i'm not lovin' it.

Good morning Friday !

I had a very unpleasant experience at McDonald's, Padang Hiliran, Kuala Terengganu this morning.
Mr Sunshine and I were supposed to collect a few boxes of kerepek which his mum sent from Batu Pahat through one of the express buses. We were told that it (the bus) would arrive at between 0430 hours to 0500 hours at Kuala Terengganu this morning, so we had planned to leave the house at about 0330 hours and to have our sahur at the McDonald's outlet mentioned above.
So it happened we overslept, no surprise there huh, and woke up at 0440 hours, resulting in Mr Sunshine speeding and us reaching the McDonald's at 0515 hours (a record time of 25 minutes !*).
Alhamdulillah, we still had time for sahur, I thought to myself.
I thought wrong.
We decided it was best to just dine in the car, so we tried the drive-thru but there was no one there to entertain us. So I got down the car to order takeaway.
There was already a couple ordering in front of me and I noticed that the female employee behind the counter was taking down the order manually. The cash register was closed for some odd reason.
No one behind the counter was smiling, I could swear one of the male employee rolled his eyes at me. They seemed very unhappy to be having customers at that hour.
The ordering process took longer than I expected, with the female employee grumbling out loud, "Tak sahur lah aku hari ini." and "Aku baru minum air sahaja tau.", frowning all the way.
The couple and I exchanged smiles and the same WTH thought.
The clock was already showing 0530 hours and all of us still have not gotten our food.
I watched in disbelief as another male employee reluctantly filled in our drinks and put them on the counter without even acknowledging us.
While the female employee was still grumbling and whining out loud. 
I received my McValue Meals earlier that the couple in front of me. Poor thing, they ordered a lot more than I did.
But there was no Thank You or I'm Sorry or even a smile at the end of all of it.
If that does not scream lousy service, I do not know what to say.

Apart from the horrible encounter, I was not pleased that Mr Sunshine and I were left with a few minutes to gobble down our meals.
I think I have indigestion now, thank you.
I hope the earlier couple had enough time to at least have a bite before Subuh. 

I definitely plan to not forget their faces and am gonna note down their names the next time I am there and I'll either complain directly to the franchise owner (Mr Sunshine knows him) or use the suggestion form to lodge my complaint.
I'm not being dramatic, it's just that I believe that when you work in this line of business, you have to show respect and be pleasant to your customers AT ALL TIMES. In fact this also applies to us pharmacists and doctors (or anyone whose job requires them to be one-on-one with other people) as well.
From my retail experience of working at Watson's, Carlo Rino and Paul Smith, and now as a pharmacist dealing with all sorts of patients the whole day, I know how tiring it can get, but whatever that's going wrong behind the counter stays behind the counter.
Everyone has their bad days.
Grumble all you want behind your customers, but smile (fake one, if you have to) in front of them.
If you can't do that, quit.
And go look for a desk job which do not require human contact. Good luck with that.

I am not angry lah.
Just very, very displeased. And my tummy hurts.
Ok I have to go to the market now. Bye.

*Kids, don't try this at home.

xoxo