Yup. After "supersize me," Mcdonalds announced they were going to discontinue supersizing. Howevever, that forced its clientle to buy a spare order of fries...essentially going larger than a supersize.

We're getting fatter.

Speak for yourself--but I worry about it everday.

All fast food companies are feverishly working to come up with a plan to take the employee out of the customer experience. Punch an order in to a screen - and out it comes on a tray. Who cares who made it as long as it's tasty, cheap and safe to eat? My favorite? The staff at T1/Concourse C ORD McDonalds...we've all eaten there. Ugh!

My favorite:

"I would like a small coke with that."

"Sir, we only have medium."

"Well, if medium is as small as you have then it's small isn't it?"

And I'm sure they completely missed your logic.

It's the same as going to the grocery store and looking at meat. You'll see select, choice and prime. The food companies and the FDA don't want for people who eat low grade meat to feel bad so they call it select. Wow, mom our roast is select...we're great! Consumers get suckered in to the psychological part of marketing, so the small=medium will be around for a long time.

No, I thought it was called marketing. Who is going to buy the "dogmeat" Horsemeat or Crap part of the animal. You gotta make it sound interesting, otherwise you'd never sell it.


Ken in Phx

"Select" meat....

I posted on another thread that there's a restaurant chain in Canada, Casey's. Casey's is akin to Applebees or Fridays. Anyway, a few years back their restaurants were promoting their steak menu featuring "All USDA Select steaks".

A light bulb went on! I realized what we do with lower-grade beef we can't get rid of in this country. We pass it off to our neighbors, who in turn market the designation "Select" as if it were something special to their unsuspecting public!

Nothing is small in the USA these days, except our saving rate.

OHHH-hhhh. That's what all that nonsense is about at Safeway with their Rancher's Reserve Angus Beef marketing b*llsh*t.

Starbucks employee training actually consists of listening to recordings of customers ordering in all sorts of "improper" ways, and scoring the cashier on how accurately the orders are entered.

You should be able to order using another chain's terminology/sizing, and still get what you want - without questions or comments from the cashier.

Just an observation. There's a Burger King near my office where I've had lunch a few times, and the employees are always quick and service is friendly. The manager is always running around behind the counter, getting orders, offering cups to customers waiting for their food so they can start getting their drinks. They've got newspapers out and it's always clean.

Today, they took a little while to get my order--not insanely long, but longer than usual. Without any prompting or complaining on my part, they gave me a coupon for a free sandwich as an apology for the delay (I thought about starting a thread: Burger King made me wait 5 minutes for my meal, compensation? ).

It just made me appreciate people who work hard and are good at their jobs and improved my mood for the afternoon.

Think that Burger King can send some employees to the one in the Delta terminal at JFK? I got in the line at 11:15, left at 11:40 to go to my 12:20 flight, went back up at 12:30 when my flight was officially "delayed", and the person that was in front of me in line the first time around still hadn't ordered..... sad thing was the line wasn't even long, maybe 25 people or so..... the lunch rush at my local fast food joints is much busier.

I had an eerily similar thought recently... When I drive out to the pistol club early on a Sat or Sun I generally use the drive through at one of the two local Maccas.... their breakfast products appeal to me.... sorry...

ONE of them is always fast, friendly and organised.. they even make sure they wipe the outside of the drink cup before handing it over.. AND include napkins without fail...

The other place (at least up until I stopped using them) was slow, disorganised and sloppy....

Strange that two frachises so close together can be so different...

...and I'm with you anyway "in principle".. noticing the little good things makes for a nicer life IMO!

It is amazing how the little things can make a difference.... a few weeks ago I stopped in KFC.... and turned out it was going to take 5 minutes before the chicken was ready.... and the person at the counter offered me a free soda for having to wait....

I remember the little things.....