h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This entry is a great idea, it's not often people get to see the other side of the counter!

I'd have only one request. Everyone working in fast food joints seems to assume that I know the menu as well as they do. I really don't know the difference between the 'super deluxe' meal and the 'mega' meal and the pictures don't really spell it out. So the people serving get impatient with me because I don't know what I want, but I really *don't* know what I want, there's so much jargon!

Is there a solution to this! Maybe not! Maybe I should just eat more fast food!

Agreed. However, if the person is rude to you, it is because they aren't doing there job and then you have a right to get mad at them. But if one becomes jaded and treats all fast-food workers like jerks and then is frustrated when we politely ask you exactly what you mean when you ask for "that mega-thing," then you do *not* have a right to become angry or rude. It's that kind of "their all just snot-nosed brats" attitude that caused several of my co-workers to request that I write this article in the first place!

-Lucrecia

Hi Lucrecia,

I'm always polite in fast food resturants because the people there are standing up all day in a hot kitchen and they're not paid very well (I believe) and I think this entitles them to be generally more ratty than me! (That's not to say that they are any more than anyone else is I come across; but if I'm getting impatient I check it, because I think they're probably having a harder time getting my lunch served in central London than I am having buying it!)

I tend to ask for a 'cheeseburger or a chicken burger' and get a response of 'the mega meal' or the 'superdeluxe', which is confusing because I really don't know the answer to the question, and the person behind the counter understandably wants to take my order as quickly as possible.

It might help if there was a really clear menu that I could look at in the queue, or one stuck to the counter that they could point to. The large menus up behind the counter are confusing because they list the products but don't explain what they are (at least to a novice!).

I think you and your co-workers are right to write this Entry! Maybe people will take notice!

Hey, Peta.

I didn't mean that I thought *you* would be rude. (Most Researchers are above that sort of thing, I'd assume... Or I've just had a resurgence of intellectual snobbery)

That small menu thing is a good idea. A lot of, for lack of a better word "single stores" (restaurants that aren't part of a huge chain) do this already. They have little menues with descriptions of each item sitting out like flyers by the register.) However, it could be tough in a rush to have the person at the front of the line pouring over a text menu... Then again, people take their time to the aggrivation of the people behind them looking at the big menu board as well!