My New Found Love for McDonald's

I have always seen myself as a happy-go-lucky type of guy. I am not someone who really gets depressed. Very few things actually upset me and I can recover very quickly from anything that somehow manages to get me down for a moment. Despite all of this, it does not mean I am stress-proof.

I do get stressed, but quite often I am not even aware that it is happening. My apathetic "hey, things could be worse" attitude is real, but that doesn't mean none of the crap happening in my life doesn't rattle around in my head sometimes. Stuff does get caught in there occasionally because, if I'm being honest with myself, there are some things that do require a little more thought than a simple shoulder shrug and cute smirk. Although, I've been told I have an adorable smirk.

Because the concept of stress is so foreign to me (this is not a joke - it's just not how my brain works), I don't always recognize the signs that I may actually be stressed. Whatever situation comes along, I just keep plugging along and do what I do. It is often later when I am exhausted or experiencing muscle tension that the events of the day occur to me.

Wow! That was really messed up! I hope tomorrow is easier.

Another way for me to discover that I was stressed is for something to happen to suddenly remove the stress. It's like when you are doing something outside in the winter and don't realize how cold you are until you step into the warmth of the house. At that point you feel your toes beginning to thaw and the color coming back into your face. Stress works the same way sometimes and I discovered that this happens to me here when I sit down at McDonald's. It just leaves because it is so familiar.

Fruit doesn't even look right.
What is this thing?

Since moving to China, there has been plenty to stress about. I can't read the signs. I don't recognize any of the food. I can't talk to anyone to even ask for directions. I don't know how to pay my bills. Nothing happens the way I expect it to. All the rules are different and I don't have a rule book. Plus, moving is generally considered to be pretty stressful anyway. My wife and I just added the culture and language barrier to the process.

This is why the McDonald's here is so great. It's familiar.

I'm lovin' it

Yeah, I do have to order off the picture menu because I'm basically illiterate. I can't order anything custom like extra pickles or no ketchup because…well, the language again. And they don't have everything on their menu that we have in the States (although they do have a lot of extra weird stuff), but the few items they have that coincide with the U.S. menu are identical in not only appearance but taste.

Now, please understand that I am not someone who always gravitates to the familiar. I love the food here. I've had my share of sheep intestine soup, millet pie, ji'angbing, and more rice than you could imagine. I visit the back-alley street vendors every day to eat some fantastic exotic foods, but every now and then, I need to step away from all the different and come back to the familiar just to refocus my brain. McDonald's provides that for me. It has become my once a week treat. Every Sunday morning, on my way to work, I stop in for a Sausage Egg McMuffin and a hash brown. It helps me reset myself for the coming week and gives me a break from tackling this new culture for a few minutes. For half an hour, I'm not in the new world of China. I'm just at McDonald's reading about the anti-Trump riots on my phone.

In a few months, this place can be my normal.

Working for the Man

She doesn't look like she would have
homicidal thoughts, but it is a dark
place inside her head.

Another of those milestones has happened that helps to assure me that I am a grown up. My daughter Kirsten has gotten her first job.

She started working at Arby's about two weeks ago and is learning what it means to have a job. She has already gotten to experience the heartache of learning that her friends are getting together and she can't go because she has to work.

So far, she hasn't worked longer than a three hour shift, but still complains when she comes home about how much her feet hurt. I try not to laugh.

She works the cash register and takes orders for people. She's seeing first-hand how nasty and mean some people can be. She has never before had to deal with the public in this manner and is quickly losing her faith in humanity. She already has a disdain for most people and this is just helping to solidify her belief that the world would be a much better place if she were allowed to kill people that ticked her off. Legislation is pending.

Her brother worked at this same restaurant for four years and was instrumental in her getting this job. He didn't want her to get grounded for not finding a job like he did when he was sixteen. He has learned a few things.

Arby's treated Christian well while he was there so I don't have many concerns. There are several places that take advantage of teenage workers knowing that they are new to the work force and don't know any better.

