Blog Week 5: Conflict

There were very few times I was ever involved in a conflict.  I tend to avoid disagreements, or any disruptions. 

I used to work at McDonalds as a cashier, and I feel the most conflicts I ever had came from my interactions there.  Customers would treat you very poorly, and many had stated that if I just stayed in college, I would not have to have a job dealing with them.   Little did they know, that job was helping to pay for me to attend this graduate program.  I would not respond to many of them, except one instance when a woman had insisted I did a bad job on two of her orders.

Her husband had done the order, ordering a cheeseburger for their son.  Moments later the wife came up to me, slamming the cheeseburger down onto the counter and inisiting I messed up, and want to make her child starve.  I was perplexed, I ordered a cheeseburger as her husband stated.  She stated he would only eat the cheeseburger if it was ketchup only, and if I didn't know how to do my job I should return to school to get an actual education.  The husband entered the conflict stating he did not order it as a ketchup only cheeseburger.  Her response was to ignore him and continue to insist I had screwed up on purpose so her son would not eat dinner.  My supervisor was listening to the whole conflict and had already had the other cheeseburger made, and handed it to the lady.  She walked away with her husband who was still insisting that he made the mistake and did not special order the sandwich, but she responded that I should have known what he meant.

She ate with her family, and came back up to order four french fries without salt.  She repeated three times no salt, and asked "Did you understand that I said I want no salt, if you do mess this one up I will report to the owner, maybe she can pay for you to attend college or finish high school." 

I yelled, clearly to my supervisor to drop some new french fries for an order of 4 no salt french fries.  She repeated this back to me.  The lady shook her head and said "Now you are being a smart-ass, maybe you did graduate high school." 

I finally responded, "Yes ma'am I did, I am in graduate school, working to get my masters this job is ensuring I won't be in debt."   Her response was to roll her eyes and ask if her fries were finished.

I made the four fries with my supervisor and gave them to her on a seperate tray, which she took back to her table.  Not as soon as she got to her table, she came back up her finger out pointed at me.  She raised her voice and said "I knew you would mess this up, you only gave me three french fries.  You are cheating me out of my money, I paid for four I want a fourth."

Now, my supervisor and her husband came up both insisting there were four french fries on the tray.

This conflict is one of the things that always will stick with me as the most difficult situation I was eveer involved in.  I was lucky to have my supervisor involved.

I did my best to not be involved in this conflict as I had nothing to gain from entering into the discussion.  It was easier to remake the food, then to enter into a power struggle.   The situation was a one sided argument, and I was lucky to have the backing of my supervisor and her husband.

O’Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2009). Real communication: An introduction. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.