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Idiots


keira

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So, a few minutes ago my dad came home with dinner. It was the usual bag of McDonalds. I grab my cheeseburger and take a bite out of it, right? Here's the catch. They forgot the meat. Yes, the meat. Everything else on it was perfect, and it even had a 'double-checked' sticker on it. The pattie of beef (or whatever they make burgers out of now) was completely missing.

 

Is this idiocy normal, or am I just stuck in a gigantic cesspit full of morons?

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1. The singular of anecdote is not datum.

 

2. That's singularly bad, even for McDonald's. I don't actually eat there, but I hear they're not so good at getting orders right. So in that sense, no, you're not alone in the cesspit, I suppose.

 

3. McDonald's for dinner every night is not a good idea.

 

—Alorael, who is more impressed by the double-checker than by the burger assembler. Anyone would make mistakes when making hundreds of burgers. But the odds go down immensely when two people are involved. In fact, the (fractional) odds are squared! (Note: this is, in fact, a terrible approximation. Don't approximate like this at home.)

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Flipping burgers, one can probably take some pride in. You're making the burgers. And those tasty fries, making them is an inherently meaningful job.

 

Checking orders, that's harder. It's like being a trusty in prison, I think. You're significantly further away from the dangerous hot grease, but you are distinctly on the side of The Man, and everyone knows it. You're bound to be somewhat conflicted. Do you serve the public, or your peers behind the counter?

 

Double checker is a brutal job, I'm thinking. You normally never find any problems, so your job is totally boring. But then every now and then you're supposed to call out the poor first checker, whose thankless job you probably used to have. That one checker is your only hope for camaraderie, because everyone else hates you from your earlier days as a first checker. Now at first the new first checker is still trying to stay friends with the other workers, so they're letting more things through. And they try to look like they're standing up to you. But the others will see through that in time, they'll turn on the first checker, and the first checker will turn to you as Vader to Sidious. You need only wait.

 

Bottom line is that the checkers have got too many other things to worry about to do much actual checking. Caveat burgor.

 

These boys have got this down:

There oughta be a one of these in every town.

These boys have got the touch:

It's clean as a whistle and it don't cost much.

Wham, bam — you don't wait long.

Shake, fries, patty — you're gone!

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Originally Posted By: Alorael
2. That's singularly bad, even for McDonald's. I don't actually eat there, but I hear they're not so good at getting orders right. So in that sense, no, you're not alone in the cesspit, I suppose.

Dikiyoba has found that service depends more on an individual fast food restaurant than the chain it is part of. Some are above average and some are really truly awful. It also depends when you order something. If a restaurant is really busy, then the employees are probably trying to do too many things at once and the odds that they'll get your order wrong go way up.
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Years ago three friends and I went to Wendy's and they got all four orders wrong. Not only that, not a single order was what any of the four of us ordered so switching amongst ourselves didn't help.

 

Now as for McDonald's, my roommate worked there for a few weeks before he got disgusted with some of the practices that the boss did. Like keep serving food that should have been thrown out for being past the time the chain policy had for leaving it out or using food that was contaminated with dirt.

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Originally Posted By: Iffy
McDonalds is disgusting.
I haven't eaten at McDonald's for years now, and I agree it's disgusting. Then again, the so-called food served at White Castle didn't earn the name of "sliders" without good reason...

If I want a fast food hamburger, I usually go to Burger King; of all the fast food places I've been to, theirs seems to be the least greasy.
Quote:
Nevin could make things far tastier.
Same here. I've been cooking on my own since the ripe old age of about 8 or 9.
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Cooking is generally quite easy and quite tasty if you pick the simple foods and spice generously. McDonalds is unhealthy no matter how you cut it. You can avoid caloric overload, but you can't make the food much more than empty calories.

 

—Alorael, whose main objection to cooking is time. Sometimes when you get home late what you want is food, not a pile of ingredients and a stove. Fortunately, there are freezers. Also pasta and sandwiches.

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Our local Arby's is manned by a bunch of druggies. It isn't uncommon to wait half an hour for a burger, and I'm surprised that it manages to stay in business.

 

The only good fast food burger chain I know of in In N' Out, but they're only here in the southwest U.S. Everything else is crap...and somewhat literally: slaughterhouse practices often lead to feces getting into the meat.

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Originally Posted By: Quantum Gastronomy
—Alorael, whose main objection to cooking is time. Sometimes when you get home late what you want is food, not a pile of ingredients and a stove. Fortunately, there are freezers. Also pasta and sandwiches.
Not to mention the concept of making something ahead of time, freezing or refrigerating it, and reheating as needed. I did that earlier this week with some eggplant parmesan.
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Same, I once went to KFC drive through, asked for a one of the larger buckets, and received what I later found out, after counting the pieces of chicken, a bucket with a fake bottom and only 5 pieces of chicken.