EVIL EVIL EVIL MACHINE

My first job was at Rax, a roast beef place similar to Arby's. They had a clock in/clock out rule that was not fair to the employees, but I didn't realize this until years later. They would round the time cards to the nearest quarter hour, but made sure that it always fell in their favor. When you came to work, you could not clock in until 7 minutes before your shift. If you clocked in a minute earlier, it would round back to the last quarter hour and you would get paid for 7 minutes you hadn't worked. This seemed fair enough, but they timed it that way for clocking out also. If you were scheduled to get off at 10, they would keep you busy until 10:07 to get those 7 free minutes. If you missed it and didn't get to the clock until 10:08, then you had to keep working until 10:22. Once again, to get those 7 free minutes. They did the same for clocking in and out for your breaks. On any given shift, they could get up to 28 minutes of free work out of their employees. Over the course of a pay period you might lose a few hours off every check.

My next job was at Bonanza. I was a busboy. On my first week of work, I got into trouble because I would come in at my scheduled time, clock in and start working. They didn't want their busboys to do that. That wanted us to come in and sit in the break room until we were called. We were required to be there, but were not supposed to clock in until the restaurant got busy enough that we were needed.

That means that I spent many, many hours sitting at work not getting paid. I wasn't allowed to leave, but was not getting paid. They would get us one at a time as the business picked up and occasionally would send someone home after sitting for a few hours. As a teenager, I was happy to go home and not have to work, but hadn't considered that they were demanding my presence, which means they should have been paying me. Years later, I received a check as a result of a class action lawsuit against them because of this illegal practice.

A few years later, I worked the midnight shift at a gas station. I was there by myself and was given a list of things to do every night. Besides this list, I had to take care of customers, watch the pumps to make sure no one drove off, keep the trash taken care of and keep the coffee pots full. Since the station was right off the interstate, there were a lot of customers. I got chewed out every morning when the manager came in and found that I had not completed the list.

I couldn't get him to understand that it was not possible. One of the tasks was to clean the pumps. The way he wanted them cleaned would require about three hours to do them all. That job alone made the list impossible to fulfill. There was about twenty items on the list and three of them were large jobs like the pumps. I honestly could not have completed that list even if I didn't have to worry about customers.

Adults know better and do not normally get taken advantage of in these ways. So when my kids entered the workforce, I tried to keep an eye out to make sure those things did not happen to them. Arby's seems to be a good place to work for a teen and I don't think I have much to worry about. She just needs to learn to deal with people.

Now if I could just get her to bring home roast beef sandwiches like her brother used to.

Fortune Cookie #3 - New Experiences Aren't Always Good

I can definitely tell that summer is here. I sat down to post a blog and realized it has been six days since my last post. My life is much busier in the summer time. I will have to work harder to make sure I keep the posts coming.

In my previous post, my van had broken down in Elkville while out with Red of Doesn't Speak Klingon. It sat in a mechanic's parking lot until Monday morning and was ready to be picked up by that afternoon. Adam of The Train's Whistle gave my daughter and myself a ride back to my vehicle. All is well with the van now.

Since we had to retrieve the van from an area that is near larger cities than where we live, my daughter wanted to take this opportunity to go shopping.

I HATE SHOPPING!!!

I can do it for about half an hour. I might even last an hour on a good day, but then my mind starts to turn toward violent thoughts and I want some ice cream.

However, I did not resist this time. Kirsten was leaving on a mission trip in a few days to Puerto Rico and still needed a few things, so I gritted my teeth and we headed for the mall. Kirsten knows how much I hate this activity and typically encourage her to make these trips with her mother, but this was a unique situation that landed me in the middle of it. She worked quickly to find the items she needed and finished in less than 20 minutes with visits to only two stores. She's such a good girl.

With our shopping done and a long drive ahead of us, we decided to find a place to eat. I suggested we find a buffet and Kirsten hungrily agreed. Within a few blocks, we hit the jackpot.

A SUPER BUFFET!!!

I had never been to a super buffet! Would the food have extra taste? Would the portions be bigger? Would we be waited on by ninjas and samurais? Would consuming the food increase my abilities in martial arts? Who knows. We had to go there and experience this.

It looked normal on the inside. It seemed to have a little more variety than most regular buffets. They had fried squid; not just the small calamari rings, but the entire tentacle. I couldn't wait to dive in. I filled my first plate and started eating. Despite the large variety, the food was bland. Everything tasted the same. No flavor. I tried different sauces and spices and just couldn't fix it. I was very disappointed. Add this disappointment to the fact that we never saw our waitress again meaning our drinks were empty most of the time and I was not impressed.

