough.  Then I told her that I wanted her to list the 5 pickles on the receipt.  I thought that this was where it was going to start getting troublesome.  However she said okay anyway, despite having a look of incredulousness on her face.  With that out of the way, I thought I was in for a smooth ride.  After ordering the well done fries, I was somewhat skeptical they’ll actually be well done, because I don’t actually even know what constitutes fries as being well done.  Maybe I should have more faith in McDonalds.  In any case, I also asked for a side of Mac sauce.  She then went away to speak to her manager.  She then told me that they wouldn’t give me a side of Mac sauce.  I then politely asked if I could speak to her manager.  The manager was a man who seemed to be somewhat annoyed at me.  I kept asking if he could just put it on the side, but he refused and said he couldn’t do it.  How can a manager not give me a simple side of Mac sauce?  I had to just say don’t want the order anymore (the burger had already been made,) and I did feel bad, but I needed to get everything right.  After that, I just walked out of the place disappointed.

            The second McDonalds that I went to was one on Bowery Street, also in Chinatown.  This McDonalds was less busy than the first one.  Almost immediately, I was on to ordering again.  I told the cashier that I wanted a special order and then proceeded to tell her my order.  After I told her the order that I wanted and said that all the details needed to be on the receipt, she didn’t really know how to proceed, which was perhaps due to her never having to use those options on the ordering machine.  She then called over what I believe to be the manager of the cashier stations.  This manager was more knowledgeable and was able to get me my order.  However, the receipt that she printed out had a problem.  The burger part was correct, but it only listed that I had a small fries, and there was no mention of it being well done or having a side of Mac sauce.  I got into an argument with her when I said that I wanted the receipt to say well done.  She said it was impossible, but I had insisted that I had done it before, so I knew it was possible.  This turned out to be a misunderstanding, as I later found out, because the receipt could apparently only say “well” instead of the full phase, “well done.”  Nevertheless, she became very frustrated when I said I wanted my money back, as I had already paid, which wasn’t such a good idea in hindsight.  As a result of the frustration, she called her manager, which I assume was the general manager of the place.  At first he was very confused about exactly I wanted, and I thought I would have another argument, but he turned out to be a very nice guy.  I told him I needed him to print the recipe again to get it right.  He told me he couldn’t print it again, because I would have to order it again and pay.  But I insisted that I needed the receipt to show the exact contents.  What he ended up doing was he decided to use a dollar of his employee discount to “buy” another order of fries so he can print the receipt.  I felt bad that he had to do this, but it did solve the problem.  I received my order and checked it at a nearby table when I realized they forgot my Mac sauce.  I went back asking for it and I wondered what the container would be.  The first manager went to get it for me herself and it was in a small cup with no cover on it.  It didn’t really matter, so I just put it into my bag and positioned it so that it would not tip while I was carrying it.  Overall, I was satisfied with the service at this McDonalds and it was in stark contrast to the somewhat cold treatment that I had gotten from the manager at the first McDonalds.  Both managers and the original cashier here got a good laugh out of this and bade me good bye at the end.  I’m glad this was the case because at the end of the day, it’s not worth making a fuss over a demanding customer.

              I will now address the staff’s management process throughout this affair.  In the first McDonalds, the organization was not very flexible.  Only minor variations on orders were handled with efficiency, such as extra pickles.  When it came to the Mac sauce, they simply wouldn’t budge on giving it to me.  To change that, I would encourage that the managers and the workers be given the power to better serve their customers.  I suppose that the communications between the employees and manager here had no problems, because she was able to get her manager right away to come speak to me.  However, I’m surprised that he couldn’t give Mac sauce with my order no matter how much I asked.  To improve on this, I would say that customers are much more likely to return if simple requests like mine could be addressed without making the customer think that it’s hard to get they want.  Since I didn’t actually get to look at the receipt in this case, I couldn’t assess whether the employee was trained to know how to be detailed in the receipts.  Other than that, she seemed adequately trained and knew when to get the manager when issues arose.  The leadership was only existent in the manager that I talked to.  When he said that I couldn’t have my Mac sauce, he really meant it.  To be honest, he seemed like somewhat of a dictator to me, and was rather inflexible.  I would the workers have a little more room for leadership in that they can have the power and wriggle room to better serve the customers’ specific needs.

            The organization of the second McDonalds was better than the first one.  At the higher level with the managers, they knew exactly how to accommodate my “extra special” orders and how to list the details in the receipt.  However, at the worker level, they were probably not trained in that aspect of the job, so the quality of service suffered a bit at that level.  To better accommodate these orders, the managers should make sure to train them better.  From what I saw, there was nothing really wrong with the communications at this McDonalds.  From the workers to the “floor manager” and to the more general manager, communications did seem like it flowed from one level to the next and there was a hierarchy of command.  Communications to the customer would be better if the workers didn’t always have to go to the managers for assistance.  Once again, the training of the front line workers seems lacking in the area of special orders, so the efficiency and effectiveness in the event of special orders will be a problem when they slow down the rate at which they serve customers during a busy time of the day.  This definitely needs to be improved.  Both managers showed leadership here, but the general manager especially did so.  He was able to take the initiative and even go out of his way to fix the problem.  It would be better if the cashier allowed me to view perhaps a digital receipt to make sure that it is exactly as I want it.