I Worked at the McDonald's Complaint Department

I’ve worked a lot of crappy jobs in my time, but none were so hideous and so bizarre as working in the McDonald’s complaint department.

Did you know? There is just one call center in America that handles every single call from every single irate McDonald’s customer. Just one. The company that oversees the operation also takes care of customer calls from other businesses. Most of them have their own little section in the building, but the McDonald’s department takes up an entire floor.

I knew going in that it wasn’t going to be a pleasant job, but I needed the money. Day after day, I took calls that were completely unnecessary. So many people got upset that their fries weren’t hot. It’s McDonald’s, what did you expect? You roll the dice when you go to the Golden Arches.

My burger didn’t have enough pickles. My milkshake was too cold. The large McFrappe isn’t big enough. The water in the restroom sink was too hot; doesn’t McDonald’s care about the little children who wash their hands there?

After every call, I would tell them that their concerns would be sent to the manager of that particular McDonald’s. Unless, of course, the complaint was about the manager, then I had to make note of it and send the case to wherever they went after I hit ENTER.

Sometimes listening to their complaint wasn’t good enough. Sometimes, after being verbally abused, I would calm them down by sending them a coupon. For some free fries or some other cheap food-shaped product.

People would prank call the hotline since the number is on the side of every bag, and they had nothing better to do. We were advised to tell the caller that the number was for complaints or comments only and to call back another time. After enough of a callus had built up on my soul, I started having fun with the idiots, hoping that particular call wouldn’t be recorded for quality training purposes. The dumb kids who thought they were slick were the best ones.

Me: Thank you for calling McDonald’s. How can I help you?

Prank kid: Um…uh…yeah…shh, shut up (this was directed to the other kids in the background)…I got some bad nuggets.

Me: I’m sorry to hear that. We always want you to have a good experience whenever you stop by a McDonald’s. But I’m going to need a bit more information from you. What exactly was wrong with your nuggets?

Prank kid: Uhhh….they tasted like cat!

Me: I apologize once again. Could you help me out and describe the breed of cat your nuggets taste like?

Prank kid: Um…*hangs up*

Sometimes, a call would just be to inform us about the existence of a Facebook page about their shake machines always being down. Others were from college-age “gotcha!” activists who thought they had hard-hitting questions that would finally take down one of the largest corporations in the world. Too many calls were from people with serious mental health problems who just wanted to rant about the president, the New World Order, or how they’re actually related to Arthur Conan Doyle. And far too often, a seemingly normal call would turn into a proposition for phone sex.

My contempt for anyone who ever called me grew and grew. There was no real, legitimate reason to call us. Ever.

But one day a woman called in. She sounded awkward, and she earned a momentary reprieve from my caustic ire for all humanity by saying that she would never call to complain about McDonald’s.

“I mean, it’s McDonald’s,” she said. “It’s cheap. It’s fast. But I wanted to call and thank you. Not you, but Micky D’s in general.”

I had never received a thank you call before.

“I recently left my husband. He was…” her voice started to shake, but she didn’t cry. “He was awful. I took my son and we just left. We went into a women’s shelter, but we had to leave behind everything we owned to do it. My little boy was too young to know what was going on. He wasn’t in school yet, so he didn’t have class to keep him busy. When I was finally able to get an apartment, he knew something was wrong. He didn’t have any toys in his bedroom any more.

But we could go to McDonald’s and get a Happy Meal. We called them Happy Parties, you know, whenever we could go and he would get so excited. He would arrange the little toys by his bed at night and would wake up to play with them.”

Normally, I was supposed to give affirmations, phrases like “uh-huh” or “okay”, meaningless words designed to keep the complaint flowing so that the call could be ended as quickly as possible. But when this woman spoke, I didn’t say a goddamn word. I felt how important it was to listen, to actually listen. And when she was done, I talked to her like she was an actual human being.

“I am so glad you got out of that situation,” I told her. “Seriously. You and your son both. The world is an ugly place sometimes, and I’m glad we were able to help out. In some way, at least.”

She ended the call saying that her boy now had as many toys as his room could hold. I offered to send her a coupon for a couple of sandwiches, but she declined.

“No, thank you,” she said. “We don’t need anything.”

I will never forget that call. I hope she and her kid are still doing well. I didn’t stick around at that job for too much longer. I walked out after one too many requests for phone sex and found a much better place where I stayed for a few years. And now I’m a full-time writer.

Sometimes, I’ll even grab some McDonald’s. But even when my Chicken McNuggets are old, I don’t call in about it. My expectations are reasonable.

I mean, c’mon. It’s McDonald’s. What do you want?