I'm a shareholder and customer. I've been pretty happy with the service and food. Sometimes the wait does seem too long.

The quality of food in Asian McD's is better than in the US.

I pretty much only go there for breakfast these days and even then that's pretty rare. But yes I have noticed the quality isn't the greatest.

Regarding the workers a friend of mine did it while in college and let me tell you she had some interesting stories.

Other than Japan, I certainly have not found that to be the case.

Speaking of McDs in Japan...the only time I have ever spent $20USD for 2 people at a McDonald's was at the Intl Terminal at NRT. It was cheaper than the sushi bar I wanted and the McDs chicken sandwich was good, but not that good.
BK in Thailand was awesome - McDonalds...so so.

This is my perspective in Australian McD's. We typically only go for breakfast (although twice so far this year we've been with friends w/ kids and have had lunch).

The biggest problem I've observed is that the combo meal concept complicates things. RadioBloke wants a muffin combo meal, with large OJ instead of coffee. I order another meal combo that comes with a hot beverage, so I specify with "black coffee." We ended up with OJ, a large coffee and a small coffee. They've charged us for two combo meals, minus 20 cents (downsizing something?) plus the (significant, in Oz) cost of another coffee. It takes longer to sort out than it did to place and receive the order. Sheesh - just let us order individual items and charge us for them, or (I know your cash register software can do this) punch in the individual items and let the register figure out the combo meal price.

In Oz they also tend to push the espresso coffee (~$4) over the filtered coffee (~$1.50). I love a good coffee as much as the next person, but with a greasy McD's breakfast, the filtered stuff will do - it's cheap and it's fast. One morning the cashier told me that the filtered coffee maker was "only for white coffees" (ie with milk) , then when I explained that you have to make black coffee first before you can add the milk, she said that they didn't have the "supplies" for filtered coffee. I asked why they had filtered coffee on the menu at all. Then I noticed that the machine looked like it had cobwebs on it.

Reminds me of a BK story.

I was in Orlando (hard as that may be to believe), and went to a BK near my hotel for breakfast. I had the misfortune to get in line behind a Spanish-speaking family - but the cashier was perhaps the one fast-food worker in all of Orlando who doesn't speak Spanish, and what we had there was, failure to communicate.

The customer ordered a Dual Croissant combo meal, which has a breakfast sandwich with two meats. She thought she was ordering a meal with two croissant sandwiches. My Spanish is rudimentary at best, but I finally got the gist of what the customer was saying and helpfully chimed in, "No, no - UN croissant, DOS carne!" My accent must be even more horrendous than I thought, because the customer completely ignored me and continued to argue with the cashier for another two minutes. I was just about to leave and go to the McDs up the street when they finally figured everything out.

All of the McDs in the Baltimore region, and many further west, have those drive-thru park spaces now. I rarely see them occupied, even when the drive thru is backed up around the building.

You probably haven't been going to any McDs in the Baltimore metro region, then. Around here, the McDs range from mediocre to truly awful in service, food quality, and cleanliness. In other (more rural) parts of Maryland, everything improves.

I never expect good service at Mcdonalds or any fast food place. Just give me my order in a somewhat reasonable amount of time and I am good. I also never place complicated orders. I only order what is off the menu, no extra requests like no onions, etc because I have learned from past experience that personalized orders is an invitation for your whole order to be screwed up. Fast food is assembly line food, take what is on the menu and if you don't like it just pick it off.

Sad story, I once got a coupon in the junk mail for a buy one get one free whopper at Burger King. I never eat at burger king but I thought why not? So I place my order and use the coupon through the drive through. I was the only car in the drive through yet after paying for my food they still told me to pull up into a parking space and they would bring it out. Lame. Why not just give me my food through the window? In any case a couple of minutes pass by and I get my food and go home. I eat the first whopper which was just a typical burger. Cheese, lettuce, tomato, etc. Then I get started on the next one and it was nothing but a piece of meat covered in ketchup between two buns. Nothing else. I know it was a free burger but sheesh at least throw a piece of lettuce on it or something.

LOL another funny story one of my buddies had told me one day. He went to the drive through at Whataburger and ordered a whataburger with cheese only. Now when you hear that what do you think? You think of hamburger meat with cheese in between two buns. Well you guessed it, when he opened up his food when he got home all he had was literally a slice of cheese in between two buns.

One experience I had at a Mcdonalds in Columbus Ohio last year just made me shake my head. It was right after the US vs Jamaica soccer game and it was late so I wanted something quick before I go to bed. Well this McDonalds was alright except for one thing. The fountain drinks did not dispense any carbonated soda at all, all that came out was just this thick syrupy stuff. At least the lemonade worked. The sad thing is I probably will eat at that same McDonalds again in September after the USA vs Mexico soccer game. Only reason I won't bother to go further and find a decent place to eat is because it will already be late at night, and I would have came in from Hawaii on a red eye the day before so my mind will be gone and I just need something quick and near the hotel.

Sorry for rambling, I just enjoy sitting back and chewing the fat with my flyertalk friends but as for fast food consider everything going according to plan to be about the best you can hope for.

My brother's idea of a good burger did used to involve cheese and no burger. So it might be a surprisingly standard order. Maccy D's in the UK is mostly ok, quick enough, cheap enough and hangover curing enough.

The extent that this is true is vastly over-rated nowadays, particularly in the US.

There has been a lot of research on this in recent years, with Daniel Pink's "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us" being a particularly easy to read one.

Some interesting related discussion here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/dinin...ighlight=plain

Our McDs have those spaces as well.

Our local Wendy's location will, if you place an order that will take more than a minute or such, will ask you to pull ahead to the door, rather than sit at the window. They'll ask this even if there is not another car behind you. I've taken to refusing. It confuses them. I'm always polite, but when they say, "Can you pull forward?" I say no. If they say, "But the car behind you is waiting for their food," I say, "That's nice. I'm waiting for my food as well."

I generally have good service at McD's but not like it was when I was a teenager

I would bet it is because you are not like you were when you were a teenager.

In Japan, I far prefer Freshness burger. Similar pricing to McD's but a lot better.