Extra Credit

First of all I would like to say that this was one of the most fun, extra credit assignments I was ever a part of. That being said, I was extremely shocked by the way I was treated as a customer. It was definitely astounding to see four McDonalds staff involved in a very simple specialized order. The communication pattern was much more complicated than it needed to be. When I ordered the small hamburger with four extra pickles, the lady said no problem. However, when I reiterated my order, she said “ four extra pickles?” and I said yes. She then went to the back of the store and told the person that was in charge of the burgers that I wanted four extra pickles on my burger.

Next, I ordered the French fries well done with no salt. Usually, in a fast food restaurant, the lady at the cashier simply takes the order and presses a button and the food comes out. In this case the cashier lady had to go to the staff member in charge of fries and tell him that I requested an order of fries well done with no salt. Since all of the fries that were done, had salt on them, the cashier lady that was helping me told the staff member that was frying the raw potatoes into fries not to put salt on my order. This took extra time because my special order required a new batch of fries to be made with no salt. This special order from beginning to end took 7 minutes and 32 seconds. This is unacceptable for a fast food restaurant.

Once I received my order, I had to explain to the cashier that I needed a receipt showing exactly one small hamburger with exactly four pickles on it and a small order of fries well done with no salt. She told me that it was not possible. I urged that I really needed it. She was persistent and did not understand what the purpose of it was. Honestly, she thought that I was a little crazy because I was so insisting on that receipt. Ever since I requested my special order she looked at me like I was crazy. But even more so, when I was persistent on receiving the receipt she started getting agitated and it made me feel like I was wasting her time. I requested to speak to a manager. Victor Martinez, the supervisor, came to the rescue. Victor ensured me that in all his years as a supervisor, he never learned how to make a receipt, that specific. Indicating fries that are well done or any indication of more than one EXTRA portion of an item on a receipt was foreign language to him.

The staff’s anger reached a new threshold when I opened my order with five pickles and not four as I requested. I went up to the same cashier lady and told her that she I had one extra pickle on my burger. She was furious! She started raising her voice and said, “You asked for four pickles! We gave you five! Just take one off!” I gave her the burger and she took it to the back. For two minutes and 16 seconds it took her to take off a pickle. Frankly, I don’t want to know what really happened to that burger back there.

In the end, I learned that fast food restaurants rely on simple orders and the management process becomes complex when an order is not so simple. Fast food restaurants such as Mcdonalds create a system that is very efficient when it comes to orders that are on the menu such as a “Number 2 order.” However, when it comes to a special order with an addition or deduction of an order that is on the menu things get complicated.