UAL vs McDonalds

[race#53]

A tale of two companies;
My wife and i spent all day Christmas at ORD waiting SA for DFW but all the flights were overbooked and even rev passengers were getting paid to go on a later flight. All UAL employees remained calm and friendly even with customers complaints about not getting on board.
About 6 pm i got in line at McDonalds that stretched across the terminal and after about 30 minutes got close enough to see the operation. One of the people taking orders was acting like he had no responsibility to serve his customers on Christmas day and was knocking over drinks and disappearing into the back room. When the lady in front of me asked to have her order filled before he disappeared again due to the fact she was now late for her flight his comment was "lady you mean to tell me you waited in this line for 30 minutes and now you have a flight to catch "
Two things will happen to all companies;
You hire the best people and treat them fair and they take care of your customers and you prosper or;
You hire anyone with a pulse at the cheapest rate possible, ignore how they perform, and watch your customers go to your competition.

 

[Salty Dog]

Oddly, McDonalds just announced they expect a loss for the first quarter in several decades. I can't imagine why!!!!!!!!!!

 

[KlingonLRDRVR]

I hear ya.

I have McDonalds stock and it is in the tank so far I can't dump it. If it goes back up I will liquidate it. There are lessons to be learned from your post for everyone... Nice post.

KlingonLRDRVR

 

[Tim47SIP]

Mcdonalds or Wendy's

Are you sure you were in ORD because that sounds like most of the fast food places in ATL. The guy at Mcdonalds was nice compaired to the treatement you get in Atlanta. It still amazes me why the ATL airport authority continues to let this stuff happen.

 

[rjcap]

Are you sure you were in ORD because that sounds like most of the fast food places in ATL.

Atlanta airport concessions are an absolute disgrace. If anybody wants to see the worst service in the world come to terminal C and get in line at Wendy's. You will be lucky to get food in 30 minutes and you will be luckier if the order is correct.

I'll take Chicago over Atlanta any time.

 

[Typhoon1244]

Originally posted by rjcap
If anybody wants to see the worst service in the world come to terminal C and get in line at Wendy's.

Amen, brother! Every time I go there--which isn't often--I wonder what it is I've done to p_ss off the staff so badly. I've been tempted to passionately shout, "look, my family didn't own any slaves, okay? It's not my fault!"

And as long as we're talking about fast food, am I the only one who loses his appetite when the person serving the grub has some sort of painful-looking body piercing (eyebrow, nose, etc.)? There should be rules...

 

[Typhoon1244]

Originally posted by suen1843
Maybe it is time to turn ATL back over to the crooks. Who gives a hoot how much money they made...I just want trains and escalators that work, regular cleaning and good food!

Sounds like the Nazis.

Easy does it! I'm just kidding.

The sad thing about Atlanta is that this rudeness is across the board. The Concourse C Wendy's doesn't have a monopoly on surly employees. I've seen and heard our own gate agents do and say things to paying customers that have embarassed the daylights out of me! I feel like we need to comp. drinks on every flight out of Atlanta. (On the other hand, maybe p_ssing these people off and then tanking them up isn't a good idea either...)

 

[lookup]

Okay, so here's a little story (100% true) about what it is like to be a REVENUE passenger on DAL out of ATL...

(oh, and yeah, many of the fast food weenies in ATL (and off airport) are surly... No comment on why I think that is, but I can tell you I would never move to ATL. anyway... on to trashing DAL

So I had a customer that was based in north Atlanta. I had to be there weekly out of KAUS. So, the logical direct flight was AUS->ATL on DAL... Well, I have status on AA so I fly AUS-DFW-ATL weekly... One week I need to make a stop over in MSY out of ATL, so I buy a last minute, one way ticket to MSY on guess who... DAL...

So as a good little pax I schlep to the airport 90 minutes early to get past the $6/hr quacks (pre TSA) and into the terminal areas. I see that the flight scheduled one before mine has been delayed and is leaving in about 30 mins. So I go to that gate where I patiently wait for the solo gate agent to let the early birds on the plane. I can tell she is a bit flustered so I tell her "no hurry, but I would like to see if you can accomodate me when you get a minute..." I get a not so pleasant look...

So while I am standing at the counter, the phone rings. I hear her side of the conversation and I know darn good and well what the other side is saying... My scheduled flight has just canceled and she doesn't want to handle the overflow.

So when she hangs up, I casually say "so, is there an issue with the other MSY flight?"... The b$tch says "No".... At that point I begin to push a little to get the point across that I know she has plenty of space (I had checked previously) and I need to make it to MSY that afternoon for a meeting with a customer. Her response "You're too late!".... Keep in mind that I was at the gate 20 minutes prior to the revised departure time and she knew I was standing there the entire time... waiting for her to get a lull in the boarding...

Bottom line is the b$tch lied to my face, got hostile when I called her on it, and then tried to lie to her supervisor. I would rather rent a car and drive across the US before I would fly DAL again. AA will get most of my approx 80K actual flight miles planned in 2003. (not that they are perfect by any stretch.. don't get me started on Don Carty's a$$ !)

signed,
Just another freaking revenue customer....

 

[100LL... Again!]

From a company management standpoint, making sure customer service is up to standards is a tricky thing.

I used to work for a restaurant that had a philosophy that went this way:

The customer's experience can't exceed the employee's experience.

In other words, if the employee hates their job, the customer will suffer. This should be obvious, but many managers think the can eploy the philosophy of: 'The beatings will continue until morale improves...'

I do not excuse these employee's rude behavior. I think it is a symptom of the lack of work ethic in this country. However, I do think it shows apathy and lack of good management.

