Pure, unadulterated evil

I missed this during the superb owl of which we must never speak again, but McDonald’s current marketing gimmick is indescribably monstrous; in a remotely just or sane world everyone who approved this madness would have been fired by now, and unable to find marketing work in the future. My first reaction was to call it another entry for my “extroverts don’t understand introverts” file, but that’s grossly unfair to even the most clueless extroverts. I’d happily add a couple zeros to the cost of a McMuffin to avoid this horror. I struggle to imagine that I share a species with people who think this is a good idea. One particularly disastrous result:

 They said all I had to do is call a family member and tell them “I love you”.

The start of the f*ck up is calling my mother who knows that I had a brief history with depression and suicidal thoughts from high school bullies, the second f*ck up is starting the call with I love you.

She immediately started to freak out (mostly because I’m over 1000 miles away from her and the closest family is about 300 miles away from me) and was pretty scared that I was about to commit suicide. Over the course of the next 15 minutes I was on the phone reassuring her that I indeed wasn’t about to kill myself and make sure that she wasn’t on the next plane to arrive and come to visit. (Afterwards she also mentioned that it had given her a small asthma attack, but nothing her inhaler couldn’t handle.)

It’s always fascinating when a company becomes possessed of the notion that it can fundamentally transform itself through marketing gimmicks. I know I’m not alone in that every time I eat at McDonald’s or a similar chain, I’m quite likely to be in a foul mood. Entering such a restaurant is a de facto admission of failure. If I’d had my shit together to get to the grocery store; if I hadn’t been too lazy to cook a bowl of oatmeal this morning; if I’d planned enough time to get something better that takes a few minutes longer; if I had just a modicum of willpower to resist the temptation to eat greasy processed crap; I wouldn’t be here. And virtually every time I enter such a restaurant, I get the distinct vibe that everyone else in the building is more or less in the same boat as I (the employees, of course, are miserable for different and far more serious reasons). I would be, frankly, taken aback and a little troubled if the cashier were to so much as ask me how my day was going (which has never happened). I suppose I can see how one might reach the conclusion that desperate measure are required; unfortunately, the particular desperate measures they opted for merely demonstrate how contemptuous they are of their employees and customers, whose underpaid miserable labor and poor choices, respectively, pay their salaries.