Management Office
McDonald’s
7702 McKnight Road
Pittsburgh, PA 15237
(412) 564-1138

June 15, 2008

Dear Sir or Madam:

This evening at 7:42 p.m., I made the grave mistake of I walking into the McDonald’s restaurant located at 7702 McKnight Road. I have my receipt in front of me: I was Order #219 at store #7445. I live nearby and I occasionally enjoy the convenience of simply walking down the hill and buying burgers to go.

In my past experience, this is not a very-well-run McDonald’s. It would be fair to say, perhaps, that in terms of quality of service, this restaurant challenges the general theory of standard deviation and plays Quasimodo to the bell curve. But hey, it’s cheap, right? And everyone knows what people who work at McDonald’s are like, after all.

I dealt with this insidious quick-service stereotype for years as a Subway employee. I know what it’s like, day after day and year after year, to be treated as if you were less than nothing by many of the customers who come to a food-service counter. I’ve also felt something of the quiet dignity that lives and breathes in the quick-service industry, however. At the end of each day, you know that you have prepared and offered a large number of people a meal, and that’s a lot more honorable than many other jobs in the world today. You look down at your hands and smile before you go home, because those hands fed hungry people safe food at a fair price.

Tonight, more than anything else, it was a lack of understanding of that quiet dignity on the part of the employees at McDonald’s that led to their providing such poor service. At all levels, from the server, who treated me as if I was a waste of skin and not a customer, on the young man making the sandwich, as if preparing my order was a needless expenditure of effort rather than the reason he is employed, to the young man on break who loudly laughed at his fellow employees’ lack of competence and treated their poor service skills as if it was some huge joke, to the manager, Trish, who, when I called to complain, told me that I must have the wrong McDonald’s, even after I told her I had the receipt in front of me.

It’s sad, more than anything else, that this group of people, some older, some young, have not been taught and shown how to hold their heads up and find the measure of pride in their jobs that is there. That’s a management failure, more than anything else, and it’s a real waste, in so many ways. Tonight, my poor experience could have been something very different: a moment to be proud about a job well done on the part of the employees, a pleasant visit on my part, a sales and service opportunity seized and acted on.

Instead, I’m writing this e-mail tonight to tell you that the people who were working at this restaurant tonight know little about professional courtesy and care even less about common courtesy. The restaurant was empty and quiet when I went in. It wasn’t a bad time and it wasn’t a bad day...it was just a bad job all around.

Copies of this e-mail will be distributed to the McKnight Journal, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette North Edition, and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. I am also forwarding it to the McDonald’s regional and national offices, the Pittsburgh and Ross Township listservs I subscribe to, and everyone in my Pittsburgh address book. I’ll be posting it on my condominium community’s web page, my blog, and my North Hills community service page.

If you make inquiries about the quality of service this local McDonald’s restaurant provides in general, you will likely come to conclude, as I have, that I’m doing you a favor.

And finally, If you would like more detailed information about the exact particulars of my visit, please don’t hesitate to contact me at any of the contact numbers and addresses provided below.

Sincerely,

Jim Karatassos

Again, I went to McDonald's. I ordered a Big and Tasty meal, with a coke with no ice. My drink had ice in it, and I immediately returned it. I watched her originally get my drink at the window fountain. When I returned it, she walked to the lobby fountain to get my drink. After we drove off, I found cheese melted to my damned sandwich, to the meat on one side and the tomato and lettuce on the other. That was a delight to scrape off.

If I had wanted cheese, I would have had to of paid .30 for it. I guess if I don't want it, they throw it in for free if it means making me miserable. I specifically said no ice, and no cheese when I ordered, because they try to sell you cheese every damned time. As if it was the greatest thing ever and you would be making a horrible mistake if you forgot to take advantage of your opportunity to have the rat droppings they call cheese.

Why the hell does that nasty piece of rubberized, coagulated, yellowish thing they call cheese cost .30? It's free on a fish fillet, where it has no business. And the Big Mac. And, the price difference between a hamburger and a cheeseburger is NOT .30! It's .10 or .20. Why can't they get it together? Their cheese is disgusting. At least I've found one way to take advantage of their penny pinching ripoffs. Instead of using those little annoying paper ketchup cups when I dine in, I grab a couple of drink lids and fill one of those suckers up with ketchup. No more having to grab ten little cups to get enough ketchup.

This was not the fault of McDonalds. This is yet another case of a consumer being wronged by a lazy, uncaring, non-listening slob of an employee. Putting cheese on there and putting ice in the drink proves she was not listening. And she didn't care enough to check the grill slip when assembling my order. That's why employees are treated the way they are, so don't whine about how wrong it is to talk down to them or speak illy of them. It is not corporates fault, they can't come down there on a Saturday night and hold her hand to make sure she does her job. They can just fire her on Monday.

