I love McDonald’s. The workers tend to be young and funny and full of energy. The dining areas are tidy and bright, and the parking lots are well lit and generally spacious. Plus, the smell of the French fries! I love McDonald’s!
The restrooms are roomy and clean, and — unlike many of their competitors I could mention — there’s often a side entrance so you can gain access without having to pass before the eyes of a judgmental counter staff. McDonald’s employees don’t mind. They understand that sometimes a person needs to pee!
A McDonald’s I went to recently had a giant wall-mounted screen playing zany videos of people setting Guinness World Records. Such fun! And the PlayPlaces (think colorful plastic balls)… nothing like that when I was a kid! Now youngsters can even print out and decorate their own Happy Meals box. And even the merch: so cute! Gotta love that Hamburglar, and gotta love McDonalds!
On the macro, McD’s offers scholarships to personnel from underrepresented groups. Maybe not such a popular idea lately, but they do. And the whole Ronald McDonald House Charities thing is amazing. More than 260 of them, and all places to stay for the families of sick kids. What’s not to love? And betcha didn’t know there are 40 Care Mobile rolling clinics. Medical! Dental!
They send crews out to pick up all the greasy McDonald’s litter dropped around city parks and parking lots! Well, no, but who cares? It feeds the seagulls!
For a few years I started my workday in suburban Chicago, just a few blocks from the spot of the first McDonald’s franchise in the whole United States. It was a museum, with mannequin employees in paper hats frozen in the act of flipping burgers and frying potatoes. The sign on the Golden Arches read, hilariously, Over One Million Sold.
I love McDonald’s. I encourage everyone to stop in and say hello.
Just, for god’s sake, don’t eat the food.