The Woman with the Dinner Box and McChickens

I'M BAAAACCCCCKK!

For the summer, at least! I've been back for a couple weeks and I already have tons of tales for whomever happens to stumble across this blog.

So this afternoon I was in handout for the lunch shift. This one woman came through and ordered a dinner box, (if you haven't heard of the dinner box, look it up, it's like the worst thing to happen to McDonald's since they made the twenty piece chicken nugget.) and a McChicken and a double cheeseburger. Upon reaching the first window and paying for her order, she added on another McChicken as a new order, thus screwing up our system slightly. Luckily, our grill team was on a good streak so we didn't have to ask her to pull forward for anything. However, when she got to my window, I was greeted with an unpleasant experience.

I opened the window and said hello and handed her her drinks. I heard my co-worker say that the McChicken would be in the dinner box, and I assumed she meant both of them, so when the dinner box got to my window, I handed it to the customer. She asked me about the McChicken, and I said they were in the box. She looked at me and said "two McChicken are going to fit in this box with all the rest of this food?" Now, these boxes are pretty large. It might be a snug fit, but I could imagine two McChicken fitting into this box since they're not large sandwiches. So I said to her, "I believe they're all in the dinner box ma'am, but if they're not in there I can go have another one made." She gives me this look, huffs and goes to grab the box when my co-worker walks up with another McChicken in the bag that she had forgotten to box. I quickly handed the McChicken to the customer, who then looked at me and goes "I'm not checking the box, checking the food is your job." I didn't quite know what she wanted me to say to her, so I just smiled and said "have a nice day ma'am." I swear to god, no sass, nothing, I just wanted this woman out of my drive thru.

So for the next hour I'm brooding over this, because there's so much wrong with this scenario. First of all, yes, you're right, it's my job to count all of the McChickens and make sure your order is all set, but you know what? You could've just opened the freaking box and looked, and if something was out of order, I would've apologized profusely and then fixed your order. It would've taken you two seconds, and I had already handed you the box. If you want me to check, then by all means, hand me the god forsaken giant box that you HAD to order during the busiest time of our day back, and I'll check. On another note, it's your fault for adding a McChicken after your order was paid out. That completely screws up our monitors and slows everything down, so some confusion should've been expected.

So guess what happens next? About an hour after this woman comes through the line, we get a call to the store. My manager answers the phone, and it's this woman. Now, I don't know what exactly was said because my manager wasn't concerned about the complaint, but I do know that my name was mentioned as part of the complaint. This was the first time my name has ever been associated with a customer complaint, and I personally think it was incredibly unjustified. She received all of her food, and I tried to be as polite as possible even though this woman was just being lazy and was creating unnecessary problems.

So there's my crazy tale for the day - the dinner box woman who ruined my afternoon and gave me my first customer complaint. I'm incredibly thankful to have built up a good reputation with my manager, because he knew that the woman was full of crap.

If you work at McDonald's, tell me your worst customer horror stories! Come on, I know you have some!

Bridget