I have lived in my current home for 20 years. That’s a lot of visits to McDonald’s and a lot of hamburgers for a fat guy. It could have been a lot more hamburgers except that the leadership at my local location is poor on a good day. Some days there is no leadership at all that I’ve been able to spot.
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In that 20 years I have boycotted the McDonald’s at the end of my street for periods that add up to about five years. While that may not seem significant over a 20 year period, it means that the store less than 1/2 of a mile from my front door has missed out on $10/week x 52weeks x 5 years. The math works out to a very conservative $2600.00. The reality of it is it’s probably a much higher number when you factor in my great reluctance to give them any business on a regular basis. I go to other restaurants, make food at home, and go hungry rather than make myself even more nuts with their shoddy performance. It’s probably more like $10,000.00 over the past 20 years that has gone elsewhere.
I’ve observed countless places of business in my 54 years. Some have great leaders, some have poor leaders. Great leadership is seen in places like Tinucci’s of Newport, Minnesota. Over the many years I’ve frequented this place I’ve seen the owners bus tables, direct the staff, carve the prime rib (it’s one of the best prime rib places on the planet) and serve coffee. The Tinucci brothers set a standard for their staff and then make sure it’s met. They lead by example. They learn the customers’ names, they make sure the food is properly displayed, they train and direct the staff. They are how you run a business and make it work through good times and bad.
The McDonald’s at the end of my street is on the other end of the spectrum. There are no standards in evidence. Over the past 20 years I’ve seen a total period of about 8 years (leaving 12 bad ones) with some sort of standards. Managers have been on the site, doing a good job for about 4 of those years and there was a bit of bleed over during the rest. In a few cases the good employees led themselves and their peers, but that’s doomed when you come right down to it. The lazy, stupid, slovenly part of the dark force overwhelms the empire eventually and leads to a half-built death star getting it’s butt kicked.
McDonalds, with a well priced menu of varied foods, should be a default setting for guys like me. It is when I’m on the road. But in my own neighborhood it’s a place I avoid. Last week’s visit tells it all and I’m more than happy to share my story so that other business leaders might learn from this place.
I went in to get a Green Shake and a fish sandwich. Who would guess, an Irish Christian during Lent enjoying that combination. The lackluster young man who operated the register didn’t acknowledge me as a human. I almost walked out but he stood there mute and I was ready to order. I waited past the customary length of being ignored and just gave him my order, complete with a “please” at the end of my order. He, in response, said nothing and stood with his hand over the screen that showed my choices. It was done on purpose. He was covering up the screen to be a jerk. It’s not a convenient, anatomically easy place to leave your paw when operating the machine.
No “Thanks for your order.” No nothing. He just turned away and started gathering something in the back.
The ill-trained young woman with the filthy uniform (I didn’t know McDonald’s authorized bare-midriff this time of year. But, it did show off her gang tattoos quite nicely) stuck a plastic cup in the shake machine and punched the button. A glob of white hit the cup, followed by a large plume of green, followed by a dribble of white. As she put the second cup in the machine and repeated the sequence, she cursed to herself and said, “XXXX thing is still XXXXX’d up.” No call to a manager to fix the machine, no dumping the drink. She furtively looked to see who was watching her and then grabbed a long spoon sitting in a container of water and stirred the shake so it was uniformly streaky. Rinse and repeat with the second one, now coming out of the machine. Spoon back in bucket.
I bit my tongue. I had places to go and work to do. I was going to blog about this so I let them rampage.
The bags with my food were delivered by another employee a few minutes later. Set on the counter with a readback of the items inside, they moved off without any apparent care in the world who picked them up. End of customer service.
The fish sandwich was done wrong. I’d ordered two of them without tartar or cheese, and two regular. I got two with no tartar, no cheese, and two with cheese and a passing glance from a Tartar who lived nearby in a Russian Language home for the mentally ill. Not enough sauce to entice an ant out of hiding.
The fries were cold. That’s a great trick at any fast food store, but if you prepackage them and let them sit in a rack away from the warming lamp I guess it can happen.
How does leadership come in to this? If the owner of the franchise, or the manager the chain put in place, actually cared about me as a customer, they would be all over the staff for their attitude to begin with, and work their way on to the shake machine. It’s the small things, as the Tinucci family understands, that make the whole thing work or fail. If you tolerate the noisy employee yelling at a coworker in the back, you’ll tolerate the broken shake machine, and then move on to the point where the parking lot is filthy and the windows smudged.
Each step in the ladder is either up or down. You can stand at the bottom and push, or you can show how to climb the ladder. You can climb to the top and offer a hand up, or you can climb to the top, hop on the roof, and lose sight of all that goes on below. But if you stand anywhere on the ladder and stop, all of the others are stuck in place. Likewise, if you don’t put the ladder in place, and encourage your team to learn to climb, they all stand around with nothing to do.
So, McDonald’s, I’ll be absent from the local franchise for the next 6 months – my usual time-out period. During that period I’ll be frequenting White Castle, Mickey’s, my own kitchen, and Holy Land. I hope that revenue isn’t really too important to your survival. I don’t care anymore about you and your welfare. It’s a reflection of your attitude toward me and my neighbors.
Lead, follow, or get out of the way. But at least fix the shake machine.
