Tales of Restaurant Misbehavior

[starvenger 0]

I went to a McDonalds this morning (a different one from the ones I normally go to... still trying different ways to drive to work) to get an Egg McMuffin as I normally get it - no cheese, but with lettuce and tomato added (hey, I like it that way). And for the first time, they told me "we have to charge you for the lettuce and tomato".

 

Naturally, my reaction was "excuse me?"

 

They explained that they have to charge for the extra items that they put on your sandwich, but since I wasn't getting any cheese I could have the lettuce OR the tomato free. They'd have to charge me an extra $0.20 for the other item. Bear in mind that this is the same company that will charge you a loonie to put an extra slice of process cheese on something, but doesn't charge you extra to dress your double cheeseburger "like a Mac".

 

Now granted 20 cents is not a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, but at this point it's the principle. I've never paid extra for the lettuce or the tomato, and I wasn't about to. I got the supervisor, and explained about how this was the first McDonald's I'd been to that has charged me extra for a tomato slice. They didn't budge. I argued about how Harvey's, Subway and Timmy's would all put these items on my breakfast sandwich without charging me extra. Nothing.

 

So at this point I do what I think any of you would have done - yelled out about how this was a bunch of bullshit, told them to cancel my order (at which point they asked if I still wanted anything?) and left.

 

Any similar stories?

 

[NYU 0]

I would be ashamed of myself if I stood in a McDonalds restaurant, yelled at the top of my lungs, argued with the register person, argued with the manager, and cursed at both of them...because they were charging me 20 cents to add lettuce and tomato on my Egg McMuffin.

 

Really. I'd be ashamed. I'd wonder exactly what caused me to take such a wrong turn in my life that I would throw an absolute hissy fit over 20 cents. I don't even know if ashamed is a strong enough word. Mortified, perhaps.

 

Oh, and besides that, I used to work in a McDonalds. Technically, you are supposed to charge extra for anything that a customer wants on their sandwich that is not supposed to come on it. You are also supposed to charge for dipping sauces if the customer did not purchase Nuggets or Chicken Strips. That led to a nice amount of arguments in my store. Because the other McDonalds restaurants you had went to didn't do this meant they either didn't follow the policy or the register person just didn't want to be bothered with potentially arguing about it. But yeah, that is the McDonalds policy -- at least in the Metro NYC area, it is.

[Guest Gym Class Fallout]

I went to a McDonalds this morning (a different one from the ones I normally go to... still trying different ways to drive to work) to get an Egg McMuffin as I normally get it - no cheese, but with lettuce and tomato added (hey, I like it that way). And for the first time, they told me "we have to charge you for the lettuce and tomato".

 

Naturally, my reaction was "excuse me?"

 

They explained that they have to charge for the extra items that they put on your sandwich, but since I wasn't getting any cheese I could have the lettuce OR the tomato free. They'd have to charge me an extra $0.20 for the other item. Bear in mind that this is the same company that will charge you a loonie to put an extra slice of process cheese on something, but doesn't charge you extra to dress your double cheeseburger "like a Mac".

 

Now granted 20 cents is not a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, but at this point it's the principle. I've never paid extra for the lettuce or the tomato, and I wasn't about to. I got the supervisor, and explained about how this was the first McDonald's I'd been to that has charged me extra for a tomato slice. They didn't budge. I argued about how Harvey's, Subway and Timmy's would all put these items on my breakfast sandwich without charging me extra. Nothing.

 

So at this point I do what I think any of you would have done - yelled out about how this was a bunch of bullshit, told them to cancel my order (at which point they asked if I still wanted anything?) and left.

 

Any similar stories?

What a collision of regrettable taste and social retardation. That's a CronoT stunt. No, I don't have any similar stories.

 

The key points here:

1) 20 cents (Canadian, too, so like what, 12 cents American?)

2) McDonald's

 

Sell your blood, man.

[alfdogg 0]

I worked at McDonald's for three years, and aside from cheese, we never charged for anything extra on sandwiches.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

I think 20 cents Canadian is worth 20 cents American about now, actually.

[starvenger 0]

What a collision of regrettable taste and social retardation. That's a CronoT stunt. No, I don't have any similar stories.

 

The key points here:

1) 20 cents (Canadian, too, so like what, 12 cents American?)

2) McDonald's

 

Sell your blood, man.

As Venkman said, the Canadian dollar is at par with the US. I'm not saying you should read the business section of a newspaper once in a while, but... actually, yes I am.

 

Anyway, as alfdogg noted, they don't normally charge you for extra condiments on your sandwich. Cheese and bacon, sure. But lettuce? C'mon. As for stupid stunts, most of the people at my office (all of whom are older than 25) agreed with me. You agree to pay the extra money - 20 cents or 20 dollars - you're just giving in.

