You never hear stories like these involving other QSRs (Quick Service Restaurants). But there’s been a rash of them this year at McDonald’s locations. People are taking out their frustrations specifically on McDonald’s employees, and I’m wondering why its happening only at McD’s…
Customer video of the altercation between two English brothers, aged 16 and 19,
who were reportedly drunken and disorderly before the punches started to fly…
The first I heard of this outbreak of violence at McDonald’s stores was when a food blogger wrote of quietly placing his order at one of those new self-serve kiosks while a battle raged around him involving a McD’s manager and an infuriated ‘guest’. Blogger Tony Moll posted his video of the affair. We never found out what triggered that episode.
Then, there was a pair of incidents centred on the self-serve soft drinks machines at two different McDonald’s locations. In both cases, it turned out that diners were caught by staff members trying to fill their water (free) cups with soft drinks (not free). In one case, in Missoula, Montana, Police had to taser an irate diner who was caught cheating and responded by starting a fight with a McD’s employee. In the other, a woman caught cheating threatened to throw a chair at an employee, but was eventually subdued. In both cases, the miscreant seems to have been angry that they got caught stealing. Sounds weird to me, but…
But there’s more!
In another case, just this past week, there was a brawl behind the counter involving two women, both McDonald’s employees, one off duty and the other on. Again, we don’t know what it was all about, but police in Dekalb, IL, where it happened, say charges are pending.
And late last week, two inebriated brothers in Lincolnshire, England, decided to beat up a McDonald’s employee. Why, we don’t know.
“The two lads who were fighting were drunk,” a bystander who wished to remain anonymous told the Daily Mail. “One of the boys was trying to lock one member of staff in the toilets. The manager told a member of staff to go over and tell them to leave and then it all just went off.”
Why all the pent-up frustration?
Again, we don’t know. But – as I said at the outset – what really intrigues me is why this craziness is only happening at McDonald’s. Is it something they put in the food? Is it a reaction by customers to increasing prices? Or is it something bigger, something rooted in the atmosphere of brimming frustration with life in general today, which folks just can’t contain any longer?
More likely, it’s a sad reflection of the kind of customer demographic that McD’s is attracting these days. McD’s used to be a family place which also catered to high school students at lunchtime and after school. But things are changing. After all, the venerable brand did rate last in a recent customer satisfaction survey involving the top five QSR chains.
~ Maggie J.