How I learned to stop worrying and start loving McDonald's

Last winter Ronald and I had a huge falling out - HUGE.

As a result I wrote a nasty letter that I still consider one of my finest literary endeavors. And then he said sorry. And we made up. And it was all for the greater good.

But I was still wary, you know? He just wasn't someone I wanted to get to know intimately or hang out with on a regular basis.

Until now.

Until I discovered that a new fast food restaurant located just blocks from my home has a two storey, state-of-the-art playground and climbing gym. And that Graham will happily play there (with other kids!) for hours leaving me to watch him whilst contentedly settled into a cushy seat with my newspaper.

How did I not realize this before?

It was only last week when, despairing of another cold and snowy evening trying to pry Graham away from the television, I ventured there for the first time. When he first stepped into the play area he was nervous, but within minutes was screeching like a banshee and running around like mad trying to keep up with the other kids. Graham barely noticed when I retreated to my newspaper and later he chattered all the way home about his "little buddies."

And so when this past Saturday dawned cold and wet and Rob was sleeping off a night shoot, it only took a few choruses of "But mommy please, all the children are waiting for me!" (for real!) before I relented and made a return trip.

This time he dashed in the door and very nearly into the arms of a girl just a little older than him who hugged him and exclaimed "Oh look! A new friend for me!"

And once again I settled with my paper onto a stool, this time beside a stocky, friendly-faced man with a thick Hungarian accent who I soon learned was the father of Graham's new girlfriend.

"Thank God for McDonald's, eh? We have no other child at home. Where else can she meet kids and run around and play like this on a Saturday in the winter?"

I couldn't think of anywhere else.

So I sipped my coffee and nodded in agreement. And before long we got to chatting he and I, about raising kids, about our own childhoods, about parenting here as opposed to in Europe and about our similar fears for our only children and how important we felt it was for them to socialize with others.

And we sat like this for over two hours talking and watching our children and laughing when they alternately popped out for quick bites to eat and hugs and breathless recaps of the games they were playing.

Sure I felt like a hypocrite, or worse, a cliche, relinquishing my cool, to say nothing of my cherished objections to mass marketed cheeseburgers and play areas, for a chance to read my paper and drink my coffee in peace. Apparently I am just like all the moms who came before me, to whom I used to secretly or perhaps not-so-secretly assume myself vastly superior.

But I don't care.

I'll probably take Graham back again this weekend: he loves it there and, God help me, I kinda do too.

I can't explain exactly why, but I feel inexplicably that last Saturday was exactly what this overextended, harried, career woman needed: to sit for hours in a fast food restaurant, sip coffee and chat with an amicable stranger with whom I have nothing and yet everything in common.

The party's over...

And this is the last time I shall post pictures documenting the revelry, I swear.

I shall commence shortly with issue-oriented posts born of BlogHer panels. I shall weave in some of the highlights and the revelations and I shall entertain and incite you, I promise.

But I do have a few more party pictures and just to placate you and to thank you for your indulgence I reveal to you the back of Maria's shirt.

It says: "Just kidding. Jesus loves you!"

And so, onward to the pictures...

Yours truly and Backpacking Dad hamming it up for our adoring public.

Mandy and Greeblemonkey at the wild and crazy cheeseburger party,
which hotel security shut down after less than an hour.
Thank goodness Ronald and I made up after our infamous dust-up.
Otherwise I would have felt a little hypocritical stuffing my face like I did.

Mrs Flinger and Bossy

Thanks for journeying with me - it's off to sleep and real life tomorrow...

Ronald's redemption

Oh, I sent the letter alright.

You better believe I sent the letter.

After posting it here Monday night, I called the head office at McDonald’s Canada on Wednesday after trying unsuccessfully to get any kind of an e-mail address.

Turns out you can’t complain to McDonald’s via e-mail (at least in Canada) because only three people work in the customer service department and they would be overwhelmed if it were actually convenient for people to communicate with them.

Does that sound snippy? I meant it to. Also snippy? When I said I completely understood that a small business like McDonald’s couldn’t possibly afford to hire more than three customer service representatives.

Anyhoo…I did get a fax number and I faxed the letter out over on my lunch hour. I included the address for this site and explained that in the day and a half since it was posted it had received several hundred views and dozens of angry comments. I included my full name and address and advised them I expected an immediate response.

When I returned home about 5:30 p.m. there were two messages on my answering machine. One was from a woman at McDonald’s head office who apologized profusely and said she would be contacting the owner of that restaurant and advising her to contact me immediately. The second was from said owner who was also very apologetic and expressed a desire to speak with me directly. I figured I would call her today on my lunch.

My husband called me at work this morning. Call these McDonald’s people back, he said, They keep calling!

I called the owner, a woman named Lori, right away.

Lori said she was devastated by how we were treated. She said she’s worked in and around McDonald’s since she was a young girl and her father owned that restaurant before her. She said she has a five-year-old and hasn’t been able to sleep since she read my letter and watched the security tapes because she’s so upset and embarrassed.

Lori said she is dealing with a new management team and that she already had an emergency meeting with them to discuss the situation. She said the manger was woken from a sound sleep by the worker’s call and didn’t fully grasp the situation or the severity of the storm. She said the woman had offered up her job, so guilty did she feel about giving the worker such terrible instructions.

Lori said she had a long talk with her staff at that meeting about using common sense and trying to apply the values, of family and community, that McDonald’s espouses, in everyday situations.

Lori said she was very, very sorry.

And you what? I believe her.

Also, I forgive her and the manager and the silly girl who delivered the manager’s orders. I think they get it. I don’t think it will happen again and Graham and I are home and safe. All I really wanted was a sincere apology and I got it.

Lori also said she was sending something to me and Graham as a token of good will and that’s all very nice and I’ll be sure to let you know when it arrives, but that’s not why I feel so good today.

I feel good today because I feel I have proven, in some small way, that there is power in words: real power. I feel like maybe one day Graham will read this and feel reassured that when people speak up, they can and will be heard.

Thank you all, my friends, for adding your voices – if you are ever in Don Mills I’ll treat you to a Big Mac.

Somewhere, Ronald McDonald is weeping

Manager
McDonald’s Restaurant
Highway 12, Beaverton
ON, Canada

Dear Sir or Madam,

You don’t know me.

And judging by your treatment of me last night, you’re probably not interested in what I have to say.

But I’m going to tell my story anyway.

I was in your restaurant last night with a handful of other shell-shocked drivers, stranded by some of the most deadly road conditions imaginable.

Snow and blowing snow had reduced visibility to zero for miles in every direction. A local strike by municipal workers meant the relentless stretches of highway that we drove inch by painstaking inch to reach you had not been properly cleared in days. The ditches were littered with dozens of cars whose drivers faced waits of several hours for assistance in -30 C temperatures.

It was shortly after 11 p.m. when a fellow refuge opened a locked door and the bitter wind pushed me and my two-year-old son inside your restaurant. I’m not a nervous driver but I cannot remember being so close to a full-blown panic attack. Thank God for the people who helped to calm me and busied my son with stray french fries and smiles.

Too bad the warm and fuzzy feeling didn’t last.

The restaurant has been closed since 11 p.m., one of your minions announced. I need you all to vacate the premises immediately.

We all tittered nervously. She was kidding right?

My manger is on the phone, she continued. If you don’t leave I’ve been instructed that I have to follow policy and call the police.

We burst into laughter, of course: the kind of demented, uproarious laughter that only patent absurdity can generate.

But her proclamation wasn’t really funny at all.

It was, I think, disturbing.

It was disturbing because it illustrated the utter lack of judgment we have come to expect of low level managers working for big companies like McDonald’s.

It was disturbing because it threw into stark relief the difference between the image your company spends millions to promote and the asinine adherence to policy your company apparently insists its workers enforce.

It is disturbing because executive trainers somewhere continue to convince people that minimum wage is incentive enough to sacrifice compassion and common sense on the altar of rigid corporate dogma.

You might think I’m being melodramatic and maybe I am. But let me tell you what you should have instructed your minion to do.

You should have offered to pay her double time to stay an extra couple of hours. You should have told her to put a few pots of coffee on and offer them free of charge. You should have sucked up the $40 or $50 this would have cost and acted like it was your pleasure.

Because it should have been.

Even if you don’t know me.

Sincerely,

Don Mills Diva

PS. I stayed put until I was damn good and ready to leave. And also, I let my two year old have a field day with all the napkins and condiments he could get his grubby, little hands on.