[Hawk 34 0]

You aren't fighting the power. Pay the 20 cents and eat your shitty burger. Do you think your little childish tantrum would make them sit back and go "Whoa, man. He got a good point. We'll stop making an effort to induce profit". Not for a fucking second.

[Guest]

I wouldn't pay for it out of principle, but I wouldn't make a scene. Hell, I wouldn't even argue about it.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

I'm just glad Czech fell flat on his face on the dollar joke. pwned

[starvenger 0]

You aren't fighting the power. Pay the 20 cents and eat your shitty burger.

Who said anything about fighting the power? If I were fighting the power, I wouldn't be ordering/eating/arguing about mass produced goods at a fast food restaurant. Let's not get to the point where I'm Eric Schlosser.

 

Pay the 20 cents and eat your shitty burger.

Hey, you're willing to pay extra if you don't have to... great. I'm just not willing to do that since I hadn't done so at other locations. And it was a breakfast sandwich, dammit.

 

You got mad because some McWageSlave was actually doing his job and you yelled at him over 20 fucking cents. Are you channeling Deon and ChronoT now?

No, I got mad because the manager came over and acted condescendingly towards me when I asked her about it.

 

BTW, who's Deon? Seriously, I have no idea who that is.

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

Deon = Bob Van Dam (I think that's what he went by originally) = (currently named) Douchebag

[starvenger 0]

I see. Thx.

 

Should point out that I wouldn't have known that Czech changed his name either unless YPoV mentioned it. Maybe I should visit those wrestling folders every once in a while...

[Steviekick 0]

I still can't comprehend how you put tomato and lettuce on an Egg McMuffin.

 

I had a situation like that at Friday's sometime with some sort of seasonal burger they had. It came with mushrooms on it, and they were having a shit fit that I asked them to hold the mushrooms.

[starvenger 0]

I still can't comprehend how you put tomato and lettuce on an Egg McMuffin.

It is what it is, man. Hard to explain, but then again, I'm Asian - I eat a lot of strange stuff.

[Red Baron 0]

To re-itterate what starvenger said, I'll take it up a notch.

 

The McDonalds in Welland, Ontario (aka shithole) will refuse to put a customer request on anything. I went and ordered a Double Big-Mac the one day and I asked if I can have Ketchup on the burger. The person said they couldn't do that because they don't allow that condiment on it. I talked to the manager who is younger than me, and the policy is that they don't allow condiments that they don't put on certain sandwiches and other items on their menu.

 

This is the only store that I know of that does this.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Complain to the 1-800, get free food. Quit yer bitchin'.

[starvenger 0]

To re-itterate what starvenger said, I'll take it up a notch.

 

The McDonalds in Welland, Ontario (aka shithole) will refuse to put a customer request on anything. I went and ordered a Double Big-Mac the one day and I asked if I can have Ketchup on the burger. The person said they couldn't do that because they don't allow that condiment on it. I talked to the manager who is younger than me, and the policy is that they don't allow condiments that they don't put on certain sandwiches and other items on their menu.

 

This is the only store that I know of that does this.

I had to run the old Big Mac jingle (and once again, this just shows how old I am) through my head to realize that, indeed, there's no ketchup on a Big Mac.

 

I find it strange that they refuse to add ketchup on your Big Mac. But look on the bright side - at least they didn't say that they'd have to charge you for adding it.

[Nighthawk 0]

Some fast food places are just stupid. I've seen shit like that happen at Burger King, and they had a whole jingle about how you could customize your order any way you want it. McDonalds may have had something like that too, actually, I don't really recall.

 

On the other hand, you could just get some ketchup packets and put it on yourself.

[Guest Desensitized]

Let's continue this old thing with more anecdotes regarding times that you've been out of line in public. One time I got up and walked out of a Ruby Tuesday because it smelled like shit. Fecal matter. I was kind of loud in proclaiming this.

[Copper Feel 0]

Most of my tales of restaurant misbehaviour would actually relate directly to my father rather than myself. He's well behaved in esteemed eateries, sure, but he has no reservations whatsoever about loudly complaning to those behind the counter at fast-food joints.

[Maztinho 0]

I got in an eating contest during a scout trip at a Chuck-A-Rama, and I was wearing down my opponents with a strategy of smaller plates over a longer time (we would all agree on a points per plate) when the assistant manager caught on we were having a contest and asked us to leave the restaurant since this was against some archaic rule.

