McDonald’s Experiment

Have you ever went into a fast food restaurant, and the person in front of you all of a sudden comes up with a special order, explaining it in a very specific way, and ,in general, slows down everybody and all you can think about is when can I finally get my food? Well, in this case, as much as I dislike those people, I decided to become one of them, at least for one day, and see how this form of consumer demands affects the process of operating the business and how the management deals with it. Obviously, the results of this experiment are only concerned with this particular branch of operation that I’ve chosen and does not reflect any form of generalization on other businesses and/or other forms with a management structure, but it does gives us an insight on how this particular consumer behavior can affect the operations of a business.
The business chosen for this experiment is the classic place for fast food, not only in America, but in the world: McDonald’s. Interesting enough, I went to McDonald’s for lunch, on a regular basis, and when I was notified that this is going to be the location for the experiment, I thought that it will give me a good chance to compare my regular order of lunch to this one. More interesting, is that the order itself which was picked for the experiment, correlates perfectly with my usual lunch at McDonald’s: I usually order three hamburgers with medium French fries, whereas in this particular experiment, the order is one hamburger and small French fries. When I’m buying my lunch at McDonald’s, it’s usually between the hours twelve to twelve thirty. These are, of course, rush hours, and the place is packed with disorganized lines, hungry customers, and just chaos in general. But no matter how bad the situation is, I always get my order, which is fairly simple, approximately no longer than the two minute frame. The order chosen for this particular experiment is about a quarter of my usual order, so by logic the time for me to get the order should take quarter of the time. That is not the case.
Since I usually eat there at noon, when there is a rush hour, I decided to do this experiment closer to three o’clock P.M., when there are almost no customers standing on line. I did this on purpose to see how long will it take to prepare my order, given the fact that the workers are nor overwhelmed with work, like in a rush hour, and can focus on my order a lot better. Workers at the cash register are usually very mechanic, almost robotic, and do there job without any hesitation. But when I asked for a hamburger with only four pickles on it, he raised her head and stared right at me, asking me to repeat it and if I’m sure that this is all I want in the sandwich. Then I asked her for French fries with no salt on them, but now she didn’t ask me to repeat the order. I guess she understood that I’m one of “those” and the less interaction, the faster they’ll get rid of me.
The first thing the cashier worker did after she gave me my change and receipt, is to physically go to the woman who prepares the hamburgers and explain her how I want the hamburger. There was another worker in the kitchen who took care of hamburgers, but he wasn’t involved in the conversation (I guess he is in charge of the first step of preparing the hamburger, and the other worker just finishes it off). The two workers communicated in Spanish, so I didn’t understand the exact words, but from the facial expressions of the kitchen worker, I understood that she was confused and a little bit impatient. Afterwards, the same cashier worker went to take care of the French fries. There were two different pans for cooking French fries; she emptied the first one, and poured fresh fries into the second one. Then she had to run back to the cashier and take care of more customers. In the meantime, I noticed that other worker who took care of the hamburgers and was part of the earlier conversation, was staring at me whenever he was not preoccupied with his job. I felt slightly uncomfortable; I guess people with special orders get a lot of this kind of hostile treatment. Then, when the fries were ready, one of the workers wanted to use them for his customer (when fries are ready in McDonald’s, they make a high-pitch sound), but he cashier worker was very aware of what is going on around her and stopped him on time. Then the manager, who was monitoring the whole thing, came to her and asked her what is going on, and the worker explained it to her; the manager just nodded her head and walked away.
Finally, I got my order; the exact time, indicated on the receipt, that the order was placed was two fifty eight. The time that I got my order back was Three O five. Seven minutes for a hamburger and small fries when there are fewer customers in the restaurant, as oppose to maximum of two minutes for three hamburgers and medium French fries, in the middle of rush hour- pretty big difference. All together, four workers were involved in the process- the cashier worker, which very nice, calm and proficient throughout the whole process; the two kitchen workers, who looked anti-social and doesn’t want to be bothered by anybody; and the manager, who was very unaware of what’s going on, and didn’t notice good job that was being done by the cashier worker. The thing that surprised me a little bit after the order is when I actually checked my order and I only saw two pickles in the bun. Even though I made it clear to the cashier worker that I want four pickles, and she made it very clear to the kitchen worker (at least that’s how it looked like) I still didn’t got exactly what I ordered.