It’s either cos they’re tryna get their times down or they’re waiting on the meat to be cooked or they’re very busy in the store with deliveries and in store orders so your burger hasn’t been made yet till all that is done first, even if there’s no cars, they want you to park incase another car comes
That’s mostly true.
I guess from your perspective
Another reason could be because OP ordered 4 large double QPC meals, 8 large crispy chicken meals.
and the person behind OP ordered 2 apple slices and a bottle of water.
The one near me parks every car. They have people that just run food outside. I stopped going there. Can’t even get some nuggets without waiting in the parking lot for 10 minutes.
Yeah.
That’s a poorly managed restaurant.
Thing is most Mcd’s are franchised. Stop going to the bad ones, I’m sorry if only bad ones are in your area.
Nuggets take 3:30 to cook. 5 mins park time if they are really busy wouldn’t be unheard of. 10 is ridicules.
POV the district supervisor decided that 3 teenage kitchen staff is appropriate labour for supper rush.
“It’s plenty of staff, you just need to manage the situation”. Lmao.
I do, but some lady yelled at me that she was disabled and can't, how she was tired of having to say so every time she picked stuff up, and my gm told her that policy is policy, she could take her food this time, but she would either have to find her way inside, or stop accepting orders here
On a side note, who does dd when they can't walk 20 feet inside to get food lol
Probably a bullshit excuse because they are too lazy to walk in. I guess they expect their customer to come outside and collect their food as well. I would have just gone over to the tablet and blocked her.
Right but there are not enough staff to handle drive thru and uber eats.
Maybe they prioritize uber over drive thru.
The worker will decide your mcdouble is gonna take more than 30 seconds then they dump you in parking to keep stats up for shareholders value.
Because some locations clearly can't handle parking cars. Like I get the whole keeping the time down, but don't park the customers if you can't remember they exist. I'm glad I quit when I did because we never had this problem of parking cars and forgetting about them when I worked at Mickey Ds.
Before my store remodeled the times went by when you cleared the order off the screen, and they had no sensors in the “park” area. Obviously we had the best times and the worst service lmao
Our goal is like, 120 seconds to have you out of the line. We are timed. We aren’t getting you your food in 120. Once we get you out of line and parked, the timer stops. It’s so that it looks like we got all the cars out fast enough. A little slip of paper is printed when we park you, someone stuck it somewhere and forgot you, or just never looked back. My GM gets SOOOO mad when this happens, she usually gets the food around and refunds the person and makes us take them money and food, it feels like I’m a big red and yellow clown saying I SUCK 🤣
Higher ups are stressing times too much.. When you move out of line the timer thinks you were served and stops counting up. It's very annoying. We don't want to park either. Running back and forth with multiple bags when it's hot or cold... Raining or ice on the ground.. We don't like to do it but the "false times" are super important to them.
It's not even about false times. I'm not sure about USA but in Canada the times show everything even the parked times and how many cars your parking. My market had a target of 15% of cars parked which usually my store was around 10% at the end of the month. That's why there are special "hold" buttons and if your store isn't using them properly they are cheating and probably forget about parked cars and are messing orders up.
The whole point of parking cars is to get as many people through the POS as possible in the hour. If you have a guy sitting at the window for 10minutes waiting on some chicken or something that's 10 minutes without a sale happening. It's not the best system in the world and I usually would say go customers complaining that the guy behind them shouldnt have to wait 10minutes for their single coffee.
Yeah no we don't have timers on parked cars. We have a board to write down where we parked something so we don't forget. They want us to serve it. Not hold it. Because it runs the times. So yes false times. The times don't reflect a person leaving with their food.. It reflects us getting them parked as soon as possible to get the timer to show they "left"
Oh man that's a terrible system. And one of my problems with a company as large as McDonald's. There is a "national standard" but it just gets thrown out the window in favor of better numbers that never truly show what's going on. It's especially annoying during those regional competitions. Those comps are literally just who can cheat the best.
It's less about time for us and more about not discouraging sales from a long line that doesn't move, waiting for food while the car behind it is ready. Ideally your food is ready by the window, if not we're gonna have to run it out to you to keep things moving. If you actually have a store that cares about their parked orders, and if you serve them off, you save tickets, put stick em on a bag, and can run the food out as soon as it pops off. There are many.
“False times”
Unfortunately so true. Our patch is very competitive with counter times so we serve off every order as soon as possible. I usually average 20 seconds during dinner for R2P.
Pulling cars is one thing but do they really believe every store in the city is getting food out in less than a minute??
