Don’t mess with fast food

My car is my second office. Being in the IT industry means some of us need to work on-site on occasion, driving around town, working through lunch. Because our work life can include a lot sitting and staring at a monitor, we ideally like to eat healthy to offset our sedimentary lifestyle. Unfortunately that’s not always possible as the only thing available nearby is some nearby greasy fast food. Thank goodness one of my partners in IT crime has shown me some hidden healthy places that we assault occasionally for a meal ( see his blog at jonac.wordpress.com ).
This one day I find the only thing near me for a quick bite is the local McDee. We’ve all seen it: The face of the new fast food employee, taking orders with a shaky voice and looking around desperately for the general manager when a new button has to be pressed on their till. They’re much more obvious when they say repeatedly “sorry this is my first day”. These people I’m patient with. Why? No, it’s not because I’m a nice guy or anything, but just like in the movie Waiting, you don’t screw with the person making your food, ESPECIALLY at a fast food place. So the guy in front of me has ice in his drink when he asked for no ice, or he had a pickle on his burger when he asked for no pickle. Honestly I can’t even remember what it was, it was so insignificant. He then decided to raise his voice and throw out some offensive comments concerning this obviously new female employee’s heritage. So I decided to intervene, not because I’m a nice guy, or a hero or anything, but because I have to finish importing records into a new database in about 15 minutes and I’m damn hungry.

Me: “Hey give her a break, it’s her first day.”
Him: “This is none of you !@#$%^& business so stay the !@#$ out of it.
Me: “You know, this one time, a Church’s Chicken in Louisiana was shut down because an employee urinated in the deep fryer. Is that something you want to mess with?”
Him: He starts to say something, but stops mid speech and gives a disgusted look. He then turns to the girl and says “Just give me this stuff to go.”

He then leaves the restaurant, I take my order and do the same.

I got lucky. I think he was expecting me to start a fight with him rather than try and disgust him out of the restaurant. What I said about that chicken place is supposedly true (I used to live in Louisiana and questioned some of the people nearby about the boarded up Church’s Chicken. I’m sure it was shut down for more health code violations than just that one.)

I ended up thinking about what I had said about that chicken place, and promptly lost my appetite. I chucked my fast food that day and settled for my bottled water.

The moral of this story, don’t expect $50 service from $5 food. If you do you’re an idiot. Do you really want pissed off employees to violate multiple heath code violations while making your food?

~ by mkadlec on February 27, 2008.