Fast Food "Service" - When Did It Go Bad?

Raise your hand if you've had an order goofed up at a fast food drive through in the past week.

No store, no chain, is immune. I can't remember the last time I got exactly what I ordered at a fast food place. Throw in the fact it's darn hard to get a smile and even a simple "thank you, have a nice day" at half of the stores in this town, and it's making one of my favorite things to do an ugly chore.

Yes, I love fast food. Yes, I know it isn't good for me. I'm well aware. I was a sleek 180-pound speedster...the White Hope of Sprinting...coming out of high school. No one who's met me since I moved to Peoria in 1996 would believe that, and obviously I can't blame you. But it's true. Now? My left thigh goes about 145 all by itself.

Be that as it may, when I go spend $15-$25 for the family to eat at a fast food joint, all I'm asking is that the order is right. We'd certainly expect it at a sit-down place. What part of "no tomato" do they not understand? What part of "with a packet of barbeque sauce" can they not compute? What part of "diet" is so hard to figure out? And that doesn't even count the items that simply don't exist when you drive away from the window.

I've learned my lesson. I refuse to leave the window until EVERY item in EVERY bag is checked, which sometimes takes a minute or two. Then, considering how long it takes to get through the line, make your order, pay at window number one, wait until reaching window #2, and finally get your food, (then do the fact-finding mission in the bags)....well, it's suddenly no longer "fast food", is it? Damn.

When McD's and Hardee's and BK and Wendy's first became popular, the speed involved in getting your food was a key selling point. As a 17-year old working in a Wendy's in Minnesota, we had a rule: If the customer sat at the window more than 60 seconds after paying for his/her lunch, we gave them a dollar back for every 15 extra seconds. You think our boss wasn't pushing us to get the order done? Oft times the order was ready, the burger made, the fries bagged, the drink poured, before the guy even got around the building from the ordering board to the window. And we didn't get the orders wrong, either. It was simple. Why is it so hard now?