Monday, April 5, 2010

Miscommunication at McDonald's with a side of Canadian Bacon

A week ago, Spring Break started. I was on my way home from an overnight shift and decided to grab breakfast at Mickey D's for the kids to celebrate the upcoming vacation. Called Josh and got a list: sausage burrito for Maddie, sausage biscuit for Andrew, egg and sausage mcmuffin for Josh. I know a lot of McDonald's stores now employ foreigners but I have still not had any communication difficuties until this particular trip. I think it was a combination of the the woman manning the drive through having ESL issues and a terrible rainstorm we were having that morning that made it hard to hear through the drive through speakers. The whole experience was like something out of an Abbot and Costello skit:

Drive through lady (DTL): May I take your order? (without asking me if I wanted one of their stupid new lattes-thank you, lady!)

Me (already getting wet from the rain coming into the open window): Yes, I would like a sausage burrito, a sausage biscuit, four hash browns, an Egg McMuffin and an Egg McMuffin with sausage.

DTL: Canadian bacon?

Me: What?

DTL: Egg McMuffin-Canadian bacon?

Me: Egg McMuffin with sausage.

DTL: Sausage is Canadian bacon. (I don't know what she really meant to say, but this is what I heard)

Me: Your sausage is made from Canadian bacon?

DTL: yes, Canadian bacon?

Me: Ok, Canadian bacon...wait, why do you only have one order for Egg McMuffin on the screen?

DTL: what?

Me: I need TWO Egg McMuffins, one plain and one with sausage.

So at this point, everything looked accurate on the screen. It seemed everything was straightened out and I pulled up and got the order. Then, I checked the bag before I left the parking lot. No sausage burrito.

Switch to visualization of me getting soaking wet running across the parking lot in the pouring rain to go into McD's to get Madeline's sausage burrito. The manager says to me, "M'am, we didn't charge you for a sausage burrito." I look at the receipt and she is correct, so I say "Well, would you charge me for one now, because I ordered one?"

Pay for the burrito, run back to the car. No need for a shower this day, already cleaned off by the pouring rain!! Drive home, everybody's happy.....but wait, there's a punchline....guess what they put on my plain Egg McMuffin...that's right...CANADIAN BACON!!

No comments: