Tuesday 27 April 2010

Compo Culture Strikes Again…

A young mother was horrified when she found a cigarette inside a McDonald’s Happy Meal she bought for her son.
It was unsmoked. Frankly, if it had been lit, she might have had a reason to be ‘horrified’…

Still, she did as anyone would (who wasn’t themselves a smoker). She complained to the serving staff.
She claimed she heard the girl who had served her yell to a colleague: ‘Leave me a fag,’ before she picked up her son Jack’s French fries, cheeseburger and plastic toy.

‘I saw the girl but, when I told her what happened, she just laughed. To me it wasn’t funny. I was so angry they weren’t taking me seriously,’ said Miss Holloway, of Southampton.
Well, that’s bad customer management, no doubt.
‘My son can feed himself and I was watching him eat but he could easily have put the cigarette in his mouth.’
Unless they’d also left a lighter in there, he was still reasonably safe.

Probably fewer additives in the ciggie than in the Happy Meal you were letting him stuff in his face…
Miss Holloway said the manager of the McDonald’s branch in her home city offered her another meal or a £1.99 refund.

But she insisted on keeping the meal and toy from the children’s movie How To Train Your Dragon and contacted the McDonald’s head office.
Nicky seems determined to score highly on the ‘Angry People in Local Newspapers’ blog…
A spokesman for the fast food chain said a member of staff had made a ‘foolish mistake’. He apologised and offered to make amends with a gift and some free meals for the family.

But the deal was rejected by Ms Holloway, who also turned down an offer by trading standards officers to investigate the incident.
Errr….
She wants ‘more to be done about it’ and plans to sue McDonald’s.
So she wants ‘more to be done’, but she ruled out action by the people whose job it is to do more?

In favour of lawyers?

Hmmmm…

With thanks to staybryte for the ‘Angry People in Local Newspapers’ site.

22 comments:

staybryte said...

"Nicky seems determined to score highly on the ‘Angry People in Local Newspapers’ blog…"

Hey! I put you on to that! Where's my hat-tip??? And my compo?

Feel my anger. Feel it.

Furor Teutonicus said...

Na. Hold on here.

You appear to be falling for the same shite as the anti smokers.

Would YOU find it acceptable to find a ciggarette in your hamburger?

Lets get a little real here. The fact she found a "foriegn object" in the food is WAY off, no metter WHAT it was, and the way the staff "took it" is way off as well.

On this occassion, I find myself in total opposition to your "findings".

Unusual, but I will NOT apologise.

Furor Teutonicus said...

AND, as you do not "mind" strange addatives, I make no apologies for making a second post, just so I can get replies notified.

JuliaM said...

"Hey! I put you on to that! Where's my hat-tip??? "

Oh, mea culpa! Fixed.

I keep meaning to put it in my sidebar too...

JuliaM said...

Well, FT, I can think of far, far worse things to find in there than an unlit, obviously untouched ciggie.

Like a finger. Or half a finger.. ;)

Are you still having problems with Blogger registration?

Furor Teutonicus said...

At least a finger is MEAT! :-)))

Registration.

Hmm. For a couple of weeks I got a "pop up" to click on, which solved the problem. Then the pop up when away, then it came back. Now it is away again.

I am still convinced Google is out to wind me up.

Longrider said...

As FT points out, the initial complaint was fine. I would have done so, too. The offer by the manager was reasonable and I would have accepted that and no more said about it.

That's what reasonable people do.

Brian, follower of Deornoth said...

A cigarette contains enough nicotine to make you feel unwell if you eat it; a child would probably feel very unwell indeed: explosive diarrhoea would be quite disagreeable to everyone involved, so climbing on a moderately high horse is, I think, justified in this case.

Anonymous said...

Ah but dear Brian, the child did not eat the fucking cigarette therefore the offer was reasonable and a reasonable person would have accepted it. What next? compo for nearly being run down? compo for nearly being attacked? compo for nearly cutting your lip on that chipped beer glass?

Brian, follower of Deornoth said...

Anonymous,

It is true the child did not eat the cigarette; had he done so, there might well be manslaughter charges in the offing, not compo claims.

The fact that someone did not actually eat the toxic food you supplied is not a defence against actions arising from you supplying it.

