"I really expect more from McDonalds. I know, it 's CRAZY to expect a store that trains their employees the same worldwide to live up to the minimal standards required to slap a burger together, wrap it in paper, stuff it in a bag with some napkins, and hand it to a customer in the fastest way possible. But ... well, I kinda expect some kind of baseline competency from a company that 's been around for 82 years. I had to drop off a package at one of the car dealerships on the other side of the freeway and was kinda hungry. In N Out was too crowded (as it always is), and I had the McDonald 's app on my phone, so I figured I could order a quick bite and jump back on the freeway before traffic built up. I ordered one of their specials A Quarter Pounder with cheese, 10 piece Chicken McNuggets, and a large unsweetened iced tea. After putting in my order I headed over to the restaurant and pulled into space number 4. I told the app that I was there, it said it saw me there, and that it could take up to 5 minutes for the order to be delivered curbside. So I waited. ...and waited... ...and waited... Everyone who was in the drive thru line when I got there had cycled through, as had the few that showed up after I parked. ...and waited... ...and waited... and FINALLY a crew member came out with a few bags and a large drink. This entire scenario took 15 minutes. FIFTEEN MINUTES! But at least the crew member was surly. she handed me my drink and stuffed the bag through the car window while I was still juggling the drink, so I accepted it. I asked her if everything was in the bag as she walked away, ignoring the question completely. Opening the bag, I discovered that there were no napkins. I also noticed that the iced tea was just tea. No ice. None at all. Now, having an extensive background in fast food, I know that you put extra ice in a fresh brewed iced tea because it melts quickly. Apparently, this knowledge isn 't common among the newer crop of fast food servers. With those two errors and 15 minutes to get hangry, I decided that it was time to go into the store and get my grievances aired. Taking my iceless iced tea with me, I approached the counter and was immediately met with a complete and total air of shilly shallying. No one had any interest in addressing the only customer at the counter me. So I used my outside voice and said excuse me. A crew member sauntered over and asked me what my order number was. I said I already got my order, and he started to walk away. So having gained at least some minor portion of something that could be construed as focus I said I didn 't get any ice in my tea and that I needed some napkins. The crew member walk away, consulted with the fry cook, then the burger assembler, and finally with a crew lead. He then walked over to me, shrugged, and said they didn 't have any napkins. Didn 't. Have. Any Napkins. In a restaurant that sells food that practically requires napkins for everything from their fries to their Big Macs, they didn 't have any napkins. Deciding that speaking any further at that point would be a bad idea, I simply left. I hopped into my Jeep and headed out to the signal so I could get back on the freeway. The light does take a few minutes, so I opened up the Quarter Pounder with cheese and the McNuggets box. (I 'm a veteran of the Covid years; I can eat and drive at the same time. I 've had two years of practice). Grabbing a McNugget, I took a bite and had a mushy mouthful of room temperature chicken flavored goo slide into my mouth. Sampling a few of the other McNuggets, I found that the first one wasn 't an outlier; they were all room temperature. It was disgusting. Speaking of disgusting, I took a swig of warm iced tea to clear my palate and proceeded to the Quarter Pounder with cheese. The burger, like the McNuggets, was tepid. Slimy, even. It was gross. It 's been a few decades since I worked behind the fast food counter, but as I recall food that had been sitting around for a while like this stuff"