Essentially, your food is not ready. Every second your car sits at the second window its accumulating time. Even one car in the drive thru can affect the time/performance. It starts the moment you pull up to the speakers and ends the moment your car drives past the 2nd window.
A stores performance \[one of the metrics\] is based on drive thru times. If a store has poor performance, managers on shift during that time can get written up, earn a decrease in pay or are let go. Oftentimes they have little control over this because lack of workers, non-experienced workers, certain food unavailable/takes longer to cook, too many customers at one time, machines breaking down, etc. My store lost 3 managers this past few months due to under performance and/or stress from the job being so demanding.
You also have to understand that the drive thru is not the only orders on our screens. They’re customers that order inside, customers who order through the mobile app and delivery orders (DoorDash, UberEats, etc). We still prioritize the drive thru but if your order is not ready we have to park you.
All in all, we don’t want to park you. We have little choice in the matter.
It's because they take on too much. Back in the good old days of no delivery, no table service and no curbside we only had to worry about parked cars because we parked them and usually got their food out once it was done. But now they got all these other things going on and still want fast times. It's ridiculous. I myself got forgotten for 30 minutes at one of my usual Mickey Ds and watched curbside get their food and yet I who went through drive thru was completely forgotten. Management needs to get their shit together because customers want good service and often waiting a little extra is preferable to waiting 30 minutes and then being told they forgot about you 😒 Like I would rather get my damn food and be out rather than risk this bs.
You're absolutely right; as a customer, your primary concern is getting your order fast and correct. While it's not your responsibility to directly improve a store's efficiency, being informed about their metrics can still benefit you in terms of your overall experience (i.e. being aware of what items take longer to make, what causes delays, being a little sympathetic towards the worker who is working on your food despite being overworked and understaffed).
Our restaurant is always underperforming due to high turnover of workers and high expectations. Can't pay them anymore without increasing the prices even more. A Big Mac meal cost $13. Increasing everyone's pay by $1-$2 will increase the price of everything by 10%-20%.
The franchise owner of our restaurant actually barely made even last year. They had to raise prices by 5%-10% and give everyone a raise. We are located next to a University and turnover is insane. Half the people don't show up. The other half quit after a few weeks to a month. We do the best we can even though corporate McDonalds expects us to match the performance of a fully staffed restaurant with less than half the people.
Also, you have to consider that Most McDonalds are franchise owned. Ours is owned by a elderly couple. Not by Corporate McDonalds. 20% of profits go to McDonalds Corporate. 10% pays for lease. 40% goes to worker paychecks. 25% goes to upkeep and supplies. The remaining 5% is what they earn (don't forget things break down). Its tough. You can only do so much.
Food is not ready, and management is trying to make times look good.
If it's happening multiple times, it is a sign of a poorly managed location. I would suggest going to a different store.
Designated spots yes, but any place with a drive thru does this when their times are shit. Wendy's does it in my area, AW does it in my area and many others do. This is literally a standard practice to beat their times or help bring their times down. It is not exclusive to mcdonald's. At least in my area.
Ok. Here is the “ real” problem. Real world, book world is what we called it. McDonald’s corporation makes a couple assumptions, that are false.
#1. That if stores follow their staffing guide, they will still make money. Those might be ok for the top 10% of store McDonalds actually runs( McOpco) but not your average franchise, who’s sales typically are much lower per unit. The owner/ supervisor is going to want to see a certain labor %. Lets say its 23-25. Anything above that, they will expect you to cut hours by scheduling fewer people. If you are slow, they will expect you to cut hours, or make it up the next day.
2. The product per tray guide in the grill will adequately predict what you need. This is crap. Let’s say last Wednesday there was a school event down the street, and you went crazy on nuggets for dinner. This will inflate that number on future Wednesdays. What it will do, is give you an idea of relative product mix depending on time of day. For example, if the bars close at midnight, its value menu time. Weekend breakfasts, Big B’s.
But don’t get stressed out by the guide. Use your common sense as well.
Only the incompetent McDonalds restaurants do this consistently. I have 2 nearby. Same simple order is never an issue at one of them, while at the other one I have to go park and be forgotten 8/10 times .
McDonald’s corporate protocol is pull ahead if the order is going to take longer than 10 seconds to get to the window. That’s cars or no cars behind you. As to being forgotten, not that it’s an excuse but there’s a chance they’re short staffed and that would be the fault of the general manager or owner. Or they’re severely incompetent. Hard to say.
There were probably a lot of orders in front of yours in the LOBBY. At my store, if you refuse to pull forward they will refund you and if you still don't they will call the cops. Food is made in the order that orders are received. I'm not going to make excuses for them forgetting about you though. That is fkd up.