An interesting question: What would it take for you to work the fast-food counter at ATL for lets say two years while on furlough, and have a very positive custome-first attitude. Be honest. I don't think they could pay ME enough to do the job with a smile. Unless I was about to be thrown out on the street and I was grateful to have a job just to eat.

A little survey then:
How much for you to work the counter?

Me? $35K / yr (I'm furloughed)

I'll smile atcha until my face breaks, but with my pay, you're gonna pay a bit more for your gut-bombs...


Would you care for fries with that? Or one of our crisp and hot apple pies?

 

[Caveman]

Everybody else has carefully and obviously avoided saying what they really mean. I'll say it: ATL's problem is cultural. ATL is staffed mainly with young urban blacks with an attitude. A noticable lack of diversity in hiring, a "this is beneath me" attitude, poor communication skills, inappropriate attire and grooming, no personal responsibility, zero work ethic, and no education all add up to crappy service.

Why is it that regardless of the ethnicity of the person serving me I usually get reasonable service from fast food outlets at suburban locations? Why is the ramp service exponentially better in DFW, JFK, ORD and LGA than in ATL? The answer is a diverse workforce and a sense of personal responsibility.

Every cultural and/or racial group in this country has generally adopted an attitude that hard work and education will pay off in the long run. My experience has been that young urban blacks are the primary exception. Until their negative attitude changes their plight will remain the same and we can expect crappy service in these areas.

I guarantee you that the PC freaks are going to accuse me of being a racist. That's BS. Notice I didn't say one word about lack of ability. The whole problem is attitude, not a lack of ability to rise above. I also didn't say that their ethnicity was the problem. The young black urban CULTURE is what I'm blaming. Flame away.

 

[79%N1]

No flames Caveman...

You are right on the money, and this is not a racist attitude, at all. The best work ethic and attitude I have yet to see is the airport staff in Mexico. Tremendous! It is not a racist thing, it is a sociology thing. One group cares, and has pride in themselves and their job (the SAME job) and the other doesnt. We are not racist for noticing this. I've seen the same in PHL. Young, urban males. The WORST work ethic I have ever seen. But, what does the airline or the airport authority do? Who do they hire? Someone once said, when unemployment is low, and everone has jobs, work ethic and performance suffer. When people are hungry for work, and grateful for a job, this improves. I dont know if things will improve in places like ATL until this happens, and all the young urban males lose their jobs to those who care to do them well. That being said, one of the reasons for the downfall of Usairways financially was them paying $30,000-$50,000/year to rampers, etc... But, those guys were good! You just cant afford to do it anymore!

 

[chawbein]

No flames here either!!

Check out this article by Walter Williams. This guy is my hero, he applies logic to every situation.

Walter William's Column

 

[eriknorth]

I agree with you guys completely. From early rade school days we are taught that we are all equal. And this is true. But we are also taught that we are all exactly the same, but with just a different color skin. This is not true at all. I hate racists, and I hope that this thread doesn't spark any racist comments. But what we have to understand is though we are all equal, and should be treated equally, different cultures and races are VERY different. The reason that you tyipcally don't see a group of friends hangng out that have several races in it is just that we are different. Human nature tends to make us hang around people that are similar to us, for the most part. Again, I hope this is taken the right way, but we have to stop bristling up when a difference is pointed out. I worked at a gas station for two years, and I could write a whole book on all the little racial and cultural similarities I noticed between customers. I don't mean generalizations, either. 99% of the time a racial or cultural prediction was dead on. And remember, these characteristics aren't all negative.

 

[Timebuilder]

Chaw, you are right on about Walter Williams. When he fills in for Rush, I rarely miss a show. They should put his picture next to all references that use the phrase "common sense". Perhaps he is the Thomas Payne of our time.

Eriknoth, you have found why it is so difficult to have any honest dialogue about race in this country.

The founders observed that all men are created equal. Once you are conceived, and are a growing zygote of a human, other forces come into play.

Will you be exposed to drugs in the womb because your thirteen year old mother has a penchant for older men, and the drugs they have? Her mother never told her it was wrong. Will you be loved, or beaten? You will be treated by your unwed mother the same way she was treated. No one stoods up, and said it was wrong. Will you know your father, and will you have someone to look up to besides rap stars and basketball players? No one stood up, and said it was wrong to start a family without two parents, with good jobs, in a loving relationship, as a married couple. Instead, you should "do your own thing", "if it feels good, do it", and "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle".

You, the child, are an afterthought, an inconvenience. Most likely, you will be killed in order for your mother to have "reproductive rights".

As long as this kind of cultural sickness remains sacrosanct, we will continue to fill our prisons, outsource labor to foreign countries, and lower our standards of employment, education, and personal behavior. Unfortuantely, the current crop of minority "leaders", the Imfumes, the Jacksons, the Cochorans, et al, are either incapable or unwilling to lead, and are beholden to the idea that an entire group of people are "owed" special privileges. This idea has proven to be POISON.

We may find a new generation of leader in the minority community, people like Walter Williams and JC Watts, who are willing to make the necessary critical observations. I pray that someone is called to do this work.

After you are created equal, it is up to you, the individual, to participate in the franchise of being an upstanding American Citizen. Until everyone sees the value in this, and aspires to particpate in our American culture, we will hurt ourselves far much more from within than any terrorist could do from without.

 

[enigma]

Right on Caveman. For anyone who tries to take this thread as a racist thread, I'll say this: The leading conservative thinkers in this great country today are BLACK and I support them 100%. They are: Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas and Allen Keyes.
For those who can't wait for Walter Williams to fill in for the great one, try listening to Ken Hamblin. www.hamblin.com aka the Black Avenger. I guarantee you'll like him as he is a private Multi-Instrument pilot and Hog rider.

regards,
8N a proud Keyes voter, and Texas born bubba white boy.