The Letter

McDonald’s Corporation
Attn: Customer Service
2111 McDonald’s drive
Oak Brook, IL 60523

Dear Sir or Madam:

I purchased an iced tea yesterday at your store on Foothills, near Washington, in Roseville, CA. I have purchased iced tea there before. The most notable thing about the store is that the guy who takes the money, a young Hispanic man, is THE most friendly fast food worker I have ever encountered. He always thanks me and calls me “amigo.” However, this letter is not a letter of compliment but rather a letter of complaint.

I purchase a lot of iced tea. I don’t drink coffee but I do like iced tea. I consider myself some what of an iced tea aficionado. I dislike the tea at Burger King because it comes out of the fountain and I don’t care for Starbuck’s as it has too much of an aftertaste. I prefer your tea as well as that of In-N-Out as it’s just plain, old fashion, tea.

Yesterdays purchase left something to be desired. I actually blogged about it with pictures, if you care to read, at www.sactownguy.blogspot.com. I didn’t notice until I was back at my office and had removed the lid that the “drink” was not a drink but rather a cup full of ice with a splash of iced tea across the ice. Ok, I am exaggerating the point but it was rather bothersome to find that I had received so little tea and a cup packed to the top with ice.

I thus conducted a little experiment. I left the cup in my office all day, with the lid off, and drank the cold water occasionally that had melted from all that ice. To show you how ridiculous the amount of ice was there was still ice cubes in that cup 12 hours after purchase. No joke!

In case you didn’t read my blog let me tell you that I, like most people, worked at a fast food establishment. In fact, I worked at Burger King during 11th grade and again during college; the second stint lasted about a week but that’s a story for another day. My recollection at BK was that they either showed us how much ice to put in a cup or there was a line on the cup. I don’t recall but I do KNOW, with certainty, that I would never serve a beverage to someone with ice to the rim. I mean really… who wants a cup full of ice? You finish the drink so quickly and then you just have ice.

A related complaint is the styrophome cup. No, I am not concerned about the environmental effects that the cup may have as I am sure you guys have done testing and these cups aren’t like the old styrophome cups. However, when the cup is so full of ice it’s impossible to slide the straw down the side as you can do with the plastic cups. I thus had to lift the cup to get the few drops of tea at the bottom of the cup. Luckily I did not have an avalanche but I was worried as I had my work clothes on! Just imagine my letter if I had attached a dry cleaning bill to it!

In conclusion, I hope you send a training manual to that store so they can work on their ice serving skills. I like McDonald’s and will continue to buy my iced tea there but I would prefer to have things served correctly.