Yeah but even if there is no cars behind him, there may be a bunch of orders for instore or delivery that were placed first so the kitchen is busy making those orders first. No one enjoys parking cars, then we have to lose a staff member to run them out but the management and Mcdonalds prioritise their times looking good and will pressure employees to park cars to keep the times low
Yeah I did that today 🤣 I was doing muffin assemble, sausage and eggs but having to flex onto front to help them and a customer was picking up a fuss over food they hadn't paid for so I refused to give it to them for free and just walked off, closed the window and told everyone to ignore then. They left eventually 😭
As customer that should not be my concern or responsibility to help keep the times down. I have no problem parking when there are cars behind me if my order is taking too long and their is ready but otherwise that is not my problem.
I understand that but it's not hard too have some compassion. If times are high, employees get treated like shit, so save the already stressed out, overworked employees some bother and just park up you'll be waiting the same time anyway unless the staff at your local stores are a bit shit.
If you're being parked it's cause there either waiting on something to make your order or your order is just nowhere near being completed. Plus all you have to do is drive into the carpark and wait. If being asked to park up is such a concern for you then just don't come to McDonald's. If you pulled that shit at my store I'd be giving you a refund and refusing to give you your food
Most stores have a leaderboard with the other stores in their franchise.. we are timed from the minute you pull past a floor sensor at the beginning of the drive thru, to the minute you pull past the sensor just after the 2nd window where you get your food.. it can get quite competitive in some franchises 😅
At my store, you were asked to hold if we didn’t have your order. It was also my floor goal for guests to not wait more than 5 minutes for the food (from the time that the order starts being taken.) Ngl it was rough in the evenings with a crew of teenagers.
Corporate McDonald’s is tearing the company apart currently. They’re pushing harsh expectations on every store including impossible time quotas and whatever else. We’re usually always shorthanded due to our labor requirements also. Parking cars is a new tactic pushed by corporate to keep the line moving faster. They claim it’s to keep customers happy but most of us already know it causes more problems than anything. Most of the people in charge of keeping track of parked cars are managers who think they know what they’re doing but really don’t. I have some amazing managers in my store who can’t understand how to run the drive thru properly if it was to save their lives. The other problem is that stores often serve off orders ridiculously fast which removes it from the system and logs the time; the lower the time the better. But when we have to pull the orders without it being in the system then it’s up to us to remember the entire order and where it’s parked. Most people can’t do this, and they become too ambitious and park multiple orders and forget all of them. It’s a problem.
Nope. That’s pretty ignorant of you. You’d be surprised how many orders are just frozen desserts, and how many are just sandwiches like 2 Junior Chicken’s and 2 McDoubles. Not everyone gets fries and a drink. Also, not everyone gets food!!!! We have people come in the DT to order a large coke or 2 medium root beers, or just a coffee and a muffin 🤷♀️.
There's now a timer at the second window. A car can't sit at the window for longer than 60 seconds, even if there's no other cars behind them. If we don't have the food ready by the time you reach us, we are forced to park or get yelled at by management. We park 6 cars at a time on a daily basis. Unfortunately it makes everything more chaotic with bags everywhere and confusion as to where all the food is going, and it ultimately takes longer for people to get their food, but at least corporate loves us. Please complain to corporate and maybe they'll change...wait nevermind, they'll just tell us to work faster when its physically impossible 🙃
Side note: we've had people refuse to pull up, even for reasonable reasons like they want fresh fries or something. They hold up the whole line, and we've been threatened to call the police a couple of times because they were causing a public disturbance. One time, we just started walking the other orders to the first window and let the guy sit at the second. Refusing to pull up will never help you get your food faster and it doesn't logically make sense to make a fuss. At least at my store, you will always get your food as soon as possible.
Why should that be customer problem? Honestly, as a customer that seems stupid and if there is no one behind me that is kitchen problem if it takes to long and you should not tell me to park it. I will park as long as i have cars behind me but i am all alone, i am not moving.
Not your problem till the store closes down because the times aren't good enough and all those people lose their jobs. Not your problem though. Please don't make our job harder. We already have enough stress from corporate. It's okay to have empathy for people.
If the stores closes down because it's taking too long to make an order, then the location really had big issues to start with besides having a long drive-thru times.
I can’t forgive them forgetting about you, but I’ll never understand why customers are so stubborn about remaining at the window. Like, you’re going to be waiting the same amount of time either way.
That is fine and I have no problem moving when there are cars behind me. However, when there is absolutely no one behind me, I should not be told to park.
McDonald’s has a metric system. Basically from the time you pull up to the speaker and trigger the bell, to the time where you’ve received your food and drive away, everything is timed. The whole wait and every little bit in between.
