Thursday, April 22, 2010

Fillet-O-Fish without cheese. Afraid is impossible, Japanese tradition.

You’d think that you could get a Fillet-O-Fish Burger from McDonalds without cheese if you so wished. Apparently not, say McDonalds on Great North Road.
Yesterday afternoon Mel trotted up to McDonalds on Great North Road. It’s our local. Mel gets the snazzy new Weight Watchers approved Fillet-O-Fish Meal every so often… girls are funny how they do things like that eh. I guess their marketing works.

Anyway, Mel ordered her Fillet-O-Fish meal, but asked for her burger without the cheese – she hates cheese - can’t have it. Strange, I know, but the girl doesn’t like cheese so we’ll leave that discussion for another day. She’s done this at least 5 times in the last few months, at the same Grey Lynn McDicks, so you can understand her surprise when the little Indian man serving her hesitated and stated he’d have to go check with someone else back there.

Her more experienced team member – we’ll call him More Experienced team member – confirmed it; she couldn’t have the burger without the cheese. Mel wasn’t happy, and used the excuse that she was in fact allergic to the cheese and this is why she couldn’t have it in there. More experienced team member jaunted out back once more and got the heavy artillery – The Manager. The Manager listen to the situation, still no dice. You can’t have the burger without the cheese. Mel reasoned that she would take the cheese of herself, but they melt it on to the pattie and she hadn’t the energy to begin the difficult task of peeling every inch of melted cheese off her processed fish pattie. Still no.

Why couldn’t she have the cheese? Their reason: “any additions or deletions change the overall points value of the meal and the meal is no longer a Weight Watchers Approved Meal”. Give a shit. Take the cheese out, put it on the side… who cares. It’s not a weight-watchers approved meal, Mel don’t care. Besides the fact that taking out the cheese actually makes it MORE of a WeightWatchers approved meal, surely some common sense is in order here. Use your brain silly Mr Manager at the Great North road McDonalds. Really.

When a fuming Mel eventually came back to work clutching a delicious Kumara fritter purchased from the Fish n Chippery and recalled the whole sordid affair, I couldn’t help but think of a scene from Donnie Brasco. You might know the scene. Donnie, Sonny Black and the boys go in to the Japanese restaurant and have an altercation over the shoes, Donnie can’t take them off because of the wire he has in his shoes. The little Japanese restaurateur insists "Afraid is impossible, Japanese tradition". Long story short, they kick the shit out of the restaurateur. The context is completely different I know, and call me sadistic, but I can’t help wonder what Sonny Black and the boys would do if they were with Mel at McDonalds on this fateful afternoon. I bet they’d have got the Fillet-O-Fish without the cheese.

IT DIDN’T END THERE THOUGH.

IT appears that after an exchange of emails the situation is still the same. You can’t take the cheese out of the burger. For shit’s sake. The lunacy runs through the entire McDonalds corporation. Check out the email correspondence:

MELS EMAIL:

Hello there, For lunch today, I went to order the meal I usually get at McDonalds - the Weight Watchers Filet-o-fish meal. As per usual, I asked for no cheese in my burger. I was then told that I couldn't do that (yet I have done it every week for the last four weeks). The manager asked the store manager about it, who continued to inform me that it was to do with the points system that Weight Watchers use - any changes to the burgers alter the points. I understand this, but surely taking away cheese would result in less points, and therefore a healthier burger, right? Usually if it's an issue then I would take the cheese out myself, but since it is melted onto the fish patty I cannot do this. Being allergic to cheese, I couldn't purchase the meal. I would very much appreciate an explanation to this, as it just seems ridiculous. Regards, Melanie

MCDONALDS REPLY:

Dear Melanie Thank you for your email. McDonald's New Zealand is committed to providing our customers with excellent and consistent customer experiences and we were disappointed to hear of your recent experience at McDonald's Grey Lynn, As you are aware, we have launched three Weight Watchers Approved Meals to our menu in New Zealand. Each of these meals has a Weight Watchers points value of 61⁄2. We understand your frustration at not being able to remove the cheese in your Filet o' Fish Weight Watchers Approved Meal, and we agree that at the outset, this does seem such a small change. However, any additions or deletions change the overall points value of the meal and the meal is no longer a Weight Watchers Approved Meal. We are more than happy to meet your menu requirements through our a la carte menu. Customer feedback is important to McDonald's and thank you for taking the time to contact us. Yours sincerely Helen Customer Services

