The “Is this for here or to go” Conundrum

I can’t imagine anything more interesting than a good fast food story – whether it be about receiving the wrong order to just having to deal with plain bad behavior.  I certainly have my tales.  But today, I’d just like to point out a maddening observation I have made over the years.  It’s the craziest little nitpick but seems to drive me nuts every time.

So I’ll walk up to the counter in a fast food establishment and place my order with the counter employee.  But the very first thing I say before placing the actual order is “This order is to go.”  Simple, right?  They heard me. I said it very clearly.  Now the reason I used to say this first was because I knew the employee was going to ask me at the end of the order and thought I was doing them a courtesy by offering it up at the beginning.  But without fail, when we finally reached the end of the order, this was the very last thing they would ask me… “Is this for here or to go?”  Whaaaaaaaaaaaa????  Didn’t I already give them that answer at the beginning of my order?

Now if this was an occasional occurrence, well then, who cares – right?  People get distracted. They have other things on their minds.  They’re not always listening.  But that’s not the case here, I noticed.  Because every time I told the employee upfront, “This order is to go,” they would ask at the end of the order “Is this for here or to go?”  Every single time! Without fail.  And that’s where the challenge began.  I was determined to have one counter employee actually acknowledge the fact that I told them ahead of time my “to go” eating preference.

I would speak slowly and clearly to them.  No luck.  I would engage them in friendly conversation. Didn’t work.  I would repeat my statement twice while they looked me in the eye while acknowledging what I had told them.  Nada! The question was still asked “is this for here or to go.”  Alas, nothing was working.  100 out of 100 times – fail!

So it was time to get to the bottom of this conundrum.  I finally started asking them (in a fun, non-asshole-ish way) why they didn’t hear me when I first placed my order.  And the answer I would always receive was essentially this – “It’s not that I didn’t hear you, but I’ve just asked that question so many times, it’s hard not to ask.”  And there you have it!  These poor people have worked from the same script so many times that they’ve become automated.  It’s a nation of programmed fast food workers.  They do hear you, but they have a very difficult time deviating from the script.  Any attempt at changing that pattern only results in failure.

Now this by and far is not a criticism of these hard working people. It’s just a simple maddening observation of human nature.  How a simple basic routine repeated hundreds upon thousands of times becomes embedded into your brain and is essentially nearly impossible to turn off.   So by giving someone stuck in a monotonous routine the answer ahead of the question, it seems they are unable to process said answer until the question is asked.  And in all fairness, I can’t imagine I’d be any different.

So my challenge to you is this – the next time you order take-out from a fast food restaurant, tell the counter employee up front that your order is “to go” and see if you can get them to break their scripted routine and finally bypass the “Is this for here or to go” question.  And let me know the results.

 (And obviously, this doesn’t apply to the drive-thru.)  And speaking of the drive-thru…

Next Time: I’ll tell about the time they closed the restaurant while I was still waiting in the drive-thru.