Kirsten picked through her food and made the same complaint. She didn't like the place either. At ten dollars a plate, we still ate, but were sure we would not be recommending this place to anyone else. We asked for our check and it was brought with the standard fortune cookies. My 'fortune' said this:

This could not be further from the truth. I do NOT like competing, watching or even acknowledging most sports. I even wrote about my disdain for sports. Not only was my 'fortune' cookie way off base, it wasn't even a fortune. It just made a generalized statement that may or may not be true depending on the person who gets it. What is going on in China? Are they even trying any more? And what is with the 'have a nice day' smiley faces? It doesn't exactly have a Chinese feel to it. I was tempted to walk in the kitchen to see if it was staffed by a bunch of Mexican migrant workers.

I should have known better. When it comes to the Chinese buffet, I need to stick with CHINA BUFFET #6 in my hometown. The food is excellent. The staff is always available and very friendly AND The fortunes are much better. Here is the last one I received from #6.

While this may technically not be a fortune, it is a sound piece of advice. Plus, anyone who spends time with me will quickly learn that this is a motto that I can get behind and tend to live by. I love a good adventure and look to have one every day. I thought I was embarking on a culinary adventure when I entered the doors of the so-called 'super buffet', but am ashamed to admit that I was duped by the false claims on their sign.

#6, you have made an already loyal customer even more devoted. Save me a seat.

The Pepsi Challenge to Get It Right

I have been doing something new to save money lately. It’s actually quite simple. I stopped going out to eat. I started seeing the difference in my wallet almost immediately. Before, when I received my paycheck, I would pay my bills for that pay period, throw some in the savings account, and then the rest slowly got chipped away buying gas and Big Macs. I began to realize how much of my money was being siphoned out by my frequent trips to restaurants and made the decision to stop. The only time my daughter and I have eaten out in the last six weeks has been when we are traveling.

On a recent trip out of town, we made a stop at Burger King for breakfast since we were on the road and did not have the option of running home to eat. I made my order of hash rounds, a breakfast sandwich, and small drink and was then thrown off guard by the worker asking me what kind of drink. The question confused me for a moment. I realize it was a very simple question, but it had been a few years since that question was a part of the ordering routine. Fast food restaurants just give you the cup now so you can go fill the drink for yourself. Rarely, do they fill it for you anymore.

After feeling foolish for being thrown by the question, I ordered a Pepsi. We got our tray and sat down to relax before getting back on the road. I started on my croissan'wich (I always get the sausage) and took a big gulp of my soda. I almost spit it back out. Something was wrong with it. I couldn’t place it, but it didn’t taste right. Kirsten always orders water, so I asked her to taste it. She said something was off as well. So, I took it back to the counter.

I told the girl something was wrong with my Pepsi, so she made another one. I tried it as soon as she handed it to me, but it still had the same problem. She yelled back to the manager, “Dan, there is something wrong with our Coke machine.” That’s when I realized the problem. I quickly stopped her so she would not get the manger since there was nothing wrong with the soda.

I explained to her the problem was that I had ordered a Pepsi and she gave me a Coke. She defended herself, saying, “We don’t have Pepsi here. We have Coke.” I told her that I understood and apologized for not looking to see what they had before I ordered, but advised her that in the future, to prevent confusion, if someone orders something that is not on the menu, she should tell them and not just substitute something else. She huffed and told me, “Pepsi and Coke are the same thing!” I tried to get her to understand that if they were the same thing, then I would not have been able to tell the difference when I took a drink, however, I think most of her brain power was being used on chewing her gum.

Who drinks this?

Whether a restaurant has Coke products or Pepsi products is determined by a number of factors, but they are not interchangeable. I, personally, am a Mt. Dew fiend and I know many people who are, but I don’t see people running around drinking Mello Yello, which is Coke’s counterpart, because they aren’t even remotely the same. I like Pepsi better than Coke and I highly prefer Mt. Dew to Mellow Yello. However, the Coca-Cola brand wins out on the Dr. Pepper/Mr. Pibb comparison. I like both, but Mr. Pibb is a little better. I will drink a Sprite rather than a 7-UP, but would prefer to not have to drink either.

When I order a Pepsi, I am not asking for whatever cola drink may be behind the counter. I am asking for a Pepsi. I have had many servers say, “We don’t have Pepsi. Is Coke okay?” I love that question. It means the worker has enough respect for the customer to give them the option. If the establishment doesn’t have that brand, just let me know and I will be happy to choose something else, but do not give me something I didn’t order.

