Dear 16-year-old shift manager at McDonalds:

I realize that part of our confrontation today was my fault. If I hadn't been in your drive-thru purchasing overpriced edible poison for four ravenous boys, none of this would have happened. For that, I apologize.

It is, however, YOUR establishment that operates two simultaneous speaker boxes run by one individual. It is YOUR screen that is too small to show the entire order for four people, and it is YOU who asks if everything is correct on the screen when there is no possible way the customer can confirm or deny if there are more than three items ordered.

I assume that you have some amazingly high-tech way to keep track of which order belongs to which car when everyone pulls up to the ONE window to pay. When I hand my debit card to you, I am trusting that you have debited MY account for MY order.

Normally, I look at the receipt just to make sure, but today, everyone and their dog was purchasing overpriced edible poison from your establishment, and I was distracted by the antics of the four ravenous boys in my vehicle.

Here's a little piece of advice:

When a customer pulls up to yet ANOTHER window to collect his/her order, DO NOT, with a look of extreme irritation in your voice, thrust a wad of bills in his/her hand and accuse him/her of not paying enough money for his/her order. Especially if the customer handed a debit card to your employee, whom I assume is responsible for swiping the card for the proper amount and yet failed in this duty.

I understand that accidents happen and mistakes can be made--especially during busy times. But a friendly smile, an apologetic tone, and a simple explanation of the snafoo--where your establishment takes ownership for its mistake instead of accusing the customer of trying to "steal" food through the drive-thru--would go a long way to increasing customer satisfaction and promoting your image as an intelligent and capable human being.

And it would have been really nice if--since we were subjected to all of that--you double-checked the order before you handed it to us so that when we got home, at least our order would be right!

Sincerely,

Me