> I have been a food service worker and actually know what I'm talking about.
Same here.
> A customer expressing a preference has never bothered me if they weren't rude about it.
A lot of people are seemingly skipping over OP describing their behavior as creating a “hostile atmosphere”. That is inherently rude.
> If it happens often enough it does get passed on
But we aren’t talking about just telling your manager. There are so many layers of management and bureaucracy with larger corporations, especially ones with a structure like McDonalds’ franchise model, that these complaints will not make it to the decision makers.
This read to me like a poorly-chosen phrase from a non-native speaker. I had no impression OP intended to communicate hostility, just rejection of the corporate practice.
But we aren’t talking about just telling your manager. There are so many layers of management and bureaucracy with larger corporations, especially ones with a structure like McDonalds’ franchise model, that these complaints will not make it to the decision makers.
They will eventually. Years ago Starbucks used to insist that customers specify 'tall, grande, or venti' for their medium, large, and x-large cups, to the point of arguing with the customer if they just asked for the large. They abandoned the practice some years ago, presumably due to feedback from their counter staff.
>This read to me like a poorly-chosen phrase from a non-native speaker. I had no impression OP intended to communicate hostility, just rejection of the corporate practice.
This is also incredibly weird to me. There is nothing in that post that shows any indication of them not being a native speaker. You just agree with their underlying point so you're giving yourself leeway to ignore the parts of what they said with which you disagree. However, you can't actually admit that bias to yourself or to me, so now you're completely fabricating stories about them being a non-native speaker. It doesn't matter to you that this justification is entirely circular, they didn't mean "hostile" because they're a non-native speaker and they're a non-native speaker because they said "hostile" when they didn't mean it.
Wrong on all accounts: I am indeed a non-native speaker, and reading it again I do see a few indications myself, and my definition "hostility" (and I'm sure I am not alone on this) is a spectrum so you are also giving yourself leeway to interpret things in your preferred way, for example furrowing your brow for a couple of seconds and then looking away is a hostile behavior, if you get on the train and look a stranger like that they would likely describe you as "a bit hostile", maybe I am using it too much as a synonym of "aggressive", which according to the dictionary it is, if instead I were talking about war or politics it would be crystal clear we are talking about the "hard" flavor of hostility but here we are talking about a simple client-customer interaction to get some food.
Same here.
> A customer expressing a preference has never bothered me if they weren't rude about it.
A lot of people are seemingly skipping over OP describing their behavior as creating a “hostile atmosphere”. That is inherently rude.
> If it happens often enough it does get passed on
But we aren’t talking about just telling your manager. There are so many layers of management and bureaucracy with larger corporations, especially ones with a structure like McDonalds’ franchise model, that these complaints will not make it to the decision makers.