I went back and complained, but this was in Spain, so I couldn't quite get my point across, so I showed them the cardboard container in question and they said, yes, that's normal. So I said there was only 5 pieces of chicken, when there should be 10. They apologized hastily, and gave me some chips and my money back.

 

How many more people do you think were 100 miles away on the motorway before they noticed they had been cheated?

 

Besides, how could you even want to eat a macdonalds... do their chips still feel like cardboard?

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My sister works at a McDonalds, and I believe she quite enjoys it. She works with a good group of people, and she has a fun time.

 

She especially enjoys the fact that they have healthier options now, like wraps and salads and yogurt.

 

As for myself, I don't go to McDonalds very much, I can't afford to eat fast food that often. I cook for myself and my daughter at home, sometimes my experiments work out and sometimes they don't. tongue

 

I think I've gotten quite good at it though, my boyfriend compliments me quite a bit on my cooking.

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Our local McDonalds was known for one thing: Food Poisoning. Surprisingly, it went out of business.

 

I'll save any arguments against "Supersize Me" for someone who's actually seen it. However, suffice it to say that, from what I've read, I don't exactly consider it an actual example of whatever problems the fast-food industry may have. Unless consumer stupidity is the problem.

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Originally Posted By: Toby-Linn

She especially enjoys the fact that they have healthier options now, like wraps and salads and yogurt.

McDonald's salads have more calories than their cheeseburgers when you factor in salad dressing. Their stuff really isn't healthy.

Originally Posted By: Synergy
For a truly bowel-churning experience, watch "Supersize Me" — or eat a meal from McDonalds. wink

-S-

The book Fast Food Nation also provides a similar experience. It's an interesting bit of muckraking.
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Originally Posted By: Nioca
Unless consumer stupidity is the problem.

The film certainly isn't about how poor service and contamination blight the industry. It really is about how consumers shouldn't eat it and the companies are doing something wrong by hawking such unhealthy food.

—Alorael, who has wiled away many a minute by looking at McDonald's helpfully-provided nutritional information. It's rather disheartening.
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I rarely go to McDonalds, maybe once every few months. I really don't like most of the stuff they have there, so I usually order a fish fillet. Since I really don't like any kind of sauce or dressing, I always say very clearly "I do not want and kind of suace on it". I even say it again. And every time, without fail, the buns on the thing are dripping with tartar sauce.

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If they do that, you can bring it back and say "I said I don't want any sauce on it. Please give me a new one without sauce." and they will. You might have to go back a couple times, but they'll eventually fix it.

 

I take issue with the fact that they call it a "fillet" though. It's a ground-up patty, not a fillet.

 

*looks it up*

 

Ah, it's a "Filet-O-Fish", with only one L. That's how they can get away with it. It's like how candy bars are "chocolatey-covered", meaning they're covered with a non-chocolate substance called "chocolatey". Of course, their cronies have already vandalized Wikipedia and called it an actual fillet, where the lie can't be proven to be linked to the corporation.

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Idk, When I was growing up my dad was the night manager of McDonalds for a long time. Back when they already had your burger made and under a heat lamp waiting for you. He usually came home with all the leftover food they didn't sell. We didn't exactly have extra money so leftover McDonalds was a staple in our family. There were probably a couple of years that I didn't go a day without having something from McDonalds.

 

But me and my sisters were never overweight, and dad has a big belly but I wouldn't call him obese. As far as I can tell I haven't had any negative health issues because of it. It may not have been the healthiest lifestyle but if you eat sensibly, like one hamburger for lunch instead of three with a side salad instead of fries (they don't warm up well anyway), it's not going to be as harmful as media has hyped it to be. If you supersize any meal consistently it's not going to be good for you. Doesn't matter where it's cooked.

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I haven't eaten McDonald's in a long time, and I'm glad. I have had Burger King, and they don't understand the term: "No Onions!"

 

Supposedly, if you get your Big Mac and complain, you get a new one. People apparently can say: It doesn't look like that (while pointing to the picture on the menu) and, if they can't get it to look like that after 2 or 3 tries, you get it free.

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Sigh.

Supersize me is a horribly biased documentary that you should watch for a laugh and nothing more.

 

Remember that the people working there are humans too, just like you. Except that instead of working where you do, they get to sit at a thankless job for 6+ hours a day, having to put up with bitchy customers. In the morning when you ask for hot chocolate and get coffee, keep in mind that they probably had to get up an hour before you did. Most of them are kids, who are already short-changed on sleep because of school.

 

Also, there's a good chance that someone working at McDonalds (or any fast food restaurant) is a stoner. Probably about 1 in 4 on average. They're bound to make mistakes.

