The "M" Word...

In a perfect world, my kids would eat whole-grain, organic, homemade everything. Never processed. Never frozen. Never...well, you get the idea. But, my world is FAR from perfect. A kid in middle school, two in elementary school, all three in soccer, a husband on dialysis with a serious medical condition, and me in my third semester of nursing school. Yes, time is limited, life is crazy.

So, that's my disclaimer for this: We eat fast food.

Not every night, but way more often than I would like to admit. And most of the time, we have to eat cheap. And we have to go to THAT place.

Yes. The "M" word.

McDonalds.

*sigh*

Okay, so now that we have that all out in the open. I'm going to vent about why we avoid the "M" word place and it has nothing to do with the fact that it's unhealthy. It's the crappy service. When, I tell Siri on my iPhone to "Find McDonald's," she responds with, "I found fifteen restaurants matching 'McDonald's' fairly close to you:" and of course, lists them out for me. FIFTEEN! There are FIFTEEN (FIFTEEN!!!) McDonald's restaurants within 13.8 miles of me. That is insane!

With that being said, my family frequently is in the vicinity of four of them. And, only two of them are left on my "eat there only if we are so broke we can't afford Chick-fil-a" list. We haven't visited one of them in about a year. I refuse to go back. The last one to get completely X'd off our list is actually directly by our home. I was treated so poorly there by the GENERAL MANAGER that I absolutely can not go back there. It was so bad, that I called the little number over there on the wall. In front of him. The lady on the other end, told me that I was correct in the issue at hand. I hung up and told him that she told me she was going to call him and speak to him about the matter (which she did). He looked at me and smugly said, "That's what they get paid to tell you."

Seriously. *deep breaths* The funny thing is, it wasn't anything that serious. I was using a coupon from the calendar that I'm sure most of us got in our mailboxes. He didn't want to honor it. We had already spent $20 in food.

Anyway. My point is this: I'm tired of managers, restaurant workers, retail workers, and anyone else in the service industry treating me as if their J-O-B does not depend on my money being spent there. Because it does. Do I think that my family "boycotting" these restaurants will stop them from treating customers so poorly? Nope, I'm realistic. But, I can hope that more people will read this and realize that we don't have to settle for sub-par service. After all, I can go to Chick-fil-a and get treated with a smile and not make me pay extra for every sauce I need. Ketchup will be handed to me with a smile. Coupons don't cause the manager to disrespect you. The store is always stocked with sauces, NAPKINS, straws, clean counters, clean tables, and so much more.

Which brings me back to my point: Why do we accept these things? Why do we go to a restaurant like McDonald's, where the floor is sticky, the tables are dirty, there are never any napkins, and the staff is not friendly or helpful or for that matter, even fast?

We shouldn't. And I know that I have singled out McDonald's here and praised Chick-fil-a. These are only my personal experiences. Like I stated above, there are a couple McDonald's in our area that I have absolutely no problem with at all. I might not get the same "personal touch" like I get with restaurants like Chick-fil-a and Arby's, but I still can not complain at all about them.

So, again. Don't settle for this. Spend the extra couple of dollars and spend your money somewhere that respects you as their customer. Stop letting bad service rule your "fast food" moments simply because of a dollar or two.