Tradeoffs

So often when shopping, you sacrifice one thing for another. Cost vs. quality. Cost vs. convenience. Necessity vs. preference.

Today I had a choice-- convenience or comfort. I had time to kill and an ever-hungry teenager to feed. We decided to go to McDonald's for our second breakfast of the day. It would have been simpler to go to the nearest McDonald's. It was five minutes away from us, it was new and shiny. Or, we could go to a McDonald's that further away-- not too much, maybe 10 minutes away. Parking was a little trickier in that McDonald's crowded lot. I was waiting for another son to finish his orientation, so whenever he called, I could be either 5 or 10 minutes away?

Makes sense to choose the closer one, right? Except that each time I'd gone to the closer one, they'd gotten my order wrong. Plus, they weren't very nice. (On one occasion, even downright rude-- I wrote to McDonald's, but alas, no response.)

Seems to me that when a customer goes into a restaurant or store, the employees should make them feel glad they made that decision.

Some McDonald's are independently owned, so in essence, they do compete with each other. But when they serve the same food for the same price (at least in that small geographic area), what can they compete on? Service.

Moms spend so much of their time taking care of others, it seems only fair that when they pay their money, someone takes care of them. With a smile.