SCHOOL RELATED POST #5 - Extra credit, extra fun!

Starting this assignment was exciting. I have purposely been a jackass on numerous occasions before, but I can’t recall the last time I was a jackass on purpose to food service employees. This is mainly because I’ve worked in food service for many years myself, so I know how it feels. Regardless, I was going to try to make the best out of this humorous situation.
















So, after my last class ended at 8:50 PM, I took a walk with my good friend J to the local McDonald’s at Union Square. I felt this was the perfect time because it was late enough so that not many people would be there so I would not hold up any lines with my extra special order. So I go in, and there is practically no line. I go up to a nice young lady named Justine and quickly state my position. I say hi with a big smile on my face. “I want a small order but it’s a very special order…”
This was me, ordering politely.

This was her reaction.
Her warm welcoming smile immediately disappeared. I first told her about my need for a hamburger with four pickles, exactly four pickles, no more, no less. Her face practically turned to stone. There was an awkward silence for a few seconds. I think she was ready to reject me. Kwok may get rejected a lot, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to get rejected at McDonald’s. Justine had to call somebody named Fabry over to help her. He was more receiving, and quickly moved to give the burger artists my special order. “Four pickles!” I heard him say. I thought I saw one of the burger assemblers/organizers looking a little confused. I think I may have also saw a smirk form, as a burger with exactly four pickles does seem like a ridiculous order.

Poor Justine thought I was done, but I quickly ruined her happiness by requesting another special item: a small order of fries with no salt, NO salt. Fabry came over once again. This seemed like it was going to be tough. I could practically hear them say “this is gonna be a looonnng night.” I didn’t think they made fries with no salt, but luckily for me, it didn’t seem to be that much of a problem as Fabry left once again to relay my message. I felt so bad for that poor cashier as I gave her the final dagger. “Can I get a receipt that says everything? You know, like the four pickles…”

Fabry came over once again. Justine told me that I could get a receipt that just lists the hamburger and fries. No, that wouldn’t be good enough; I reiterated my point. “Can’t you make it say like… extra pickles or something?” Fabry saved the day. He told me they could do it, as they started working the machine. He mentioned he had to go somewhere else to get the receipt, and he did just that as he walked a short distance to get that very important piece of paper, which I guess was printed at a different machine. I looked at the receipt, satisfied. They told me the fries would take two minutes. I thanked Justine and stood to the side, wondering if they would get my order right.

As J and I waited, we observed the kitchen intently. As a new batch of fries came out, we saw Fabry RUSH over like a racehorse with rabies and say “WAIT WAIT, KEEP THOSE SEPARATE, DON’T MIX THOSE IN WITH THE OTHERS!” I was pretty sure that new batch of fries was saltless, made especially for me. It made me happy that he took extra special care in making sure my order was perfect. We watched quite observantly as he scooped a small portion of that batch into a small bag. I felt a little bad that they made so many saltless fries just for my small order. He smiled as he put the fries in a bag and handed it to me. I thanked him, but realized that the burger was not in the bag. I asked him where my burger was and he seemed a little confused. I reminded him about the four pickles, and he quickly regained his senses. I wondered though, had my burger not been special, would he have remembered? No time for silly thoughts. I got my burger, and we sat down to eat.

Fries with no salt? Check. Burger with exactly four pickles? Check. I kind of expected the pickles to be placed one in each corner, forming a square made of four circles. I was quite taken aback though, as the formation of the pickles was nothing like I imagined it. They put two horizontally first, then two vertically on top of them, forming some kind of cross. This small meal cost $2.90 and I thoroughly enjoyed it, though I had to get some ketchup for the fries.

I had thought that the McDonald's employees would adhere strictly to their one pickle burger and all-and-only-salt fries policy,


but they did good.


