The deli in my office complex is more overpriced than one at an airport. About a year ago, most of the folks at my office declared a boycott on ordering from there as lunch "specials" crept towards $7 and that's without a drink. It seems like everything is extra there from marinara on cheesesteaks to toasting your bread. We make jokes that they charge for a plastic spoon when you get soup! Even though I stopped buying lunch there, I still walk to it occasionally to get out of the office and get a soda. That all stopped a month ago as well as they raised bottles of soda to $2 and Arizona Iced Teas to $2.25. To combat the soda hike, I started zipping through the McDonald's drivethru on my way to work. It's on the turnpike and right before I get off at my exit. I've been doing this 2-3 times per week for a month and no less than 4 times have found the drivethru to be closed when I get there. They put empty bun trays up like a gate to block the drivethru. I park, go in, wait in line..... instead of it taking 60 seconds to get a jolt of caffeine it takes about 10 minutes. I told the girl who waited on me that day that their drivethru is closed more than it's open. She said they were short staffed that morning. On the advice of a wise old-timer who just fought his own McD's battle, I kept my receipt the fourth time it happened and logged an angry complaint online. This happened last Wednesday, March 28th. I got an email this morning (not a form one either) from a McDonald's representative who thanked me and was pretty upset at what I witnessed. She said someone would contact me shortly to ask me a few questions. When I returned from running some errands today there was a message waiting for me from the owner of the store. What a nice guy! He was shocked and had no idea that his employees resorted to this when understaffed at their store. He told me he called over this morning when he got his email and blasted the morning manager who was there on Wednesday. He then proceeded to ask me questions trying to figure out if it was the same manager every time it happened. As it turns out, it wasn't. There is only ever one morning manager there and just from his descriptions, I was able to verify that two of them had closed his drivethru. He took exact times, was very apologetic and then gave me his cell phone number and told me to call him immediately if it ever happens again. He was good and McMad and started lamenting about how hard it is to get good employees these days. He then offered to mail me some coupons or something, but we had such a good chat - I told him I just want my Diet Coke in the morning without getting out of my car! He promised me it would never happen again and for whatever it's worth, I believe him. Now I'm going to go read some world news about sick people dying in a third world country while I'm complaining about drive-thru service. It's tough being an American.
On an ironic side note - in Blogger if you click on "drivethru" when it shows up in spell checker, there is only one suggestion: diphtheria. Nice.
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