Last night (Sunday morning) at 2.50am my stomach started to rumble as I was staying up late to finish up some work. So I went to McDonald’s to get some food at the 24-hour drive thru. I arrived there exactly at 3.00am, and there were 3 cars ahead of me in the queue.
I didn’t expect anything weird until the first car in front still have not moved after 10 minutes. And 2 more cars arrived behind me. Not that I can reverse the car and get away or anything (although the thought did enter my mind). I turns out that I had to wait until 3.25am in the queue before it was my turn. Yes, 25 minutes in queue at McDonald’s drive thru.
After ordering (with very limited choice) I saw the supervisor was manning the drive thru counter while all of the other staff was playing around, taking drinks from the dispenser and do nothing. And the manager had to record orders on a paper. At first I thought they were on break or something until I decided to ask the supervisor why the hell did he write records on paper and does he have to do it every night? He said, “yes, we have to wait until the system turns back on in the morning to key in everything”.
Hmm… can’t the staff go around and pickup the food while the manager takes orders and record them? Beats me. I don’t know fast food business that well. I just eat them.
That’s a new lesson for me. If you’re starving in the middle of the night don’t go to McDonald’s. And I thought they had a perfect “system”. Quoting my entrepreneurship teacher in college:
Why McDonald’s can succeed in their business? They have a perfect system.
Yeah right 😉