IF YOU REACHED THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST, FIRSTLY - YOU DESERVE A MEDAL. SECONDLY, IF YOU FEEL AS PASSIONATE ABOUT THIS AS WE DO, SEND Customer.Services@nz.mcd.com AN EMAIL TELLING HELEN YOU WANT THE FILLET-O-FISH WEIGHT-WATCHERS MEAL WITHOUT THE CHEESE. AND ALSO TELL HER JAY SAID THAT SHE’S AN EAT-ASS.

25 comments:

JFTB said...

Have recently experienced a similar situ with McDonalds and their double bacon McMuffin. We went through the PT Chev drive thru a couple of months back and hubby ordered a bacon & egg McMuffin with extra bacon. The lovely girl on the end of the string and tin can contraption pointed out he would be better off ordering one of the new double bacon McMuffins and adding the egg. Make it so. And for the next few weeks, hubby ordered the same thing probably about 7 or 8 times from various McDs – a double bacon McMuffin with extra egg (comes up as ‘round egg’ on the receipt which always amuses me).
Then we hit Tauranga a couple of weeks back. Tried to order the ‘usual’ and were told that no changes were allowed to the double bacon McMuffin due to it being a promotional item. Hubby complains, enter Manager. We wave a couple of old receipts clearing showing that this is in fact possible but alas no, policy prevented satisfaction that morning as well. Common sense does not prevail.

Dylan said...

I had a similar but different situation. I ordered a Weight Watchers combo but with a frozen coke instead of diet. You can't do it. You can't even remove the diet coke from the combo and just buy a frozen coke separately. You have to buy the combo with the frozen coke separate and then throw away the diet coke.

Anonymous said...

Oh my god how fricken ridiculous. I told my colleagues and they agree. McD's is dumb.
You should try rocking on up and ask for a NOT WW APPROVED Fillet of Fish burger with no cheese. See what they do then.
Bunch of up tight twats.

Anonymous said...

So if she ordered a filet o fish burger and a salad and a water separately, she would be able to remove the cheese from the burger?

That's plain ridiculous. I hope for everyone's sake this Weight Watchers promotion doesn't last!

summaz said...

that is just absolutely ludicrous!! It can only do good things to the points system with taking away the cheese!! I'm surprised they allowed the cheese to be in the burger in the first place being it Weight Watchers!! fillet-o-fish doesn't really need the cheese in the first place!

Adrian.W. said...

This is MADNESS!!!! Does that mean I couldn't add cheese either!?

Next time, try asking for a Hamburger, without any of the ingredients but with a hoki fillet and tartare sauce. Would like to know what they say AND whether they do it.

Anonymous said...

I'm gonna quote some random thing I saw on the internet:

Join us next time on "Let's Make No F***ing Sense," when I will be waxing an owl.

Dylan said...

@Adrian They'd have no problem with that, because the Hamburger bun is different to FoF.

Dylan said...

@inner-starfish That's from Green Wing a hilarious British show.

Chris D said...

What if she simply asked for the cheese on the side? Thereby they would be selling her the entire combo as approved, but make it easy for he to throw away the offending "cheese".

Anonymous said...

I work at McDonalds, and yes it is ridiculous but just remember in a situation like this try and treat the employee's with respect, we understand how fuckin retarded some of the rules we have to follow and enforce are, but we don't have a choice.

Jay said...

it's not about choice. just do it. it's not like the corporate suits are in the kitchen making sure every rule is followed. just don't put the cheese in. it's that easy.

Anonymous said...

Ummm why is anyone still buying McDonalds after McMaggot and BeatleBun?

Scary sh*t!

Anonymous said...

Jay, you're an idiot.

Pixie said...

yip their retards. I always get a cheeseburger without the patty in Sydney-yes im a freak, but they do as i say and charge me less. BUT, back home in Nz they say they cant do that, or, do it and charge me full price "because they cant change the price"!!
Their a special breed those macca people....

Anonymous said...

would you like fried with that..... LMAO

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