Most of the time, I remember this when I go into a restaurant and I ask if they have Coke or Pepsi, but sometimes I forget. A good employee will make the distinction. Unfortunately, this does not just happen with sodas. A few years ago, I ordered a Frisco breakfast sandwich at Hardee’s. The Frisco is ham with egg and cheese on grilled sourdough. The grilled sourdough is what sets this meal apart from the others. Upon arriving at my table and opening the wrapper, I noticed that the bread did not have the usual golden brown color. It was white.

Notice the beautiful color

I took it back to the counter where the manager explained to me that the grill was broken, so they had been toasting the bread instead of grilling it. I was amazed that the manager could not understand why I wanted my money back. This was not what I had ordered. There is a difference. The menu even has a picture of the sandwich, which states ‘grilled sourdough.” A grilled cheese sandwich is much better then toasting some bread and then putting cheese on it. I understand things happen. The grill was broken and they were trying to get it fixed, but they knew that when I ordered my sandwich. How hard would it have been to mention, “Oh, just so you know, our grill is broken. We can't grill the sourdough right now. Would it be alright if it was toasted?” Then I could decide and there would be no problems, but don’t take my money and then switch my order to something you hope will be acceptable.

These substitutions are even harder to forgive in nicer restaurants where they should know the difference between ‘butter OR margarine’, ‘mayonnaise OR salad dressing (Miracle Whip)’, and ‘sweet tea OR unsweetened tea that you can put sugar in yourself.’ They are not the same.

I decided to stop eating out for purely financial reasons, but it does my blood pressure good to not have to put up with these preventable mishaps every time I walk into a restaurant. Plus, at home, I get what I want. My sandwiches get grilled when I want grilled, toasted when I want toasted, my eggs are always the way I like them, and no one is throwing a lemon slice in my tea that I didn’t ask for.

Would You Like Fries With That?

I shocked my daughter on Tuesday by doing something I never do.  We were headed home from Wal-Mart and Kirsten decided she wanted a sweet tea from McDonald’s.  She had a dollar and did not want the tea I had brewed at home.  I pulled into the parking lot so she could run inside and she asked if we could go through the drive thru.  It was about 95 degrees and she didn't want to get out of the car.

I still don't know why, but I agreed.  This was the shocking part.  I don't do drive thrus.  I hate going through the drive thru.  Joe Pesci summed it up best in the movie ’Lethal Weapon 2’ as the character Leo Getz.  He had some very strong feelings about drive thrus that I'm not going to repeat here.  He uses rather colorful language, but captures the essence of how I feel about them.  If you've seen the movie, you know what I am talking about.  If you haven't, I recommend it.  It stars Danny Glover and Mel Gibson before his drunk-driving, Jew-bashing days.

I have worked in fast food and know from first-hand experience that the drive thru is different even from the other side of the window.  There is an extreme pressure to get those orders out within a certain amount of time.  At our local McDonald’s, you can see the timer that is over the drive thru window from the counter.  One website I checked stated that their McDonald’s has 2 minutes and 30 seconds to get a customer their order.  This timer starts the moment they pull up to the menu.

The worker is not allowed any leniency for the amount of time it took the person to order, the parent who is still trying to find out from their kids what they want, or the customer that is digging around in his car for loose change after he pulls up to the window.  They have two and a half minutes starting from the time they first pull up to the menu and ending when they pull away from the window with a full order.  If they don't clear the window fast enough, the stats for the shift are unacceptable and the employees get into trouble.  I've heard of many ways to cheat this timer.  Having a person pull forward has several advantages.  It allows the customer behind you to be served while waiting for your order, but also stops the timer for your order.  A Burger King in New York asks its customers to pull forward about ten feet after approaching the window and then back up again.  This stops the timer and gives them better times.

It gets a little ridiculous at times for these employees who are trying so hard to meet their times that the satisfaction of the customer is often overlooked.  I'm not blaming the employees.  If you happen to work in a fast-food restaurant, please don't send me angry emails, I recognize that this is not your fault.  I blame the corporate system that instituted these practices.  On numerous occasions, I've stood in line at Taco Bell, waiting for my nacho cheese chalupa, and watched eight cars get their orders before me.  I have no idea why the drive thru is given such a priority, but they must have their reasons.  However, ninety percent of the time, if my order is wrong, it has been when I've gone through the drive thru.

I often get stuck behind these people.

I understand that people are human and mistakes will happen, but I am convinced that there is some mandate of the universe that states when Brett Minor is in a drive thru, Murphy’s Law must be observed.

