I’ve been working the morning shift for the past few weeks. The producer of the morning news on our sister station, KLIF, apparently managed to suffer some sort of on-the-job injury that allows her to type, but only between the hours of 8 am and 4 pm, so I’ve been filling in.
The other day, I realized I didn’t have anything to eat for breakfast at my house, so I decided to stop at McDonald’s on the way in (Loyal Scaiaholics will remember that breakfast is, typically, the only time I’ll eat at McDonald’s.).
I pulled up to the drive-thru box and studied the menu. I chose the wholesome and nutritious combination of a sausage biscuit and large Coke.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the drive-thru box resonded. “We only serve a limited breakfast menu until 5 a.m.”
“I see,” I said.
“We can serve a Sausage McMuffin,” the box offered.
“I don’t know, man, I’m not into English muffins,” I explained.
“Well, the biscuits are in the oven now, but it’s going to be about eight more minutes,” the box continued.
Listen, McDonald’s, either you’re serving breakfast or you’re not. Forcing the customer to choose from a list of pre-approved “overnight noshing” items insults both the consumer and the employee. Are the team members working third shift incapable of handling the responsibility associated with full breakfast menu stewardship? It sounds like an unfair question, but I have no other choice than to believe that is the message McDonald’s is trying to convey.
A message of distrust.
Whataburger serves a full breakfast menu from 11 pm to 11 am. Jack in the Box serves breakfast all day, every day. They have discovered something McDonald’s has yet to figure out: At 3 in the morning, you have a captive audience: drunks and half-awake members of the workforce who got conned into working the morning shift.
Both of those groups are unwilling or unable to prepare a meal at home and likely to pay almost anything for something to eat.
How was this trip to McDonald’s resolved? I sat there in the drive-thru and waited eight minutes until the biscuits were ready. Why? Because the cause was righteous.
It is entirely seemly for a man, an American, to desire an American breakfast staple upon waking from his slumber. Should not a journalist, before embarking on the day’s quest for information (for truth!), have access to a common morning meal during the morning hours, even if those particular morning hours should come before the pink and purple tongues of the sun begin lapping upon the horizon?!
This reporter defends his decision to wait.
Also, I haven’t been in any hurry to get to work lately.
I’m calling on McDonald’s to do the right thing: start serving breakfast at 2 am, when drunk people leave the bar and start looking for something to eat and when people like me start waking up for an unreasonably early and tedious workday.