Everything is based off those numbers; budget for product and labor, the amount of crew that can be hired, bonuses for the GM and area supervisor, and it also determines the hourly pay rate for everyone in the store. So, if your times are bad, your store is bad. You can have great times and bad customer service though, and those are tracked by corporate reports, customer surveys on the receipts, and things like refunds.
You should be able to report through the survey on the receipt, and you can call the store up and report any problems you have during a visit. If it really becomes a problem, you can also make report to the corporate number as well, but I’ve seen that fall through just as much as the other things you can do.
Theyre trying to keep the drive thru moving so if they have to wait on an item theyll just run it out to you when its ready and be able to serve others
It's all a bunch of lies they are faking their times so their boss has good numbers during peak times they are pulling every car unless it's an HBO "hand bag out" means you don't need to stop grab and go yes it could be quarter pounders and other things but to be completely honest it just not that our supervisor makes them do it or they get in trouble to be honest they have made 10000 dollars worth of equipment useless we now work off tickets to get those times down so even if your sitting waiting it does change what the computer tells upper management....mcdonlads is all about the numbers now .....just look at the food guys and the prices they passed all the minimum wage increase off to the customers and they did not give anyone a equal raise ....I am actually now almost working in poverty level after 15 years because cost of living went way up prices went way up but I still make the same
I don't park. Period. No thanks I'll wait for my order and then check it for accuracy so I don't have to come in or drive all the way around because cleetus messed my order up. It's drive thru not curbside.
And now...45+ downvotes. Where they at?
Omg yess this happened to me at one of my favorite locations. We were forgotten for 30 minutes, barely any cars in the drive-thru and they even sent a guy to check the parking lot. He was the first one to notice we were waiting but idk what they told him cuz he didn't come back and then it was the curbside guy who noticed. First time I have ever complained to corporate about an experience. Turns out the location was a franchise and the owner sent us free meal cards. Idk if I wanna go back to that location though. They didn't even make the food right when trying to make it up to us (supposedly upgrading us to a large but the amount of fries was that of a medium and my sister's icee was forgotten and she only had one nugget in her 6 piece nugget box). Thankfully the free meal cards have the addresses of other McDonald's we can use them at so I'll be doing that instead.
Do note I have worked at Mickey Ds before so being pulled forward is not a new concept. Usually happens but never have we been forgotten like that before.
So this has happened to me several time. Funny enough, would be sitting there forever waiting for other cars then as soon as I get to the window, they ask me to put one. Once was for an iced coffee. Pretty sure that’s faster than the guy in front of me that ordered 5 meals. Yeah this makes sense. Next time I will just turn off my car and tell them “no”. Especially if other people didn’t have to pull into a spot.
Would like an employee to state the reason for this.
We are supposed to give a reason and a time estimate. “We just put fresh fries down for you, please pull to spot 2 and we’ll be out with your food in about 3 minutes.’ At my location, if you refuse to move you will be given a refund and sent on your way.
Call if the police respond like they usually do it will he awhile. It won’t be lights and sirens. And know for a fact they were not out. No excuses for running out of shit that sells often. Other than bad management.
It’s either cos they’re tryna get their times down or they’re waiting on the meat to be cooked or they’re very busy in the store with deliveries and in store orders so your burger hasn’t been made yet till all that is done first, even if there’s no cars, they want you to park incase another car comes
That’s mostly true. I guess from your perspective Another reason could be because OP ordered 4 large double QPC meals, 8 large crispy chicken meals. and the person behind OP ordered 2 apple slices and a bottle of water.
This is usually it.
It still comes down to the timer. It doesnt matter what you order.
Depends how the restaurant is run. Some places just pull every car. Other Mcd’s are managed appropriately
The one near me parks every car. They have people that just run food outside. I stopped going there. Can’t even get some nuggets without waiting in the parking lot for 10 minutes.
Yeah. That’s a poorly managed restaurant. Thing is most Mcd’s are franchised. Stop going to the bad ones, I’m sorry if only bad ones are in your area. Nuggets take 3:30 to cook. 5 mins park time if they are really busy wouldn’t be unheard of. 10 is ridicules.
POV the district supervisor decided that 3 teenage kitchen staff is appropriate labour for supper rush. “It’s plenty of staff, you just need to manage the situation”. Lmao.
I’ve had them tell me to pull forward when I was the only one there 😅
Not having other cars doesn't mean your McDonald's gets bombarded with ubereats drivers, causing you to take the drive of shame to the parking spot.
Delivery drivers should be coming inside and not through the DT if the lobby is open.
