Grant me the serenity ...

Friday, being the good and observant Catholic that I am, I went to McDonalds and dutifully ordered a Fish sandwich meal, plain, meat and bread. A plain fish sandwich, just meat (such as it is) and bread. Actually, not a bad fish sandwich, one of the better fish sandwiches offered for the Lenton market.

What I got. A slab a fishesque meat topped with their bright yellow cheese product, fish sauce and a pickle presented in the middle of a styrofoam platter.  No fries.

I took it back and reminded them I ordered it with bread and without yellow cheese product, fish sauce and a pickle. I chose to go without the fries because they really aren't good for me. It wasn't what I ordered, specifically, but I didn't get charged for it anyway, but it was the principle of the thing. She didn't listen!  The staff was confused by my order and even more confused when I refused it when they brought it out.

They were a bit put out, but remade the sandwich this time with  the bread but without the yellow cheese productor or the pickle. They insisted that the fish sauce was super important to the totality of the whole fish sandwich experience though - or they just were not smart enough to follow instructions again OR they just being smart asses. But I doubt it, they would have to be smarter than they were exhibiting to pull off smart ass behaviour. These people made rocks look good.

It wasn't a language issue either, I was dealing with a really stupid issue. These people are just not very smart. The cash register person couldn't figure out the pictographs on the register.

I have worked register at a fastfood place, I feel their pain. They do not send you to school or offer real training in How To Work Your Register before they set you loose on your register, They say "Here is your register. Get comfortable, if you have any questions, ask me!" Then they go on break and never come back. Eventually, if you are not a rock, it gets very easy. Because it is easy. And if you can't figure it out, there is always someone who will be disgusted with your newby stupidness and will shove you out of the way to do this themselves because deep sigh you are slowing down the line!

It does help if you can read, you don't even have to do math. If the power goes out, its industry practice to either close down or give food away for free because math is hard and you can't ask the counter help to do math. Reading is fundamental though, if you can't read, you can't work.

They can teach and do  McDonalds level English to the non-English speakers  and quite a few of the English speakers learn Spanish, which only helps them moving forward both professionally and personally -  but I do not know if McDonald's has a literacy program.