I stopped at the Golden Arches for a quick bite to eat. I went in for my 4 food groups and noticed that everyone working there, including the swing manager, was probably under age 25. "No matter" I thought to myself, "young people know how to serve food, too." To my mind, there was no reason to suspect that my R. McDonald experience would be different this time.
I ordered one double cheeseburger, one yogurt, and a drink; and I paid and everything seemed fine. Then it happened. Actually, it didn't happen. More than half a dozen employees just standing around. After a few minutes of this, I checked my wallet in order to make sure that I had, indeed, place my order and paid -- instead of just having a mental lapse or deja vu in reverse.
[I actually didn't check my wallet but it puts the reader in the right mood, so consider that the first and only use of literary license (all of the rest of this story is true)]
It was still happening -- or, rather, nothing was happening. I watched another employee come up from the back of the place and start to slowly, painfully, and unsuccessfully make a hot fudge sundae. He dumped his failed attempt in the sink and assured the waiting customer (there was a line of us now) that the sundae would be coming right up.
At least 5 minutes (and possibly 10 of them) pass and I notice the young fellow who took my order was going on break. "No matter" I thought to myself "everyone deserves a break sometime in the day, and someone else will be around sometime soon to hand me my food whenever it comes up." That was before I saw what was in this young man's hands.
The young man nonchalantly walks right past me (to sit down for his break) with 2 double cheeseburgers in his hands -- the very sandwich I had been waiting for all of this time! I didn't get mine until after this young McDonalds employee was more than halfway done with his.
I'm not sure if this kind of a thing has historic precedent (in this country). It's something I'd expect in a communist country, though. This young man's work ethic was essentially non-existent -- as was his manager's ethic (who let a customer line grow in length without telling any of more than half of a dozen employees to actually do their job and wait on customers!).
I don't plan to go there again, my dollar is worth more to me than that. Instead, I will try to find a place that respect's my patronage. I guess that what I get for choosing to get fast food, huh?
;-)
At any rate, this is something I've noticed in the American young, a post-modern Nietzschean selfish nihilism -- at least as bad as I heard that it was in the 1960's. It could be something everyone notices as they age (and take on a different perspective of the young). However, it could have nothing to do with my age, and everything to do with our culture.
Ed
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