I have just come from one of the worst dining experiences I have had at McDonalds, and I will be sharing this story with all of my friends. The store next to Baylor University (1521 N. I H 35, Waco, TX) has always been mediocre at best, but they outdid themselves this time.

Because the staff members in this story were not wearing their nametags, I cannot provide you with names, but they were working the 5:30 shift for Monday, February 17, 2003.

When we tried to place an order, the girl in the red shirt uniform gave my husband a hard time about using a coupon printed in the Baylor Lariat (the Baylor University newspaper). When she could not get it to work, he mentioned that sometimes the person needed to get a code from a manager. She snapped at him: Hold your horses! You’ll get your food on time! When he said that he was only trying to help she retorted: You were trying to be rude! (She DID have to call over a girl in a blue shirt to get assistance, and she contributed to the problem.)

Once we finally got our food, we took a seat in the dining room corner as far away from the counter as possible. We could hear plainly their continued complaints about us…including how we were obviously prejudiced and “trying to keep them down”. My husband is himself a member of a minority. Their incompetence and unfriendliness was the root of our discontent, not the color of their skin. For them to practically announce our “obvious prejudice” to the whole dining room was also inexcusable.

In short, your staff was unfriendly, unhelpful, and rude. Rather than trying to work with us, your customers, they blamed us for their problems. We will not be returning to any McDonalds in the foreseeable future…and will probably never return that one. We will go an extra block over and spend the extra amount at Burger King. We will also encourage our friends to do the same. We have “had our break today” in that it broke us of our habit of dining at your company.

With deep regrets,

Mrs. Tran