Monday, January 22, 2007

Dave's not here...

I decided to take a trip to Roscrea's McDonalds again yesterday.
It's a 45 minute (one-way) trip but seeing that I am trying to educate my kids about good nutrition I make the effort.
Now, I have posted about my experiences with this restaurant on previous occasions and have been quite please with the level of service implemented by one of their managers.
Had my experience been the same yesterday I wouldn't have been posting here today.
When I entered the "establishment" yesterday I noticed that Dave wasn't on duty. But surely that shouldn't be a worry. The other managers must have noticed Dave's efficiency and taken some pointers.
Not at all....
While the place was packed and people were lining up all the way back to the door the manager on duty though that it was acceptable to stand at one of the checkouts and discuss the intricacies of Saturdays hurling match with one of his buddy's. Occasionally he would contribute to the productivity by lobbing a few sachets of ketchup onto some trays from as far as 6 feet away (obviously trying to display his great aim and ball-handling skills).
My order was taken by Amanda. Now I have had the "pleasure" before of being "served" by Amanda. She performs her job with all the enthousiasm of a aging prostitute in a Mogadishu brothel.
She avoids eye contact with the customer, grunts in repsonse to an order. Insists on referring to a latte as a coffee (and subsequently serves me a coffee) and will stack your whole order on one tray. Even if your order consists of 6 meals.
All because: "sure, it'll be grand"....
The manager contributed by throwing 15 packets of ketchup and the same number of salt-sachets on my tray.
Halfway during my mail I decided to avail of their free WiFi because I hadn't fed my email addiction for some time. When asking at the counter for a voucher so that I could use the service I was met with a blank stare reminiscent of the eyes of a week old piece of roadkill. The same response when I asked for a refill for my wife's latte. Eventually the "body" behind the counter filled the latte cup with plain coffee and asked the manager for a voucher for "d'internet".
Cue a sigh and a grunted "i'll get it in a minute".
Apparently they keep the vouchers in a locked safe in the office. Because, hey, god forbid someone might want to use a service that is advertised.
When the requested voucher still hadn't materialised after 5 minutes I walked away to finish my meal.
A few minutes later a "hostess" walked by so I decided to ask her if she could get one of the vouchers for me. My question was answered with a pause followed by "me don't speak English".
Now this really gets on my tits.
If she doesn't speak English:
1)How did she get the job?
2)Why is she allowed to mingle with English speaking customers?

Don't get me wrong; the woman in question has been working in that particular McDonalds in that particular position for at least a year. I seriously doubt if I would have gotten the same answer if I had asked her if she wanted a better paid job...

Anyway, Dave if you read this please pass some of your "magic" on to the other staff.
It's great, it's refreshing and it makes everybody's life a little bit more enjoyable.

And, please have a talk with Amanda. I'm sure that I am not the only on sick of her attitude...

E.

kick it on kick.ie

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's always a problem when a service is good because of the efforts of one person rather than the overall process ensuring that the service is consistent.

I often run into this with customer support. e.g. BT have some great guys who bend over backwards to sort you out when you have a problem but they also have one Spanish woman on support and if I get her on the phone I now hang up as she is rude, unhelpful and actually incompetent. She probably has the highest rating for number of calls processed tho!

I'll put up with crap individuals in a place like McD's (and I'm pretty sure we got Amanda once too) but if the on-duty manager is an idiot then there is no hope of it running well.