 

The scout master told us to pack up, but I went and made like 17 ice cream cones, and the manager said he was going to call the police. I told him that I paid for all I could eat, and I could take all the cones out of the place that I wanted since he was bait and switching us.

 

"You aren't a good Boy Scout."

 

"Yeah, I know. I did get my [insert name for Financial accomplishment] Merit Badge though, and you are violating a contract by kicking us out with no posted rule."

 

"Fine take the ice cream, just leave."

 

"By the way, you are ripping people off with your watered down soda."

 

Man, I was such an asshole as a teenager.

[Dandy 0]

Back in college, a local Burger King was running a special price promotion for a burger that I can't remember. I asked them to leave something off, and they said they couldn't do that as it would turn said burger into this other burger which was priced higher because it was not on special. I retorted that I didn't like the item that I requested them to leave off, and they said "Well, you're going to have to pay the higher price." I summed up the situation to see if she could catch the irony in paying them not to use an item that would cost them money for each use. She just said, "That's our policy." I stated that the company must not have thought this through, and I couldn't exactly "Have It (My) Way." I ordered a couple of the specialty burgers and requested "extra" of the item that I didn't like. There was no extra fee. I laughed at how stupid that was, got my burgers, immediately took off the items that I didn't like, then sat down to eat them. It might have cost them an extra 3 cents or something, but I was determined to bring them down penny by penny.

[Nighthawk 0]

The ice cream cone story reminded me of something I used to do with self serve cones: Remove the lower tray and stack ice cream a good three or four times the height of the cone. Balance it out the door and drop it into a dish. This was usually at am/pm, where they had, I believe 69 cent cones. Some Arab got mad at me once, and I threw it on the floor.

[Kinetic 0]

Working in food service is such a fucking nightmare. It's as bad as retail, except you throw in hunger as an extra aggravating factor. When customers would jump on my ass about some piddling additional charge, I'd always wonder what the hell they wanted me to do about it. "I know it's corporate policy and all, but I guess I can make an exception for you, random stranger." I mean, come on. I make $6.50 an hour. Dance on my dick.

[Guest Desensitized]

am/pm is currently running an advertising blitz on Chicagoland. I can't get through any programming on television or radio without being told about am/pm. The commercials are weird because they go from either

 

TV: a pop-punky convenience store anthem extolling the virtues of am/pm, or

Radio: a couple goes on a date, and the girl asks questions as if it were a restaurant, then it turns out to be am/pm, and she starts snarfing down Twinkies and beef jerky in the middle of the store

 

and then after that some seductive black man comes in with the voice-over like "Hey, Chicago. am/pm is now in town, with too much good stuff," and it doesn't fit the rest of the respective ads at all. Weird. Personally, I miss White Hen Pantry.

[Nighthawk 0]

We had the seductive black man on the radio here, talking about breakfast sandwiches. Talking like "A hot savory, buttermilk biscuit and so forth." It was frankly disturbing.

[Kinetic 0]

Just typing that paragraph about working in fast food agitated me a little. Some wounds never heal.

 

Yeah, I had never heard of am/pm until my recent trip to Seattle, but am now being inundated with commercials for some that are opening in Atlanta. They're promoting some sort of sausage-y hot dogish product that looks potentially lethal.

[Nighthawk 0]

I used to eat all that shit they have there when I was a kid. Stay away. Mess you up.

 

Nothing wrong with the ice cream, though.

[Guest Desensitized]

reminds me of

every time that commercial comes on during Jeopardy! or a Cubs game.

[Maztinho 0]

More asshole teen Maz.

 

My senior year I was in "Independent Music Studies" class which basically was practicing your respective instrument for a class and getting credit for it. Well, that's the theory. It turned into me, the flute player taking the class, and the stoner bassist hanging out in the music library shooting the breeze. Often the teacher in charge of making us practice would send us out on errands or whatever for him.

 

Once he had some irate parent bitching at him for the whole lunch period so he sent us to get him some food, well he's allergic to pickles so we ordered his burgers plain. The stoner bassist had amazing skill to tell if a burger had too much stuff on it because when they handed over the bag he was like, "I don't think they made these plain." We opened one up and sure enough they weren't plain. I motioned for a worker to come over and explained that we'd ordered them plain.

 

"You can just take the stuff off."

 

"Uh, no, we are getting these for someone with an ALLERGY. He will DIE. Make them again."

 

"He'll be fine."

 

"Manager. Now."

 

I told the manager what had gone down and he started barking orders at his peons, and told us just to eat the botched burgers.

 

So free burgers. Yeah.

 

Turns out the bassist girlfriend worked at that Burger King and the kid who mouthed off to me got fired since it was his third strike for doing shit like that.