Were the fact that the food was toxic obvious to the person eating it might be, but toxicity is not obvious to children who are notorious for putting anything around them into their mouths.

ivan said...

Methinks the young woman in question is about as thick as two short planks, but then we should not be too surprised after all she is one example of the labour benefit culture.

More to the point - what was she doing feeding her child the unhealthy food in the first place?

Brian, follower of Deornoth said...

Oh, for fuck's sake, Ivan. So she is thick; is that an excuse for poisoning her children?

And this 'unhealthy food' schtick? Of course it was unhealthy; it had a bleeding fag in it!

I might remind you that many of you 'five a day' vegetables are actively toxic if you don't cook them properly. Would you think it fine if your children died through eating undercooked kidney beans? They are healthy, after all.

The question is, was the food safe? Clearly not. Could the consumer have been expected to notice this? Since the consumer is a sprog, clearly not.

Looks like there's a case to answer, here.

English Viking said...

I'd rather put a fag in my mouth, lit or unlit, than a dirty, chemical-ridden, diseased piece of rotting carcass, like those that are laughingly sold as burgers at McPoison's.

PS It is a scientific fact that chavs 'work' at 'Maccy D's', so why the indignation at shite service from a shite company serving shite food?

James Higham said...

Lucky duck - a bonus ciggie.

JuliaM said...

"At least a finger is MEAT!"

Heh!

"I am still convinced Google is out to wind me up."

That's really odd. Are you using Safari as a browser? Because mine regularly 'forgets' who I am when I'm on the iPhone...

"The offer by the manager was reasonable and I would have accepted that and no more said about it.

That's what reasonable people do."


Indeed. Blame Andy Warhol. Everyone now wants their 15 minutes of fame, and if 'X Factor' is out of bounds, well...

"...so climbing on a moderately high horse is, I think, justified in this case."

In the first instance, yes. But as Longrider points out, the manager's actions should have sufficed, surely?

JuliaM said...

"I might remind you that many of you 'five a day' vegetables are actively toxic if you don't cook them properly."

Not to mention that we now find out we may be eating the wrong ones!

Science, eh..?

"Lucky duck - a bonus ciggie."

If she'd been a smoker, we'd never have heard about this, I suspect... ;)

Anonymous said...

Brian, I agree that there should be action, just not a law suit. The manager, the company and even the HSE should address her complaint, review procedures etc and implement changes if required, but no she does not want positive action, she want MONEY. Greedy mare, I hope she spends a fortune on lawyers and gets fuck all from the courts.

Furor Teutonicus said...

If you find a 3 inch whitworth thread bolt in your burger, is that O.K if you happen to be an engineer?

Julia. No. Opera. But do NOT ask me to sing.

BTS said...

Brian, the cigarette was in the bag, not in the food. The food in the bag comes wrapped up. Are you suggesting that she should sue because the burger comes in a wrapper? We'll just ignore the plastic toy in there as well shall we..?

FFS the sprog is obviously Wayne Rooney's love child so I hardly think we'd be damaging the gene pool if the little bugger decided to chew on a Marlboro..

Edwin the Engineer said...

If you find a 3 inch whitworth thread bolt in your burger, is that O.K if you happen to be an engineer?

Well, I'm a railway engineer and, if it wasn't for the 3 inch whitworth thread bolt I found in my quarter pounder last Thursday, the 3.15 to Winchester would never have arrived on time!

JuliaM said...

"FFS the sprog is obviously Wayne Rooney's love child so I hardly think we'd be damaging the gene pool if the little bugger decided to chew on a Marlboro.."

Oh, thank god! I thought it was just me who looked at the picture and thought 'What an ugly child!'...

"Well, I'm a railway engineer and, if it wasn't for the 3 inch whitworth thread bolt I found in my quarter pounder last Thursday, the 3.15 to Winchester would never have arrived on time!"

ROFL!

BTS said...

The comments to the Metro article are rather fun. I was rather surprised at one lady's somewhat optimistic expectations:

'After reading this, at first I was shocked and appalled at how unprofessional the staff at Mcdonalds were.'

And Nicky herself has even added some comments of her own. Most recently to moan about people calling her beloved young son an ugly little hobbit most likely destined to suffer from diabetes and a substandard education, if his mother's writing ability is anything to go by.

I didn't say a word..