The approximate time from the moment I first talked to Justine to when I got my full order took maybe around five minutes. They mentioned the fries would take two minutes. I understand that having special requests probably isn’t all too common. I would imagine that the burgers are pre-made. If they are not, then the person who prepares them is probably so used to making the burgers the same exact way each time that a request for exactly four pickles on a burger would throw him or her off of his or her burger making equilibrium. Asking for fries with no salt also posed a problem, as it seemed they had to make a new batch just to accommodate my preference. Requesting a receipt that denotes the extra pickles and no salt fries also seemed like a hassle, as Justine really didn’t seem to want to go through the trouble of taking the extra step in making a more detailed receipt. All in all, around three to four people got involved: Justine, Fabry, and maybe one or two people in the kitchen. I felt I was treated a little awkwardly during the process of ordering, but after that, it was smooth sailing. I was practically dancing to the McDonald radio music while waiting. Aside from the mix-up regarding the four pickle burger when I they gave me my bag, everything was superb. The order was completed correctly and to the highest standards of Mr. Mickey D.

The staff’s manufacturing and order preparation was above satisfactory. Though I have no other similar experience to compare and contrast it to, overall I was happy with the process and outcome. When requesting something special at a fast food joint, it should be expected that I would get a few weird looks, and I was prepared for it. What mattered was that my food came out right, and it did. The staff communicated well, as whenever Justine had a problem, Fabry was over in an instant. Fabry also communicated my order to the kitchen staff in fantastic fashion. He truly rose to the occasion. Coordination was not perfect, as they did forget my burger. The customer service process was excellent though, as Fabry did everything humanely possible to keep the customer happy.

The manner in which McDonald’s currently handles special orders is stupendous. However, if I was brought in as a consultant to McDonald’s, I would recommend forming a SOU: Special Orders Unit. This unit would take care of all the crazies who come into McDonald’s expecting everything to be tailored to their liking. I would make sure this SOU would be advertised to the maximum, to take full advantage of this unit. This group of hardened food service veteran employees would have to go through a rigorous training program regimen, consisting of taking outrageous orders and preparing them as fast as physically, mentally, and emotionally possible. Only then would they have the privilege to serve on McDonald’s: S.O.U. Having a specially designated area in the kitchen, the SOU would ensure the highest efficiency in unusual food request preparation, thus leading to a much smoother management process.

Until next time,

Your friend,

Kwok

SCHOOL RELATED POST #4 - Imagine what would have happened if one person disagreed.

I didn’t want to be late for this class, knowing that for some odd reason, it would be the most important class of the semester. When the professor said that we as a class were going to propose what should be done about this midterm as well as the next one, I was a little confused. Apparently the grades were really low, so this drew a bit of concern. I did not see how this class was so important, seeing as how we were going to spend an entire period just talking amongst ourselves about how we can get a higher grade, without much professor interference. After thinking about it for a while, I decided that since the midterm is a huge chunk of our grade, maybe by giving the hand in forming our own destiny, Professor Kurpis was right on target about this being the “most important class.” By thinking in this manner, I effectively missed the point.

After Professor Kurpis said that we as a class must decide for ourselves what we should do and that we must get one hundred percent agreement, he just sat back. Once he did that, I knew what we were in for. He was going to observe the class dynamic and most likely dissect what happened in the next class. He had a smug look on his face as everyone on the class was talking at once. He really seemed to enjoy watching us get nowhere. He smirked as we made absolutely no progress towards a proposal. We all talked in separate groups, and there were a lot of groups. I was not too disappointed with my grade, so a simple curve or drop the lowest grade proposal would have sat fine with me. I heard somebody mention a curve AND drop proposal, meshed together. That seemed too good to be true. However, as the class wore on, more things got added to the proposal, as the students had many different ideas. We were practically writing our next midterm, as well as invalidating the one we just had, if need be.

The class became quite chaotic, as does happen under pressure. We were given a time limit (the class period), and as time wore down, the students became increasingly agitated. Harsh words were exchanged and assertions were realized. I was content to sit back and enjoy the ride, as everybody had already agreed on a curve and drop, which was more than enough for me.