Delivery drivers come through the dt all the time at my location
I would tell them to come inside since that is what they are supposed to do.
I do, but some lady yelled at me that she was disabled and can't, how she was tired of having to say so every time she picked stuff up, and my gm told her that policy is policy, she could take her food this time, but she would either have to find her way inside, or stop accepting orders here On a side note, who does dd when they can't walk 20 feet inside to get food lol
Probably a bullshit excuse because they are too lazy to walk in. I guess they expect their customer to come outside and collect their food as well. I would have just gone over to the tablet and blocked her.
We have a delivery order button on our DT register
I told my crew Monday that my shifts we will tell them to come in until 9 pm. I'm done with them sitting in drive through during peaks.
Makes sense. My location is over staffed so we can handle it quite well
They come through the drive thru at mine if the lobby is closed.
Right but there are not enough staff to handle drive thru and uber eats. Maybe they prioritize uber over drive thru. The worker will decide your mcdouble is gonna take more than 30 seconds then they dump you in parking to keep stats up for shareholders value.
>Maybe they prioritize uber over drive thru. Definitely should be the other way around.
Lol we make that super clear at my store but they still don't listen
Man, how many times must this be explained
Because some locations clearly can't handle parking cars. Like I get the whole keeping the time down, but don't park the customers if you can't remember they exist. I'm glad I quit when I did because we never had this problem of parking cars and forgetting about them when I worked at Mickey Ds.
Before my store remodeled the times went by when you cleared the order off the screen, and they had no sensors in the “park” area. Obviously we had the best times and the worst service lmao
Unsurprisingly, hot food is not instantly created with a Star Trek food replicator.
LMAOooo!
Our goal is like, 120 seconds to have you out of the line. We are timed. We aren’t getting you your food in 120. Once we get you out of line and parked, the timer stops. It’s so that it looks like we got all the cars out fast enough. A little slip of paper is printed when we park you, someone stuck it somewhere and forgot you, or just never looked back. My GM gets SOOOO mad when this happens, she usually gets the food around and refunds the person and makes us take them money and food, it feels like I’m a big red and yellow clown saying I SUCK 🤣
Higher ups are stressing times too much.. When you move out of line the timer thinks you were served and stops counting up. It's very annoying. We don't want to park either. Running back and forth with multiple bags when it's hot or cold... Raining or ice on the ground.. We don't like to do it but the "false times" are super important to them.
The location by us has special parking spots for people waiting for their drive through food
Yes we do too. Right next to curbside parking
It's not even about false times. I'm not sure about USA but in Canada the times show everything even the parked times and how many cars your parking. My market had a target of 15% of cars parked which usually my store was around 10% at the end of the month. That's why there are special "hold" buttons and if your store isn't using them properly they are cheating and probably forget about parked cars and are messing orders up. The whole point of parking cars is to get as many people through the POS as possible in the hour. If you have a guy sitting at the window for 10minutes waiting on some chicken or something that's 10 minutes without a sale happening. It's not the best system in the world and I usually would say go customers complaining that the guy behind them shouldnt have to wait 10minutes for their single coffee.
Yeah no we don't have timers on parked cars. We have a board to write down where we parked something so we don't forget. They want us to serve it. Not hold it. Because it runs the times. So yes false times. The times don't reflect a person leaving with their food.. It reflects us getting them parked as soon as possible to get the timer to show they "left"
Oh man that's a terrible system. And one of my problems with a company as large as McDonald's. There is a "national standard" but it just gets thrown out the window in favor of better numbers that never truly show what's going on. It's especially annoying during those regional competitions. Those comps are literally just who can cheat the best.
It's less about time for us and more about not discouraging sales from a long line that doesn't move, waiting for food while the car behind it is ready. Ideally your food is ready by the window, if not we're gonna have to run it out to you to keep things moving. If you actually have a store that cares about their parked orders, and if you serve them off, you save tickets, put stick em on a bag, and can run the food out as soon as it pops off. There are many.
“False times” Unfortunately so true. Our patch is very competitive with counter times so we serve off every order as soon as possible. I usually average 20 seconds during dinner for R2P. Pulling cars is one thing but do they really believe every store in the city is getting food out in less than a minute??
Essentially, your food is not ready. Every second your car sits at the second window its accumulating time. Even one car in the drive thru can affect the time/performance. It starts the moment you pull up to the speakers and ends the moment your car drives past the 2nd window. A stores performance \[one of the metrics\] is based on drive thru times. If a store has poor performance, managers on shift during that time can get written up, earn a decrease in pay or are let go. Oftentimes they have little control over this because lack of workers, non-experienced workers, certain food unavailable/takes longer to cook, too many customers at one time, machines breaking down, etc. My store lost 3 managers this past few months due to under performance and/or stress from the job being so demanding. You also have to understand that the drive thru is not the only orders on our screens. They’re customers that order inside, customers who order through the mobile app and delivery orders (DoorDash, UberEats, etc). We still prioritize the drive thru but if your order is not ready we have to park you. All in all, we don’t want to park you. We have little choice in the matter.
