A special order…

On Saturday November 29, around 5pm, I entered the 3rd avenue and 85th street Mc Donald’s and joined the line. When one of the girls handling the registers said “Can I help the next guest?” looking at me, I felt a little nervous and excited about what is going to happen in the next minutes as I knew that I was going to ask for something unusual.
“I would like one hamburger with four pickles and a small French fries without salt please” i said. As I placed my order I was very much on the defensive, because I did not know how she would react to it. But at my big surprise her reaction was pretty normal and gave me the impression that they have heard more out of the ordinary orders than mine. At this point, she has handled my order on her own, she went and drop a new basket of French fries and went to get my hamburger at the end of the line. I heard her talking to the lady who was making the burger and they were speaking Spanish which I do not know but I heard her mention the word “quarto” and making the sign with her fingers. From what I understand the lady just made the burger with randomly extra pickles and my cashier was specifying her that she needs to make another one with exactly four pickles, which she did a couple minutes later. By the time the cashier got back to the register and was about to take another order, i had read my receipt and noticed that it only said extra pickles not 4 pickles as I specified. So I told her that I needed the receipt to match my order and exactly say 4 pickles and fries with no salt. There, she got confused and called her manager, still being calm and nice to me. When the manager arrived from the back, before I said anything, the cashier explained to her my order in Spanish. The manager also very nicely and in a calm way punched a few buttons in the register while talking to the other girl, after a few seconds, a receipt printed, she handed it to me and explained that the receipt can only say “extra pickles,” but not specify the exact number. But she made it clear to me that she could get the receipt to say “no salt” though. I took the receipt and thanked her as she went back inside. At this point, about 6minutes had elapsed, and my hamburger with 4 pickles was ready in the paper bag, I had my receipt and was waiting on the French fries. As the cashier was taking another order, the fries were ready, she went and pulled them, and by reflex I suppose put some salt on them and made a small one for my order. As she approached me, she remembered and shouted “Oh I’m sorry, no salt for you, can you wait? I have to drop another batch!” Since I had no choice I agreed and after another four minutes wait, I could get my unsalted French fries carefully served with the tongue I saw her take in the back to spray the salt off it. Because I had to wait for a second batch of fries, it took me a little less than 15 minutes to get my order completed, and three persons were involved in the process of making it: the cashier, the line cook and the manager.
At my big surprise, my special order was handled with no frustration by the Mc Donald’s employees. The only thing I deplored and would advise them to change is that while handling a special order, the employees (in this case the cashier and manager) should speak a language that the customer understands to include him in the process and make him feel more comfortable. Also since no salt on the fries is unusual in the process, the Mc Donald employee should have made a note or a reminder by the French fries station to remind herself not to salt the fries, which would have gotten me out of the restaurant five minutes earlier.