Some errors can be explained with simple logic.  While waiting inside the restaurant, if you order 4 sandwiches with fries and drinks and one of the fries is missing when they slide you the tray, it can be seen immediately.  Before walking away, simply state that you are missing a fry.  They quickly apologize and throw the extra fry on the tray.  Problem solved and forgotten about before you make it to the table.  At the drive thru, however, the food is given to you in a bag.  You won't notice unless you purposefully check, and even then it's not always that easy to dig around in there for accuracy.  However, this must be done BEFORE pulling away from the window.  Even if you pull away but catch it before exiting the parking lot, you must now go inside to have it corrected, which defeats the entire purpose of using the drive thru to begin with.  On the other hand, not checking leads to not knowing about it until you are at least a few blocks away or even already at home.  What are the chances that you are going back for that missing cheeseburger? 

It's even more difficult to check for accuracy on special orders.  When I worked drive thru at Hardee’s, it was not uncommon to get orders for unsalted fries, a plain cheeseburger, raw cookies, extra or no ice, or mayo instead of mustard.  Checking the bag for accuracy on these types of orders while sitting in the drive thru is nearly impossible.  If there are eight burgers, but one is supposed to have extra pickles, you have to unwrap each one to find it.  It's not worth the hassle, just go inside.

Throw on top of these issues the fact that the employees are very pressed for time and the accuracy rates are naturally going to fall.  It can't be helped.  I once received a snack wrap and salad when I had ordered a Quarter Pounder and fries.  I'd been given someone else’s order.  Since I was in a hurry, I did not get into the bag until I reached my destination.  This is why you must check your order before leaving.

Despite all the procedures in place to assure a fast drive thru experience, it never seems to work that way for me.  One of the advantages to going inside is when a particular order is finished they can hand it to whatever customer ordered it.  However, the cars in the drive thru are approaching the window in order.  The occasional person is pulled forward to serve the one behind them, but in general you are the mercy of the orders that were placed before yours.  This was the situation I found myself in on Tuesday.

All we had ordered was a sweet tea, but there were five cars ahead of us, including the one who went screeching across the parking lot and whipped in front of our vehicle.  I ordered her tea and then continued to sit in front of the menu without moving for another two minutes.  Knowing that it only takes about thirty seconds to pour the tea and put a lid on it, the window appeared to be a mile away.  We soon began to have an additional problem.  My van doesn't have air conditioning, which is not normally a problem when we are moving, but sitting in a drive thru on a 95 degree day without a/c is not my idea of fun.  Add to that the fact that my van begins to overheat when it idles and my patience was wearing thin very quickly.

The menu to window time was not going to be anywhere near two and a half minutes, plus it took over five minutes to even get to the menu.  I reminded Kirsten that the reason we were in this predicament was because she thought it was too hot to get out of the van.  After several more minutes, we made it to the first window.  Our local McDonald’s has two windows.  The first window is to pay and the second is to receive your food.  I gave the girl in the window her dollar and continued to sit there for another 3 minutes, not moving from the window.  I was tempted to walk inside and just ask for my tea since it had probably already been poured and was sitting on a counter.  Unfortunately, I was wedged between two cars and was too close to the building to open my door.  The exhaust from the other vehicles was making me light headed and I was not sure if I could hold myself upright if I did get out.

I laid my head back on the seat rest and tried to concentrate my thoughts away from the sweat dripping into my eyes.  I drifted off for a moment and was startled awake by a honking horn.  I was excited to see that the car in front of us had moved up another car length, but after wiping my forehead on my quickly dampening shirt, I realized it was only a mirage.  Kirsten had grown eerily quiet and I tried to reassure her that we were not going to die here, but my tongue had begun to swell and the lack of moisture in my mouth made it impossible to speak.  Certain I was entering the early stages of heat stroke, I collapsed forward onto my steering wheel.  The surface temperature quickly causing second degree burns jolted me back to reality.

I heard a slight tapping to my left and turned to see the most beautiful sight.  An angel was looking out the drive thru window with a sweet tea in her hand.  She said, “I figured I could just grab this for you so you wouldn’t have to wait for the next window.”  I began to cry and I kissed her.  She had saved us.  I thanked her again and we drove off singing praises to this merciful woman.  It warmed my heart to know that there are still decent people in the world, but my loathing for drive thru lanes is stronger than ever.