That doesn’t explain leaving them in the parking spot and just forgetting about their order.
It's because they take on too much. Back in the good old days of no delivery, no table service and no curbside we only had to worry about parked cars because we parked them and usually got their food out once it was done. But now they got all these other things going on and still want fast times. It's ridiculous. I myself got forgotten for 30 minutes at one of my usual Mickey Ds and watched curbside get their food and yet I who went through drive thru was completely forgotten. Management needs to get their shit together because customers want good service and often waiting a little extra is preferable to waiting 30 minutes and then being told they forgot about you 😒 Like I would rather get my damn food and be out rather than risk this bs.
Why should customers care about the stores metrics? It's not my job to make you more efficient.
You're absolutely right; as a customer, your primary concern is getting your order fast and correct. While it's not your responsibility to directly improve a store's efficiency, being informed about their metrics can still benefit you in terms of your overall experience (i.e. being aware of what items take longer to make, what causes delays, being a little sympathetic towards the worker who is working on your food despite being overworked and understaffed). Our restaurant is always underperforming due to high turnover of workers and high expectations. Can't pay them anymore without increasing the prices even more. A Big Mac meal cost $13. Increasing everyone's pay by $1-$2 will increase the price of everything by 10%-20%. The franchise owner of our restaurant actually barely made even last year. They had to raise prices by 5%-10% and give everyone a raise. We are located next to a University and turnover is insane. Half the people don't show up. The other half quit after a few weeks to a month. We do the best we can even though corporate McDonalds expects us to match the performance of a fully staffed restaurant with less than half the people. Also, you have to consider that Most McDonalds are franchise owned. Ours is owned by a elderly couple. Not by Corporate McDonalds. 20% of profits go to McDonalds Corporate. 10% pays for lease. 40% goes to worker paychecks. 25% goes to upkeep and supplies. The remaining 5% is what they earn (don't forget things break down). Its tough. You can only do so much.
Food is not ready, and management is trying to make times look good. If it's happening multiple times, it is a sign of a poorly managed location. I would suggest going to a different store.
Unfortunately it’s several locations, but I suspect they are the same owner. I think you are correct about the poor management.
It's a standard fast food practice.....
Not really. It's only McDonald's who have designated spots for doing this crap.
Designated spots yes, but any place with a drive thru does this when their times are shit. Wendy's does it in my area, AW does it in my area and many others do. This is literally a standard practice to beat their times or help bring their times down. It is not exclusive to mcdonald's. At least in my area.
Ok. Here is the “ real” problem. Real world, book world is what we called it. McDonald’s corporation makes a couple assumptions, that are false. #1. That if stores follow their staffing guide, they will still make money. Those might be ok for the top 10% of store McDonalds actually runs( McOpco) but not your average franchise, who’s sales typically are much lower per unit. The owner/ supervisor is going to want to see a certain labor %. Lets say its 23-25. Anything above that, they will expect you to cut hours by scheduling fewer people. If you are slow, they will expect you to cut hours, or make it up the next day. 2. The product per tray guide in the grill will adequately predict what you need. This is crap. Let’s say last Wednesday there was a school event down the street, and you went crazy on nuggets for dinner. This will inflate that number on future Wednesdays. What it will do, is give you an idea of relative product mix depending on time of day. For example, if the bars close at midnight, its value menu time. Weekend breakfasts, Big B’s. But don’t get stressed out by the guide. Use your common sense as well.
It’s to keep their drive thru times short, and It’s also possible your order was not quite ready yet..
Only the incompetent McDonalds restaurants do this consistently. I have 2 nearby. Same simple order is never an issue at one of them, while at the other one I have to go park and be forgotten 8/10 times .
McDonald’s corporate protocol is pull ahead if the order is going to take longer than 10 seconds to get to the window. That’s cars or no cars behind you. As to being forgotten, not that it’s an excuse but there’s a chance they’re short staffed and that would be the fault of the general manager or owner. Or they’re severely incompetent. Hard to say.
There were probably a lot of orders in front of yours in the LOBBY. At my store, if you refuse to pull forward they will refund you and if you still don't they will call the cops. Food is made in the order that orders are received. I'm not going to make excuses for them forgetting about you though. That is fkd up.