We waited for half an hour on 1 order of chicken selects! They weren't on break and they were sitting there talking!! When we asked what happened, they made up a fake excuse: There's a delay on the fries. They need air conditioning in their play rooms because I almost died of a heat stroke! McDonald's SUCKS!!!

On April 2, 2008 at 10:49 I purchased a 10 piece Mcnugget dinner from McDonald's. I began eating it, I bit down on a rock in one of the nuggets. I called back to the store and talked to a manager, one to tell me he was the manager. After I gave him the complaint, he then said he was the manager. The young man told me that the manager would call me between 8:00 am and 10:00 am. I haven't herd from anyone. I went to Dr. Basinger, (662-226-6607) he took an x-ray of the tooth. He said the tooth is split and it was very tender. He said it will probably need a cap or maybe will have to be extracted. He perscribed amoxicillin for infection. and hydroco for pains. I am to go back in one week. My head and face are hurting. Where do I go from here.

This past Saturday we went through the drive thru at mcdonalds. Me and 4 friends were in the vehicle we placed 2 orders, and we were all coming from a party and the passengers in the back were all after having a few drinks. My boyfriend and his friend were in the front. So we were carrying on amongst ourselves n whatever and so we get to the window and the girl serving us says "don't take my picture", and she said this cause i had my camera out takin pics of me and my friends, and i didn't take her picture nor did i want it. Then she leaves n the manager on duty whos no older than 18 comes to the window and throws our food at us and says were being 'rude and obnoxious" and not to come back, so then my boyfriend says "excuse me how are we being rude" n hes says "you were taking pictures and carrying on like fools and being rude" etc, and then he slams the window and so my boyfriends friend whos in the passenger seat gets outta the car and stands up n is like "open the window" cause they had left the window and they could not see us as we were lower than the window in the car. So he comes back n says "don't come back" and slams the window again, so we go back thru the drive thru bc at our mcdonalds they only let you place 2 orders at once, and we had 2 more orders to make, so they wouldn't answer us or ask us for our order they just totally ignored us. Then my boyfriend called them on Monday and wanted to talk to the head manager n they said he would call us back either Tuesday or Wednesday. So he did today and he asked for my boyfriends name and address and his car make and model n all that, and we gave it to him thinking he was going to come and apologize or something. But then once we gave him the info he starts screaming at my boyfriend, cursing and swearing and threatening him with legal action, saying we were "being little pricks trying to get free food" and that we were threatening the staff, which NONE of this happened what so ever. And (did I mention that this Manager is the Father of the male who slammed the window in our faces several times on Saturday?) So my boyfriend asks if they have audio of this because he wants to hear where we made threats, and the manager says no "he doesn't have audio but he has a tape of us in the drive thru", and my boyfriend says "Than I want you to ask the girl who served us what I said to her that was so rude" and the manager says "No I will not ask her I know what you said" (funny though cause he was not there and does not have an audio tape??) My boyfriend then asks if he can see the video cause he would like to see where we made threats than nd the manager said "NO" and started cursing and swearing at him again. Then my boyfriend hung up cause he was so pissed off and couldn't believe what this manager was saying to him and how he was treating him. But he than realized that he had his information and wasn't sure what he was going to do with it cause obviously he has some sort of temper. So he called back and the manager wasn't there. Shortly later the manager calls back and starts with his yelling and hollering again, told my boyfriend he was going to "give him advice & to choose his friends better", which has NOTHING to do with the situation at all... the funny thing is too that if we were in our 30's or 40's they wouldn't have said a word to us and guaranteed the manager would have called and apologized to us. The manager told my boyfriend that he is responsible for the way the passengers are acting, so if that's the case what happens when a mom pulls through with a bunch of kids in the back screaming and yelling and crying, are they going to say "listen lady shut your kids up?", no they aren't. So what makes them think they can talk to us the way they did. NOTHING. There is not a single reason for the way they treated us. ESPECIALLY the MANAGER. We will be going to MCDONALDS CANADA and writing a letter. We tried calling but they said there is nothing they can do for complaints that we'd have to file it against the store, which in this case I'm sure the manager would just laugh at us and throw our complaint out. I myself work in customer service and I can't think of a single manager who would DARE talk to a customer that way, especially using threats and verbal abuse. Nor can we as employees do this. Customer is always right, are they not? We also filed a police report on the manager because we felt threatened by him cause as soon as he took our information he started with threats so we weren't sure what he was going to do. Me and my friends are absolutely mind blown by the way we were treated by the staff and management. McDonald's can be sure they won't have us as customers anymore.