It was Monday. My “day off” from my diet. So Daughter and I decided to use the McDonald’s coupon we got in the mail yesterday.
$1.99 for a Happy Meal for her if I buy a grownup value meal.
Easy enough, right?
I informed the speaker: “I have a coupon for a $1.99 Happy Meal with value meal. I’d like a #2 and a Cheeseburger Happy Meal.”
The voice said great and gave me my total: $9.97.
Something didn’t add up.
As I drove around, I couldn’t help thinking my $5.50 value meal, plus her $2 happy meal, plus tax shouldn’t get me all the way to $10.
So I asked about it when I got to the first window.
“Well,” she started, “We don’t have a button for that.”
“I’m sorry…?”
“Those coupons got sent out and they never put a button on our register for it. So I can’t give you the $1.99 Happy Meal. Sorry.”
I was stunned.
“So you’re telling me you sent me this coupon and I can’t use it because there’s no button for it?”
She smiled and shrugged cheerily, “Right. When they sent out the coupons, they didn’t put a button on here for it. If you want to use the coupon later, they might give us a button for it in the next couple of days.”
“Can I talk to a manager?”
The manager was equally unhelpful.
The conversation was similar. With a lot of “there’s no button for it.”
She told me they would be happy to take down my name. Later I could come back for “a small fry or something.” And she tried to keep my coupon.
I was totally confused.
The obvious solution was, well… not obvious.
“There’s no button for it.”
But they have a $.99 menu. And two $.99 menu items is pretty close to $1.99. So why didn’t they merely charge me for two of those?
I have been frustrated many times at the inability of clerks to do simple arithmetic (and to be fair, I’ve also been pleased).
But this was more than arithmetic.
This was thinking.
They were both paralyzed by the fact that there was no button for it. They couldn’t see past that.
Their lack of thinking created a terrible lack of customer service.
I took my coupon back and said that I would be happy to patronize the McDonald’s down the road from now on.
“Oh,” she said, “So you don’t want anything?”
Really, lady?
Can anything be done?
Can we fix the lack of thinking ability in normal people?
I don’t know the answer to that. And I don’t know the cause.
Sometimes I think that early calculator use caused this. But there are lots of parents who allow calculator use early on and raise brilliant, thinking kids.
Sometimes I think it’s the education system.
And sometimes I think it’s society.
What I do know is that my Grams had a 6th grade education and more thinking power than many high school graduates.
Don’t raise blind button pushers.
However you can. Whatever method you find.
We need our kids to learn: If there’s no button for it, you can make it work another way.
Raise them to be thinkers.