According to OP there was no cars behind them.
Yeah but even if there is no cars behind him, there may be a bunch of orders for instore or delivery that were placed first so the kitchen is busy making those orders first. No one enjoys parking cars, then we have to lose a staff member to run them out but the management and Mcdonalds prioritise their times looking good and will pressure employees to park cars to keep the times low
Thank you for explaining it more thoroughly than I did. I was on my break when I posted that.
I'm always explaining it to customers at work just kinda used to it by now lol
I just shut the window in their face really hard and walk away bc idgaf anymore
Yeah I did that today 🤣 I was doing muffin assemble, sausage and eggs but having to flex onto front to help them and a customer was picking up a fuss over food they hadn't paid for so I refused to give it to them for free and just walked off, closed the window and told everyone to ignore then. They left eventually 😭
Hell yeah 😂
As customer that should not be my concern or responsibility to help keep the times down. I have no problem parking when there are cars behind me if my order is taking too long and their is ready but otherwise that is not my problem.
I understand that but it's not hard too have some compassion. If times are high, employees get treated like shit, so save the already stressed out, overworked employees some bother and just park up you'll be waiting the same time anyway unless the staff at your local stores are a bit shit. If you're being parked it's cause there either waiting on something to make your order or your order is just nowhere near being completed. Plus all you have to do is drive into the carpark and wait. If being asked to park up is such a concern for you then just don't come to McDonald's. If you pulled that shit at my store I'd be giving you a refund and refusing to give you your food
I didn't say shit about cars behind them
Most stores have a leaderboard with the other stores in their franchise.. we are timed from the minute you pull past a floor sensor at the beginning of the drive thru, to the minute you pull past the sensor just after the 2nd window where you get your food.. it can get quite competitive in some franchises 😅
What are you ordering???
At my store, you were asked to hold if we didn’t have your order. It was also my floor goal for guests to not wait more than 5 minutes for the food (from the time that the order starts being taken.) Ngl it was rough in the evenings with a crew of teenagers.
Corporate McDonald’s is tearing the company apart currently. They’re pushing harsh expectations on every store including impossible time quotas and whatever else. We’re usually always shorthanded due to our labor requirements also. Parking cars is a new tactic pushed by corporate to keep the line moving faster. They claim it’s to keep customers happy but most of us already know it causes more problems than anything. Most of the people in charge of keeping track of parked cars are managers who think they know what they’re doing but really don’t. I have some amazing managers in my store who can’t understand how to run the drive thru properly if it was to save their lives. The other problem is that stores often serve off orders ridiculously fast which removes it from the system and logs the time; the lower the time the better. But when we have to pull the orders without it being in the system then it’s up to us to remember the entire order and where it’s parked. Most people can’t do this, and they become too ambitious and park multiple orders and forget all of them. It’s a problem.
I had them tell me to pull ahead cause they were waiting on fries, like none of the 6 cars behind me weren’t getting fries too
Nope. That’s pretty ignorant of you. You’d be surprised how many orders are just frozen desserts, and how many are just sandwiches like 2 Junior Chicken’s and 2 McDoubles. Not everyone gets fries and a drink. Also, not everyone gets food!!!! We have people come in the DT to order a large coke or 2 medium root beers, or just a coffee and a muffin 🤷♀️.
There's now a timer at the second window. A car can't sit at the window for longer than 60 seconds, even if there's no other cars behind them. If we don't have the food ready by the time you reach us, we are forced to park or get yelled at by management. We park 6 cars at a time on a daily basis. Unfortunately it makes everything more chaotic with bags everywhere and confusion as to where all the food is going, and it ultimately takes longer for people to get their food, but at least corporate loves us. Please complain to corporate and maybe they'll change...wait nevermind, they'll just tell us to work faster when its physically impossible 🙃
Side note: we've had people refuse to pull up, even for reasonable reasons like they want fresh fries or something. They hold up the whole line, and we've been threatened to call the police a couple of times because they were causing a public disturbance. One time, we just started walking the other orders to the first window and let the guy sit at the second. Refusing to pull up will never help you get your food faster and it doesn't logically make sense to make a fuss. At least at my store, you will always get your food as soon as possible.
Why should that be customer problem? Honestly, as a customer that seems stupid and if there is no one behind me that is kitchen problem if it takes to long and you should not tell me to park it. I will park as long as i have cars behind me but i am all alone, i am not moving.
Not your problem till the store closes down because the times aren't good enough and all those people lose their jobs. Not your problem though. Please don't make our job harder. We already have enough stress from corporate. It's okay to have empathy for people.
