Author: Hafiz Noor Shams

What does fast mean to you? What does fast food mean to you?

Wikipedia defines fast food as the following:

A fast-food restaurant is a restaurant characterized both by food which is supplied quickly after ordering, and by minimal service. One trait shared by all fast food establishments is the customer pays for the food prior to consuming it.

The service offered by McDonald’s in Malaysia doesn’t fall under that definition.

Though I do from time to time crave for fries, quarter pounders, hot chicken wings, etc. — I’m craving for Wendy’s right now — I try to reduce my consumption of fast food as much as possible. It’s an environmental reason, despite the fact that McDonald’s has improved its environmental practices over the years.

Being the person that I am, being able to resist everything except temptation, I consume fast food from time to time. So far, among the times I had consumed fast food in Malaysia, McDonald’s dominates the statistics. Whether it’s systematic or accidental, for most McDonald’s restaurants I’ve been to, all of them fail to offer quick service, thus making the term “fast food” irrelevant to McDonald’s. I suspect the same is true for all fast food chains in Malaysia. For the longest time, I usually cut McDonald’s some slack but not last Tuesday.

Do you remember once when McDonald’s ran a promotion, which said they’d return your money and give you free fries or something like that if they failed to serve you less than a specified time length, in Malaysia?

I have a strong suspicion that promotion didn’t go well and was allowed to die out silently because McDonald’s had to refund too much cash back to its customers that in the end, hurting its bottom line.

Last Tuesday was one of the days which I suddenly experienced a strong urge for a Big Mac. On top of that, I was hungry, I had already wasted too much of my lunchtime at a local bank, depositing some cash into an account of a local environmental advocacy group. So, I needed something to go and close by was the golden arch with Ronald seemingly calling me out in his ugly custom. So, I marched mindlessly toward the arch as a considerable pace, hailing globalization for allowing such scenario was at all possible.

The lines weren’t too bad. There were probably eight manned counters with three people lining up at a counter on average. Unlike at the trains, nobody was jumping any line here. Thanks heaven for that. I probably spent between five to ten minutes waiting for my turn. When it was my turn to contribute to the Malaysian gross domestic product, I ordered what I wanted in the most efficient manner that I could think of at the moment: “Big Mac meal, regular size, to go”. One would assume the server or cashier or whoever behind the counter was to oblige, right?

Well, assumption is the mother of you-know-what. People in the Battlestar Galactica world would call it frack up. Don’t you love neologism?

It was all happy and smile when the person behind the counter took the order, presumingly left the counter unmanned to gather my Big Mac and fries into a paper bag. A minute later, I was checking my watch, wondering how much time I had left for lunch. A minute later, I was glad to find out that my watch was still running. Another minute later, I became annoyed that my watch was ticking at an audacious rate. Yet another minute later, the annoyance started to get the best of me. And then another minute. And then another and another and another…

Yes, I’m exaggerating but the agony of waiting cannot be understated. I’m not fracking kidding you.

When the counter was finally remanned, this time by another person, the person signaled to me that she was ready to accept payment. I which was already visibly annoyed refused to pay and asked, “But what about my meal?”

She was unable to answer the question and the situation was getting a bit uncomfortable for both of us. Well, just for McDonald’s, really. The original person that served me came to her rescue and informed me that my Big Mac was on its way and I had to wait for a few minutes longer.

If I could buy time, I would but I can’t. I refused to wait, said no thank you to both of them and left the premise, hoping that my action left bad impression on McDonald’s service among the other customers that witnessed the event.

I was growling unfortunately and time was running out. So, I opted for chocolate cookies for lunch while vowing that I will not pay for McDonald’s for a very long time, unless things markedly improve.