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The company told franchisees during a webcast last month that 20 percent of complaints were related to workers’ attitudes, “and it’s increasing,” according to the Wall Street Journal. Gripes about “rude or unprofessional employees” topped the list, and complaints that it took too long to get food increased “significantly,” over the last six months.
In related news, bears still tend to relieve themselves in the woods...
Seriously, though, the conditions for employees are probably stressful and the pay of course very low, and complaints about treatment always grate the most, even if they started as a complaint about something else.
Drive-thrus can be a disaster, though I'm always amazed how many people will sit in a 6 or 7-car line and inevitably get stuck behind someone with a large and/or varied order (the kind that really gum things up) rather than park and walk inside.
But even if you do go inside, you're still subject to my biggest pet peeve: They don't count the time it takes to get your order taken. They only count from when the order is taken to when it's delivered, and employees tend to punch it out as complete well before it's delivered. But by not measuring the initial wait, they just ensure the problem gets shifted there.
McCafe tends to slow things down if it takes from the same resources as the rest of the operation, as it usually does. The classic fast-food mistake is to try to have too big a menu, to where inevitably someone will order something that's not ready to go and either jam the drive-thru or be sent to the pullover area (if there is one).
Some problems are obviously inadequate training, and if they get behind on the fries, it pulls the whole operation down.
I give McD's credit at least for trying harder than most. They're much better overseas on consistency of quality than the competition, and years ago they finally bit the bullet and redesigned the kitchens to try to make the food fresher (the post-redesign ones have people pulling patties out of small drawers).
In this case, though, I think the most basic problem is that they need people who'll work both hard and smart, and those that would aren't gonna go for the wages (a part I doubt they'd even consider changing). So we'll probably get this same discussion in 10 or 20 years from now.