We stopped for a feed on the way back from the snow at a McDonalds in Albury. Or was it Wodonga? I am not sure. There is a new freeway bypass around those cities, and I have no idea where we ended up once we took an off-ramp. I didn't even know that a bypass had been built. It was a surprise to be driving along and suddenly finding that we weren't being routed along a goat track through the centre of the city anymore.
Getting into Macca's proved to be something of a chore thanks to the road system - we had to go around the block and then search for the way in. That's something I have never had to do before - normally, getting into a McDonalds is the easiest thing in the world. After all, people are lazy. If they can't figure out how to get in within 2 or 3 seconds, they'll just drive on down the road and eat somewhere else.
If it wasn't for the coffee, I would have done just that.
We probably should have done just that, because once we found our way inside, we also found that a bus load of kids had arrived before us, and the queue was 10 deep in feral teenagers.
I don't know what it is about teenagers today. When I was one, girls dressed nicely. They looked good. Today, they just look like slappers. And unfortunately, more than half look like fat slappers. It's not a good look. The Veronicas have a lot to answer for.
Normally, a queue like that is not a problem. McDonalds is a well oiled machine when it comes to feeding people. If you read "Beneath the Golden Arches", which is a good history of the company, you'll find out how the McDonald brothers re-engineered all the food they were serving to make cooking and serving it as fast and efficient as possible.
Like I said, they are "normally" pretty good.
Our problem is that our queue was being served by a bloke called John, who looked about 14, and it also seemed to be his second day at work. He had a "trainee" badge on, and he had no idea how to work the cash register. Running up a simple meal took him more time than it has taken me to type this blog entry so far. By the time I got to the front, I was looking around the place for the staff member that usually has a "Trainer" badge pinned to their shirt. Clearly, the poor bugger needed help, and it was the trainers job to see that he got it.
The trainer was nowhere to be found, so John struggled through my order. He had to re-enter it four times, and each time he went to punch in a menu item, his fingers had to roam the entire keyboard looking for that elusive item. Imagine trying to write this entry if you had to search the keyboard for each letter. "Now, where is that pesky 'e' key. Found it! Now I need the 'n' key". And so on.
The only thing that helped me keep my patience intact was watching the little monkey run around the place creating havoc. To start with, he ran across the store from where J was sitting to where I was standing, and that involved running through the legs of 50 people queuing at the counter. He'd get to me, I'd go to pick him up and he turn around and flee back the other way. No one trod on him, as the queues were set in concrete thanks to the slow service. No one was moving forward or back.
Then he found the high chairs, which are on wheels. He grabbed one and started pushing it around the store. After finding a good parking spot (in the middle of where everyone was walking past), he went back for another one and pushed it to the same spot. He then went back for the last one.
If I tried to move a high chair out of the way so that people could get past, he'd race back and re-position it and give me a scolding look. Clearly, a work of art was being created.
Once all the chairs were in position, he'd take them all back and start again.
It says volumes about the glacial pace of service that he managed to do this a dozen times or so before we got fed. He got away with it because everytime he passed a table full of slappers, he'd stop and give them a huge smile, and they'd all smile back and go "He's so cute!" etc etc. Little kids with a big grin can get away with murder.
I was waiting for the manager to come out and tell me off for letting him do it, but I had a reply in mind. "This is a 'family restaurant'. We're a family. This is what kids do. Deal with it." But no manager appeared, so we let him carry on.
Albury joins my rather short list of useless McDonalds restaurants.
At least the coffee was good, and they actually managed to get my order right. Small mercies.
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