 

The salads and yogurts and whatnot that they claim to be better for you are, in fact, not. However, McDonalds food is not nearly as unhealthy as many people seem to think. Have you seen Teriyaki chicken with something on the order of 4000% of your daily intake values for sodium?

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You know what . . . people don't eat at Mcdonalds for the same reason they like to say they wont get a coffee at Starbucks, or shop at Walmart, they think they're too good for it, and by not eating there, they are superior to those that do. When a company gets powerful and rich suddenly it becomes uncool to eat or buy from them.

 

As for home cooked meals, they certainly can be better, way better, but seriously most ethnic foods are worse than fast food. How many families actually make sure there are vegetables and whole grain food products on the plate? More often than not a home meal is some prepackaged deal. Now that's not too say that everyone eats unhealthy at home but I would wager that most home meals are no better than Mcdonalds. A greasy stir fry doesn't really make the food healthy, it just makes it food.

 

That being said I don't go to Mcdonalds that much either but it isn't because of some moral superiority thing.

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Originally Posted By: Vanger Blade
Also, there's a good chance that someone working at McDonalds (or any fast food restaurant) is a stoner. Probably about 1 in 4 on average. They're bound to make mistakes.


i have nothing against stoners but if you cannot do your job while stoned perhaps you should not come to work while stoned

Originally Posted By: VCH
You know what . . . people don't eat at Mcdonalds for the same reason they like to say they wont get a coffee at Starbucks, or shop at Walmart, they think they're too good for it, and by not eating there, they are superior to those that do. When a company gets powerful and rich suddenly it becomes uncool to eat or buy from them.


this is objectively true, all three of those corporations are terrible and have literally killed people
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Originally Posted By: Post-Chase Experiment
Why do you keep going to McDonald's and ordering food if you are consistently dissatisfied?


There is nothing wrong with the chiken burger. I can always get a hot chocolate after I return the coffee. I was more pointing the out that all you need to do is press the correct button on a machine while a cup is beneath it. Its not overly hard. I know its easy to get distracted but its always a repeating problem. Overall the service isn't too bad.

As for home made dinners. I would say 70% of the familys I know have home made dinners with vegetables on the plate. I realise that comparing New Zealand with certain other countrys isn't relative as our countrys industries are vastly different so it is much easier to have a healthy home dinner here.
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Originally Posted By: Vanger Blade
Sigh.
Supersize me is a horribly biased documentary that you should watch for a laugh and nothing more.

Explain. It's certainly not good science, but it also illustrates the unhealthiness of McDonalds. No, people don't usually eat it every day for a month. Yes, it's still not good stuff to consume on a regular basis.

Originally Posted By: VCHAs for home cooked meals, they certainly can be better, way better, but seriously most ethnic foods are worse than fast food.[/quote

What ethnic foods?

Quote:
How many families actually make sure there are vegetables and whole grain food products on the plate? More often than not a home meal is some prepackaged deal.

Then it's not home cooking, now, is it?

Now that's not too say that everyone eats unhealthy at home but I would wager that most home meals are no better than Mcdonalds. A greasy stir fry doesn't really make the food healthy, it just makes it food.

Yes, you can make unhealthy food at home, but most home cooking probably can't match the sheer quantity of fat that goes into fast food. There's only so much oil you can add to your stir-fry. And at least there are vegetables almost by definition!

—Alorael, who won't try to categorically defend cooking. He knows the Western diet is now highly maligned, probably with cause. He just thinks the case for cooking over fast food is solid. And you'll save money, too, if you plan carefully and make some sacrifices (like vegetables, unfortunately).
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Originally Posted By: Post-Chase Experiment
—Alorael, who won't try to categorically defend cooking. He knows the Western diet is now highly maligned, probably with cause. He just thinks the case for cooking over fast food is solid. And you'll save money, too, if you plan carefully and make some sacrifices (like vegetables, unfortunately).


frankly after the last time i made something that tasted like a burnt offering, i don't want cooking and sacrifices to be mentioned in the same sentence again
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Originally Posted By: Post-Chase Experiment

Explain. It's certainly not good science, but it also illustrates the unhealthiness of McDonalds. No, people don't usually eat it every day for a month. Yes, it's still not good stuff to consume on a regular basis.


It doesn't accurately illustrate the unhealthiness of McDonalds at all. Before starting the documentary the guy was a vegan (girlfriend induced) for several months, at least 6. His body wasn't used to a diet with meat and dairy products in it. Anybody would look suspiciously unhealthy after a change like that, whether or not there was an actual problem with the food.

Also, they cut and edited so much of what was said in that documentary. People who were in it have complained, saying that they are portrayed as saying something that they didn't.

EDIT: However, that being said, it is a very good example of how to manipulate a populace, and I very much enjoyed it due to that.
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