Some people in the class definitely used the “compete to win” approach in handling conflict. For example, one girl would not tolerate anything other than multiple multiple choice questions where the number of correct choices was stated. The class as a whole, however, had to use the “compromise” approach, as everyone had to be happy. If we did not reach one hundred percent consensus, we would have walked away with nothing. If I understand the “accommodation” approach correctly, then I used that approach in handling the decision conflict. I definitely was more apathetic than the rest of the class. The issue was much more important to everyone else, and I already got more than I wanted with a curve and drop, so I basically agreed with any other additions the proposal. Everybody in the class wanted to improve their grade, and any addition to the proposal could not possibly do any significant harm.

For a class this big, getting everybody to agree is going to be tough regardless of what we are voting for. I feel that a strict democracy would be the best way to handle the conflict we had. Our class was a democracy, in that everybody had an equal vote, but there was too much chaos. It would have been best if there was a rule that was enforced that only one person could speak at a time, and only for a limited amount of time. Realistically, I feel that would be the best solution for our scenario.

One thing I found particularly interesting was that a few times, a single individual would have the courage to rise up and disagree with the entire class. This rebellious behavior was quickly put down each time. I remember Professor Kurpis saying, while he was tallying up the votes, that there was nothing wrong with disagreeing with the proposal. I seriously contemplated doing just that, as a joke. It would have been quite humorous.

At the end of the class, Professor Kurpis said that during the next class, we would dissect everything that had just happened, confirming that the class we just had was indeed just a giant experiment. We basically studied group decision making firsthand.

- Kwok Tse

SCHOOL RELATED POST #3 - Heart/egg break

I’m not going to lie, I felt our group’s planning process was a few steps beyond pathetic. We all had different ideas and if I remember correctly, the idea we actually implemented was a last minute afterthought (redundant I know). We did not define our goals and objectives very clearly. We were given 25(?) minutes for planning our contraption. We spent about 99% of that time thinking about what kind of design we should use. Due to this lack of definition on the specifics as well as general characteristics of our egg protection device, we really did not know when we were done, stopping only when the time was up.

In terms of knowing where we stood in reaching our objectives from the start, it was like we were blindfolded with no tightrope walking experience, while walking on a rope suspended very high from the hard concrete floor. We knew what materials we were going to use to build our egg haven, but we did not realize the strengths and weaknesses within our group, and thus did not assign tasks based on these undiscovered strengths and weaknesses.

Our group had a bunch of great designs that we did not implement. I guess you could call those our alternative strategies. We did not really assess the strengths and weaknesses of these alternative designs, or any of our designs for that matter. The people in our group basically thought that most of our designs were too hard to build or that it simply would not work. This hurt the most when we saw designs that we had thought up, being successfully used by the other groups.

The tactical plan part of our planning process was not very defined. We spontaneously chose a design because we were very low on time. There was nothing tactical about the way we chose our egg shielding mechanism. Desperation played a large role in the process of choosing how we used our supplies. There was no job assignation aspect to this step, as tasks just sort of fell into place during the actual implementation process.

On a positive, note, once we did decide what to make (because we had no other choice, there was only a few minutes left), we subconsciously assigned jobs like an assembly line. Though what happened before the device building and the results of the device building was disastrous, the efficiency of the actual building process was a nice positive change. I do not think the limitations of this project allowed us to evaluate our results and take corrective actions to revise our design. However, even if we could, I doubt we would have had the time.

To summarize, we skipped most of, if not all of the first four steps. The fifth step we performed partially, as it was absolutely unequivocally necessary. I would rate our team’s overall ultimate performance as quite low. We could have been more effective as a group had we quickly and thoughtfully assessed the strengths and weaknesses of our various design ideas. To end on a high note, we have a lot of potential and room for improvement. Things can only go up.

Until next time,

Kwok