An Open Letter to McDonald's

I worked at McDonald's when I was a teenager. It was my first "corporate" job, and I learned so much there. I think of my McDonald's experience as a sort of boot camp for the career minded. The work was precise and formulaic, and we were trained so well that we could execute our tasks in our sleep - which was quite handy since I worked the obscenely early shift and was on deck at the crack of cranky every day.

The precision was a thing of beauty. We had a machine that dispensed an identical amount of ketchup and mustard onto each glorious little cow sandwich. The fries and Filet-O-Fish™ (still my favorite) had a timer, and were never over or under done. God only knows what sort of time/motion studies they had done over the years to produce this sort of consistency, and truly it made our jobs easier. One the best things I ever learned there was the dis-assembly each day of the soda machine, so that all the parts could sit in bleach overnight. Subsequent establishments I worked for did no such hygienic work, I can assure you. I will not detail those differences for fear of scarring you.

However, I admired that organization then and I do now.

But we do have one little problem that needs to be resolved.

For some reason - probably on the advice of a overpaid and nincompoopy consultant, they have installed bizarre drink conveyor belts, upon which the drinks are filled by a computer.

They fill the drink precisely as you would imagine a computer would do it - VERY POORLY WITH MUCH SPILLING OF BEVERAGE ALL OVER THE OUTSIDE OF THE CUP.

The poor window workers then take a rag (gross) and not very carefully wipe off the cups, having resigned themselves to this asinine procedure and apparently not in the mood to start a revolution, and hand the victim (me) a wet and sticky drink. 100% of the time. And again today, at which point I snapped.

It's maddening. I do not understand why they have not rolled back this horrendous time, product and pain waster. It's beneath their finely tuned reputation, in my opinion. We've been drinking fountain drinks for nearly 100 years and suddenly we are going backwards. Why not just pick up the drink hose and spray us with it at the drive through? Then at least the worker could stay clean and I would be the only sticky one. Just a suggestion.

I'm not too tired to start a revolution. Who's with me? Sticky handed Filet-O-Fish™ lovers unite!!

While we give them a minute to accommodate our demands, how about a card? When I worked at McDonald's, we wore polyester knit uniforms that were a deep, sort of 70's Astro's baseball orange, so I think this card is perfect for my revolution! I made this for my homies Chriss & Yvonne - we get together for some stampy fun once a month and always do a challenge/card exchange.

This was the first time I got to use the new Build a Blossom set and matching punch. I stamped it on First Edition paper, arranging three stamps on a clear block first so they matched my punch, and then just punched them out! Easy, no wasting paper! I definitely prefer wood mounted stamps - I'm just old school like that - but for this set if you get the punch too, I definitely recommend you go with the clear mount version. The ink and paper are both Tangerine Tango and the base is Crumb Cake. The greeting is from Vintage Labels stamped in Basic Black.

With the First Edition Paper, it's VERY easy to curl the paper smoothly without cracking, because it's much thinner than our normal DSP. I just used a ribbon curling motion a single time on each petal with my bone folder and it was perfect.

To stick them down I put a 1/2" piece of sticky strip down on the card, attached four petals in a cross, put down another strip, four more petals, repeated with the third set of petals, and then added a pearl.

Extremely quick card!!

Now I'm off to wash the Coke off my hands and wait for an email from McDonald's. :)