Time slowly crept by and eventually we reached the first window where we were greeted by a slightly dishevelled looking oddity that seemed as though he was on the verge of collapse. We didn’t really have time to worry about his state of health though. We were hungry and there were others like us waiting at home, so I took out the two-page list from my bag and gave it to my friend to read out to him.

As she read out the order I had the suspicion that the person taking it wasn’t quite paying attention. He dutifully pushed the pretty colourful buttons with the pictures of burgers and fries on them, his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth with intense concentration, and suddenly I heard the till exclaim ‘Well Done’. At this point I realised he was playing one of those electronic games you can buy to help children learn to read.

One of the things we had hoped to purchase was a burger with extra cheese. For some unknown reason though, regardless of the fact that we’d had them with extra cheese for several months before, we were told that

“You can’t ‘ave extra cheese wiv dem ones”.

Due to the angry looking four-mile tailback that was forming behind us, we felt it best not to argue. And so, on we went to the next window to pay for our food. The person manning the till in the second window looked startlingly like the person in the first window. Actually, he looked exactly the same as the person in the first window but I put it down to him having a brother and thought no more about it. (Either that or the company had finally found a way to clone their staff for continuity).

We paid for our stuff and drove on to the third and final window and there he was again! I couldn’t believe it, it was the same boy. I really wanted to ask him if he was one of three identical triplets but my friend wouldn’t let me so I suppressed every natural urge I had and let the joke go. No wonder the poor boy looked so tired, he was working all three tills. I really wish I could have been surprised that he didn’t have the sense to do all three tasks from the same window, but come on, let’s be realistic.

So, we took the food we’d ordered and performed the essential 3-C checklist that I devised on day after arriving home only to discover half of my food was missing.

1 Collect 2 Check 3 Correct

Remarkably, he had only missed out one person’s meal and so it didn’t too long to put matters right and soon we were on our way.

Later that evening, as I was reading the paper everything started falling into place. Here is the article,

‘It started out as just another ordinary day, but at 7.02am on Sunday the 28th of March 04, a young man who, for legal reasons can only be identified as Mr. X changed the course of six young lives at a local fast food establishment.

When the call arrived to say that he wouldn’t be able to come in and work his shift, the entire restaurant was thrown in to panic. Mr. X, who was solely responsible for adding the cheese to the burgers, had suffered a repetitive strain injury from, what doctors are describing as intense over-cheesing. He has been ordered to take two weeks off to rest. This left colleagues in an extremely anxious state, and chaos soon swept the building.

The one that adds the mustard and ketchup was approached first to take over cheesing duties, but the pressure was clearly too great and moments later, she was seen hurtling towards the bathroom with a green hue about her.

The next person, to be asked was the one that adds the pickles, she was found underneath a vacant table shortly afterwards, rocking herself back and forth, babbling hysterically ‘too much, too much’.

Despite the prospect of a 4 pence and hour pay increase, the one that gets the buns out of the bag couldn’t be persuaded either. When asked for a statement, he said simply “It’s not my job”.

One member of staff, who works in window three of the drive thru’, was so traumatised at the possibility of extra duties that he had to be taken to hospital to be treated for shock. This posed problems for the ambulance crew that came for him, causing them to have to order fries and a large shake from window one and then pay at window two before he would let them approach him at window three.

Reluctantly, the one that adds the lettuce agreed to take on the challenge under the strict condition that nobody was allowed any extra cheese as it would interfere with his lettuce adding responsibility.

Management have conceded that additional staff training could possibly be on the agenda for the coming months. A spokesperson said,

“We take staff training ver seriously here and Mr. X has been on a two week training course in customer service and cheese adding. After today’s incident however, we are considering the possibility of multi-skilling some of our longer serving employees to prevent the reoccurrence of such a problem in the future.”

Unions are outraged at the statement and are considering strike action. When asked for a reaction to the new revelations, a staff member had this to say. “Do you want fries with that?” When asked to elaborate, he added “I can size up your meal for an extra 50p”