I expected to be denied my special order (and to be thoroughly embarrassed in the process). But after staring at the menu for a few moments to gather our bearings, we sucked it up and bravely walked up to the smiling 17-year-old Latina at the cash register.
“Sure, what would you like?” she cheerfully replied.
“I would like a hamburger with four pickles – four exactly – and an order of small fries, well done, with no salt. And I’d like a receipt showing it,” I stated as clearly and concisely as possible.
The cashier looked perplexed. I thought to myself that this was the end; McDonald’s security would be here any moment to drag us away to the manager’s office for interrogation
“Four pickles?” she asked.
“Yeah, exactly four. I know it’s weird, but it has to be exactly four,” I explained. She hesitated a little and looked around for support from her manager, who was across the kitchen by the fries.
“Well, uh, we can’t give you exactly four pickles, but I can give you some extra pickles,” she replied.
“I know it’s strange, but we really would like exactly four pickles…if you could ask them to make a special order for us, please.
“Okay, let me see what I can do,” she said.
The cashier then gave the order to the kitchen staff exactly as I had asked, and although the kid working the microwave seemed a little surprised, he nodded with a smirk and went right ahead fulfilling my order. I then watched her walk over to the fryer to give my “well done, no salt” order to the fry guy, whisper a few words to the manager, then return to us with a rather pleasant smile on her face. In retrospect, I think she was a bit entertained by the unusual order, or at least by our insistence of getting the order exactly right fused with our rather comical uneasiness at having to order it. Incidentally, this entire process was rather quick…I’d say it took well under a minute.
“Alright, not a problem. Would you like anything else?”
“No thank you, that’s all. Just remember that we need to have the special order written on the receipt.”
Now maybe it was a poor choice of wording, but she actually took a pen and wrote the special order on the receipt.
“There you go, that’ll be $2.17.”
We paid her for the order, but I didn’t like the idea that she wrote on the receipt. I wanted an actual printout to get the full credit for the project. So I asked her if she could print another one.
“You want another receipt?” she asked.
“Yes please, I’m so sorry. You see, I need to have the special order printed out exactly as I asked on the receipt. Please bear with me on this.”
Now this is where there was an issue. The special order, although unusual, was doable. A new receipt, however…
“I’ll have to ask my manager, hold on one second,” she replied.
She walked over to her manager, a middle-aged African American woman who looked a bit annoyed at the whole premise, and explained to her that we wanted a new receipt with our exact special order printed on it, word for word. After a few moments of inaudible discussion, she nodded her head and said, “We can’t do that, if they want a new receipt, they’ll have to order another meal.”
The poor girl turned to us with an apologetic look in her face and said that she couldn’t print a new receipt and that we’d have to order another meal, but she was ever so sweet about it. Now I didn’t really care about the meal – I wasn’t even planning on eating it. I just wanted a receipt that said, “4 PICKLES” and “1 SML FRENCH FRIES, WELL DONE, W/O SALT”. So I offered to buy another meal. $2.17, what the hell.
“You want another order?”
“Yes, please, I’m sorry, I know this is ridiculous, but the order isn’t even important. We just need the receipt to show the special order exactly as we asked, with the exact number of pickles and the well done fries without the salt. Can you have that printed on it?” we implored.
“Okay…$2.17. I’m sorry.” I almost felt bad for her.
I gave her the money and she reprinted the receipt. It was a little more detailed this time, but it still didn’t reflect the exact order. I tried to explain this to her, but I was so embarrassed at this point that I asked her to just write in the number of pickles and the well done fries, which she gladly did. When I got my food, I gave her a folded $5 bill as a tip for the whole ordeal – I just slipped it onto the counter in front of her – and then made a beeline to the door with my boyfriend. She was embarrassed to receive the tip, and I was embarrassed to give it, and as we were on our way out, she yelled, “Please come back, this isn’t necessary! Please, no! Come back!”
When we got to the car, I opened the bag to check if it was done correctly. There were exactly four pickles on the hamburger, and the fries were well done with no salt, exactly as I had ordered.
In retrospect, I think I may have overreacted with my feelings of shame and embarrassment. There really wasn’t anything incredibly odd about the order, and I’m sure the staff at this McDonald’s (or any McDonald’s for that matter) gets stuck with hundreds of peculiar requests every day. Not to mention this is a multi-billion dollar franchise that prides itself on fulfilling special orders (within their means, of course). The register girl was very sweet and willing to accommodate my request, and the only real issue here was the irritated manager (who, in my opinion, could have been more professional), and their inability to print a new receipt without placing a new order. I can understand how this could have been an annoyance if they were extremely busy, but we went at a relatively dead time, and I feel the manager could have been more accommodating. In conclusion, I was impressed with the accuracy of the McDonald’s staff in carrying out my order, and disappointed at the bureaucracy behind having to order a new meal to get a reprint of my receipt. I was also impressed at how delicious the unsalted fries were.
:)
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