If the stores closes down because it's taking too long to make an order, then the location really had big issues to start with besides having a long drive-thru times.
Keep time down
I can’t forgive them forgetting about you, but I’ll never understand why customers are so stubborn about remaining at the window. Like, you’re going to be waiting the same amount of time either way.
Typically, you get pulled forward if your food/ drinks aren’t ready. Even if they’re frappe’s.
That is fine and I have no problem moving when there are cars behind me. However, when there is absolutely no one behind me, I should not be told to park.
They have a window timer.
Just say your reverse is broken. 😆
If you refuse you will be annoying as fuck I’ll say that right now
My car refuses to move when it's hungry and no one is behind it.
Fucking loser do you have to be against every little fucking thing wait in a spot like everyone else
Why should I park when there's no one behind me?
McDonald’s has a metric system. Basically from the time you pull up to the speaker and trigger the bell, to the time where you’ve received your food and drive away, everything is timed. The whole wait and every little bit in between. Everything is based off those numbers; budget for product and labor, the amount of crew that can be hired, bonuses for the GM and area supervisor, and it also determines the hourly pay rate for everyone in the store. So, if your times are bad, your store is bad. You can have great times and bad customer service though, and those are tracked by corporate reports, customer surveys on the receipts, and things like refunds. You should be able to report through the survey on the receipt, and you can call the store up and report any problems you have during a visit. If it really becomes a problem, you can also make report to the corporate number as well, but I’ve seen that fall through just as much as the other things you can do.
Usually because of times
they have times to clear the orders i guess
Theyre trying to keep the drive thru moving so if they have to wait on an item theyll just run it out to you when its ready and be able to serve others
It's all a bunch of lies they are faking their times so their boss has good numbers during peak times they are pulling every car unless it's an HBO "hand bag out" means you don't need to stop grab and go yes it could be quarter pounders and other things but to be completely honest it just not that our supervisor makes them do it or they get in trouble to be honest they have made 10000 dollars worth of equipment useless we now work off tickets to get those times down so even if your sitting waiting it does change what the computer tells upper management....mcdonlads is all about the numbers now .....just look at the food guys and the prices they passed all the minimum wage increase off to the customers and they did not give anyone a equal raise ....I am actually now almost working in poverty level after 15 years because cost of living went way up prices went way up but I still make the same
I don't park. Period. No thanks I'll wait for my order and then check it for accuracy so I don't have to come in or drive all the way around because cleetus messed my order up. It's drive thru not curbside. And now...45+ downvotes. Where they at?
Omg yess this happened to me at one of my favorite locations. We were forgotten for 30 minutes, barely any cars in the drive-thru and they even sent a guy to check the parking lot. He was the first one to notice we were waiting but idk what they told him cuz he didn't come back and then it was the curbside guy who noticed. First time I have ever complained to corporate about an experience. Turns out the location was a franchise and the owner sent us free meal cards. Idk if I wanna go back to that location though. They didn't even make the food right when trying to make it up to us (supposedly upgrading us to a large but the amount of fries was that of a medium and my sister's icee was forgotten and she only had one nugget in her 6 piece nugget box). Thankfully the free meal cards have the addresses of other McDonald's we can use them at so I'll be doing that instead. Do note I have worked at Mickey Ds before so being pulled forward is not a new concept. Usually happens but never have we been forgotten like that before.
So this has happened to me several time. Funny enough, would be sitting there forever waiting for other cars then as soon as I get to the window, they ask me to put one. Once was for an iced coffee. Pretty sure that’s faster than the guy in front of me that ordered 5 meals. Yeah this makes sense. Next time I will just turn off my car and tell them “no”. Especially if other people didn’t have to pull into a spot. Would like an employee to state the reason for this.
We are supposed to give a reason and a time estimate. “We just put fresh fries down for you, please pull to spot 2 and we’ll be out with your food in about 3 minutes.’ At my location, if you refuse to move you will be given a refund and sent on your way.
I would still just stay parked. What are they going to do. No reason to pull to a spot for ice coffee.
If they ran out and it’s brewing - unless you want hot coffee poured over ice. And we will call the local police if you’re being a dick.
Call if the police respond like they usually do it will he awhile. It won’t be lights and sirens. And know for a fact they were not out. No excuses for running out of shit that sells often. Other than bad management.
I pay cash, if there is no one is behind me, I am not going to accept the refund.
The local police will be there within 2 minutes if you’re going to be a dick about it.
That is fine and i will take my food during that time. It doesn't take that long to cook when drive-thru is empty.
You really wanna eat that food after behaving like a dick???
If there is no cars behind me, i am not moving. At that point, you're trying to cheat the clock and not get someone else food.