A little more than twelve years ago now, I too worked in the "service industry" as it's so quaintly called. I was a waitress for a little hamburger joint in South Sacramento that on Saturday nights played host to a local classic car club. These were my most hated shifts. The reason being that aside from the difficulty of running down the customers with their orders, which let me say was hard enough in the mix of forty to fifty other people, the grab-assing and general rudeness that accompanies any mix of middle-aged men with beer and cars made my job even harder. I worked four-six hours shifts, rarely getting a moment to catch my breath, and spent most of my time apologizing for the "mistakes" claimed in the order that really were the result of drunken forgetfulness on the customer's fault.
I hated that job. But it was my job, and that's the point of that little jog down memory lane you just went on. I was expected to preform and do well, to not complain, to smile when spoke to, and to provide a service to those who'd paid for it. Be it two dollars or two hundred. Seems that mentality has tipped to the opposite side of the scales, and we are not only watching our youth become less and less valuable contributors, but are forced to bear the result of the apathetic, ineptitude, and point-blank stupidity that they embrace.
In past rants I've talked about the lack of a "drive-thru" any more, saying we should name them instead "drive-wait" or "drive-park". The result of that much needed reconstruction is based solely and completely on the incapability of the people behind the goddamned registers. If the menu was complex, perhaps pages in length, or even if the order could be altered in a number of confusing methods, the time it takes to process it could be *slightly* understood. Maybe even reasoned with. But when it's a menu of nine items in various ways, how difficult can it be? McDonalds serves about seven different types of hamburgers including the new "Angus" style menu. Seven. They also serve three different styles of chicken sandwiches, and of course the infamous and mysteriously derived chicken nuggets. The entire menu is less than twenty items in length. Aside from the minimalistic menus and lack of varieties, has anyone actually seen the registers themselves? They are buttonized so that being literate is the only real requirement for the server. When they say so easy a monkey could do it? They were talking about this.
Short menus, easily typed in orders, brings us to the third job-related detail. The absence of customer service. This, my friends, is the biggest and most important point. No longer do the servers at fast food restaurants *bring* you out the food, carrying it carefully to your table, checking your order over with you to provide any further necessary items that were missed or needed. If you're lucky they'll call out your name, and it'll traditionally be incorrect by most instances because even if your name is John, or Jen, it might as well be Angorilina, or Persephone to them. If it's a number, when you return to pick it up after it's been called don't expect the servers to inspect what they've so painstakingly trayed-up for you, nor expect them to come *back* to the tray to provide any further additions or make any corrections. You should get comfortable, there will be snow in Hawaii before you'll see the damned ketchup.
What in the world is happening to our food sources, you say? There are a number of theories. Some put it up to the lack of money invested in paying these servers. Shorter wages bring out the shorter talents, but investigations on my personal time have uncovered that shorter wages would be a matter of opinion. McDonalds pays it's employees ten dollars an hour to *start* and it's managers (the leaders of these dens of dumbness) well over twenty dollars an hour. Which would put, in some cases, the managers of these places paid more than we pay our Emergency Services professionals.
You'd hope that at least most of the time your order was correct, but you'd be wrong. More than 50% of the time it's missing an item, or something is incorrect in the bag or tray. Gone are the days of restitution, when you'd get the wrong or missing item replaced and often your money refunded for the mistake. Instead you rarely even get an apology, the bag or tray is literally yanked out of your hands and words are exchanged with the other servers, at which time whatever was wrong or missed is corrected in a huff, and the tray or bag is returned to you and the rest return to screwing up the rest of our orders.
Aside from the theory of bad pay for the servers, another would be that the servers themselves are incapable of doing the job. It might sound ridiculous considering the ease of which things have been made, but in some cases when you have people who cannot read or understand what they are reading, the job becomes that much more difficult. Why are these people hired in the first place you may ask, and the reason would be as unknown to me as it is to you. I've seen the economy too people, I know it sucks ass. But that doesn't mean that we hire or employ people incapable of doing the job. Corporations interview dozens of candidates before settling on one person who they believe possesses the most skill sets for a job's task list. I hardly believe this is being done in the fast food industry. Hiring based on application and the ability to write your name shouldn't be the end of the process.
I've focused a lot on McDonald's failures above, but it's not really the biggest fall-out in the fast food community compared others. Taco Bell, Arby's, and the ever-present Jack In the Box for us west coaster's, tend to take the lead on these examples of terrible food stories. With rising costs of product, the fast food companies have compensated by raising the cost of the items on the menu. It's to be expected, however I would expect that the item be what I am using my own economic hardships on. When ordering a roast beef sandwich at Arby's for $5.95, I expect that the bun be intact, not wet to the point of disintegration, and that the roast beef not be burned. It's not that I am asking more of the increase of cost, just the same quality that the $4.25 sandwich two years ago possessed.
It's simple enough to turn a finger and point at the industries apparent disregard for good food, and at least tolerable service. But what of us? What's our roll in this degradation of respect? I'm going to break this down in a simple three-rule method for us all, I use these rules myself in the drive-thru, I suggest everyone take a moment to try them out for the sake of the rest of us behind you in the damned line.
1: Do not order food for four, five, six, or above in the drive thru.
I don't care if you have fucking eighteen toddlers you're feeding with it in the backseat, get out, go in, and get the food.
2: Do not "change your mind" and re-order at the payment or pick up window.
We don't have the time for you "cravings" to change, jackass.
3: Do not count out change to pay for your order entirely.
Paying the change portion in change is one thing, paying out $20.00 in pennies and quarters is a fucking nightmare for the rest of us to sit through.
These might seem like small, simple, common-sense style "Rules" to follow, but if you're aware of them already chances are someone else isn't. I'd truthfully like to believe that the nature of people can be good, that they can indeed just not "know any better", so I cling to that in publishing these, perhaps enlightening someone else to the needs of the rest of us if they are so incapable of seeing it themselves.
Fast-Food is supposed to be what it is; Fast. Your order shouldn't be complicated, your service should be swift but not rude, and the cost should reflect what you get. But should and do are different things to each of us, and while I myself have contemplated beating a server through the window for asking me "so you ordered a cheese burger not a chicken salad?", I stop long enough to think of the difficulty that their taxing jobs are, I think of the hardships in training for such an extensive and complex position within the company, and most of all I remember that they are simply here to teach me patience.
..and if you believe that, I'm sure you'll be interested in this bridge I have for sale..
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