I don’t go to fast food places all that often, I am ashamed to admit. I went to Wendy’s today, though, because the grocery store is closed because they hate Canada (Why else would any business close on Canada Day if not as a protest of Canada?). Anyway, I went in and ordered my meal and they apologetically told me I’d have to wait while they made some fresh fries. Two minutes later my food was done and they said “Sorry about the wait” like I’d been terribly inconvenienced. I came very close to saying to that employee “I’m a grown up, I can wait a few minutes for food without that being a problem” but I didn’t bother. I don’t want to shatter the business’s worldview.
But it reminded me of a previous encounter with a fastfoodery: I like the milkshakes at McDonalds and once every year or two I remember that and try to get one. About five years ago I went to a McDonalds and ordered a medium milkshake. While drinking that, I realized that a medium was more than I needed to get my milkshake fix. Thus, a year or so later, I returned to get another one. Not wanting to overdo it again, I wisely ordered a small. After I order, a few other people came and ordered food and got theirs before I got mine. When some employee noticed, they gave me a medium as an amends to make up for what, in their mind, was an unconscionable wait for me to have suffered.
Okay, I get that there are probably plenty of people who are into the whole instant gratification that fast food places try to provide, but I don’t like it. I don’t care about my health or anything, so I don’t care about the usual things that are horrible about fast food. It turns out that the reason I’m not all that into fast food is that I don’t like that they think I am a whiny child.
Yeah there is quite a few people that behave like whiny children so they are probably just playing things safe. Working at those fast food places seems like it can be a chore and I’m glad I don’t have to deal with the whiny members of the public at my job.
Yeah, I guess they’re covering themselves in case they upset a whiner, but we shouldn’t be worried about upsetting them. We shouldn’t base our society on keeping people happy who haven’t yet realized that sometimes things don’t go your way.