I'm Not Lovin' It

Image by freebeets via Flickr

In my many years in the hospitality industry, I have tried to respect everyone. When the homeless guy asks to use the washroom or when someone from the street walked in and requests a glass of water on a hot day I always say yes. I may be a bartender, but I'm also a human being, just like the person making the request.

I believe  that everyone deserves a measure of dignity, no matter their station.

And so it was that I walked in to a MacDonald's at the ironic corner of Washington and Lincoln in Miami Beach on a muggy afternoon. I was hungry and quite obviously desperate. As I walked to the counter, I noticed an argument erupting to my left, and I was both shocked and dismayed by what I witnessed.

I deduced that a little old lady of eighty four years had the temerity to ask for a glass of water and was being refused. A man had interceded on her behalf in protest, but the powers that be refused to budge, backed up by a summoned manager.

If the little old lady wanted water, someone was going to have to pay for it, as per company policy. Another person in the line advised her to go to the Starbucks around the corner, where they would give her some water for free.

My real question is whether the people who run the MacDonald's at the corner of Lincoln and Washington have lost all sense of our common humanity, or whether the people who run MacDonald's worldwide take a grim pleasure in watching old ladies die from dehydration?

Please help me in my research by popping in to your local MacDonalds and asking for a glass of water without ordering anything, and please repost this so that we may get a global opinion.


http://www.goyestoeverything.com