McDonald's: Individual Service 1, Useless Waste 0

You gotta give it to McDonald's: they understand the importance of pleasing the customer (and maybe saving a dime). I got a phone call this morning from the district manager and was told that having the coffee poured directly into the mug (no paper cup in garbage!) will no longer be a problem. The corporate-run stores (franchises may be another question) in Montréal have been informed that they are to take the customer at their word on the size of the coffee, and just pour it. I'll follow up with the head office in Toronto via snailmail to make sure this policy extends to the rest of Canada (the world!) and report back. I don't know about the McDonald's-franchisee relationship but hopefully individual store owners will see the common sense in this too. 

In the meantime, feel free to educate the staff at your local Mickey D's and let them know that the people at corporate say it's OK to pour coffee directly into the mug! Now to get them to put the burger straight into my mouth....

Personal note: that was the most refreshing customer service follow-up ever. A call the next morning from someone in authority saying the common-sense changes I requested have already been implemented. Bell, Rogers and Air Canada take note.

Mickey D and the case of the wasteful, coolish coffee

I like McDonald's coffee. People look at me funny when I say that because

1. Nobody questions Tim Horton's (AKA Dunkin' Donuts North) claim to the throne of best everyman's coffee, and
2. I'm a bit of a coffee snob, grinding my own beans at home and all that.

But, coffeewise, McDonald's does it right. Most of the time. I have a frustration with them, though. I use a travel mug. It holds 16 ounces. McDonald's medium coffee is 16 ounces. Take a moment to draw your own conclusions about what's supposed to happen when you order a medium coffee and hand the clerk (customer service associate?) your clean, empty travel mug. I ask you to think about this is because someone at McDonald's already has, and they've made a decision about what's supposed to happen next. And it's nothing like you'd expect.

The clerk obligingly takes the mug and puts it down on the counter next to the coffee machines. Then they ignore it and select a medium-sized paper cup from the dispenser, which they fill with 16 ounces of coffee. Having been adequately measured, the coffee is poured from the paper cup into the travel mug. Paper cup goes in garbage. Travel mug is handed back with a smile (that's free).

This is how it goes when I'm not there. Actually, it's the same when I'm there except that I ask, prod, cajole and almost beg them to just pour the damned coffee straight into my cup. No go. Against company policy. I've heard reasons from the need to measure the coffee (reasonable, but not insurmountable) to the need to avoid accidentally contaminating the carafe by touching it to the mug (retarded). The reasons change but the answer stays the same: no pour coffee into mug.

Here's what I don't like about this, in case you don't think exactly like I do (shame!) in order of descending obviousness:

1. Cup waste
2. Colder coffee: double the pouring means double the cooling, both from the air and from cool cups. I like my coffee hot hot hot! Can you feel it?
3. Soap, water and time waste: Now I've got to clean my damned mug in addition to a cup hitting the garbage. (we can call this 'synergistic waste' if we want to put it in corporatese)
4. Employee safety: pouring hot coffee from one cup into another over and over again is a recipe for worker's comp.
5. More expensive everything: That cup you just threw in the garbage is now gone forever. McDonald's paid for it, so the price of a hamburger just went up. A tree went into making it so the price of wood just went up. A truck brought it to the restaurant so the price of diesel just went up. Electricity, water, storage.... everything is affected when something goes into the garbage. Admittedly these are tiny, marginal, minuscule increases but when the sign reads 'billions and billions served' those individual decisions and actions add up to have real consequences.
6. McDonald's offers free coffee refills anyway, so that extra ounce or two, if it even gets poured, is already in the budget, Ronald!

This morning I found out that McDonald's Canada doesn't offer web-based customer service, or even provide an email address. Maybe they're afraid of e-coli. Where to easily and conveniently register my list of coffee beefs? There was a local phone number but... ewww... subscribe to the McDonaldized horror of voicemail customer service hell? I'd much rather just type, blast, and wait for the platitudes to arrive (or not) than explain to someone in real time why this pisses me off. After all, it's Letterman, not Phonephella. And it's much easier to point to what was said and promised before when it's all there in black and white. But when trying to change the world you take what you can, so I called. I got a real person, who took notes on my complaints slash suggestions in the absence of someone who could tell me that they would change corporate Canada for me today, tomorrow at the latest. Apparently the store manager, the manager's supervisor and the supervisor's supervisor are getting copies of the ticket. Someone's supposed to call me back. I'm optimistic about the outcome, but not necessarily the pace.

We McWait.