The City or the Company???

Well the moment I saw that it was Mac Donalds that we had to, to complete our project the first thing that came to mind is their crappy customer service and the bad attitude of the cashiers. But that was to be a good thing for me because I thought it was going to give me something to write about for this paper. Boy I was wrong, I was very wrong as a matter of fact. I went to the Mac Donalds near my house and I was well prepared for their attitude drenched service. When I entered I saw, to my benefit, that the place was jam-packed. So with a sly smile on my face I walk up to the counter and BAAM!! A sucker punch: My order was being taken by the manager himself, there go my 100 or so words for the essay. Well I went along hoping to encounter some mishap from the manager or one of his cronies. So I place my order and to my surprise it was greeted with a smile and not only that he personally walked over to the guy incharge of the French fries and told him not to put salt on my fries and then he tell the guy preparing my burger about my specific pickle requirements and to my surprise they both got it right the first time around. The manager detected the slight disappointment on my face and with a smile, God I hate that smile, told me that as far as the fries go the lack of the salt on them was not a once in a blue moon order because of the fact that they have a lot of retired people who come in at that place. Upon finding out that I was doing this for a class project he put the icing on his cake by apologizing to me. Well I walked out of the place with having lost my $2 dollars for no cause at all. Now a normally I would be happy after getting this kind of service at a Mac Donalds but since I had to write this essay I started to analyze the situation to come up with the explanation that would explain my biased view, that it wasn’t good management that resulted in this good service but rather it was something that I did that made them behave in this strange and bizarre way. Fast forward to 10 minutes later I came up with one “definite” conclusion: The words ‘I have a very specific order’. So, firmly of the belief that that was indeed the case I decided to have another go at the Mac Donalds management. And this time I decided to enter into an unfair fight. How? I went to one the most busiest Mac Donalds on Earth: The one at Times Square. Yes I know what you are thinking and yes I am a sore loser. Anyways, i walk in and boy did I get my money’s worth of service. Lets start at the beginning. I walk up to the counter and instead of a slime was treated with a disgruntled expression, BAAM!! Round 1 for me, sweet revenge. I give my order to the not so I-am-happy-to-be-here employee who after hearing the order looked at me as if was from Mars. After finding out that I wasn’t busting her chops, she slowly but surely turned around and walked to co-worker who was packaging various orders. The both then turned around and looked at me as if I were totally bonkers. Anyways she comes back and tells me to step aside while my order was being prepared. When I was waiting I found out that there was one disadvantage in this venue for me, I couldn’t exactly see what was happening with the whole order and exactly how many people were involved. All in know is that they took more than half an hour to give me what usually takes at the max 15 minutes. Everytime i would ask her about my order either she would not respond the first timw and when she did it was because i raised my voice. Upon getting the order i asked her whether i could talk to the manager and well after a five minute argument and another 10 minutes (may have been more) i got to talk to the manager and he told me that it was confusing for th people who were preparing my order because they were used to one specific routine and told me that they couldn't be blamed because thats not the way thing were done over there. Istead of arguing more i just left and kindly asked the manager to keep my burger as a reminder that there's always someone that wants to go the other way.
All in all if I was a consultant I would go back to the first Mac Donalds and ask the manager over there to become in charge on training the employees on how to take special orders. Both old and new employees should be asked to undergo a simulation where they have to treat especial orders but also how to handle rowdy customers. And order to do this they must be emphasized to practice patience. But the difficult part is doing all this in a timely manner especially if you work at a very busy place. And for this communication between everyone in the order preparing should be top notch.