Brief Description

The field observation assignment was interesting and different than any other assignment I have had to do. It pushed me to look deeper at something that I have seen many times before. While I was writing the paper I wanted to make sure I included as many details as I could in there to make sure I could capture the image. When I first wrote my draft I added details but I felt like there could be more. I also was just straight forward with listing what I saw at the McDonald’s I observed. After I wrote the draft I read it and I thought it was boring, it didn’t really flow and I wanted to make it more interesting. While writing the paper I saw examples of the paper and one of them seemed boring and that’s how I felt mine was. As I rewrote the paper after the draft, I wanted to make it more like a story and have it flow rather than just listing details. As I was rewriting I kept looking at the draft and saying “wait this would sound better” and I changed it little by little until I felt like I had a detailed oriented story. It wasn’t difficult but it took me a little bit to get to where I wanted. I just kept shifting things around and writing to get what I wanted.

Mayhem and Happy Meals

Friday afternoons during the after school and work rush, the McDonalds in the South
Bronx on third avenue can get pretty hectic. Maybe it has to do with the stress of work, or the
excitement of finally being out of school and the weekend coming, but this location is chaotic.
The location, I think, has a lot to do with it. The McDonalds is located in the middle of the Hub,
which is the heart of the South Bronx which is also extremely busy. There are thousands of
people walking up and down those streets every day. Everything is crowded and people are
forced to be so close to each other which riles the people. While observing this McDonalds I
witnessed the irritation of the people who walked in and out of the franchise and how they
interacted with each other.
It was a cold Friday afternoon and I walked into the McDonalds as the time was
approaching 4:00p.m. When I walked in, I realized that it has a simple aesthetic to it. There are
two exits at the front of the store that are visible to me, on either side of a walk up window that is
inside the door. I walked in through the one on the far right corner. I took a seat in the front of
the store because the place was packed and that was the only sit available. As I was sitting, I
contemplated the need for two exits and I thought they are probably two, so that there is more
proficiency when the store gets crowded. As I sat there I began to count the amount of tables and
chairs that were there because although I have been going to this restaurant since I was a child I
never took the time to see and it interested me. While I was counting them I realized that there
are two huge pillars with a considerable amount of distance in between them in the middle of the
store. I assume I have always overlooked them. There is a large table in between the pillars with
five seats on either side of the table. Next to the large table there are five smaller tables with two
chairs on either side of each table. Then there are two tables with four chairs each, on the side of
the pillars rather than in between them like the other tables. After counting and viewing the
placement of both tables and chairs, I brought my attention to the walk up window in the front of
the store, but there was no one attending it while I was there. From the many years I’ve been
going here, I don’t ever recall a time where there has been someone working the walk up
window. If it was used I think it could help with crowd control in the store which could help with
the chaos on the inside.

As I was looking around, caught in my own world for a moment, a dispute broke out in
front of me between two women. One of the women had a baby carriage and was trying to pass
by another woman with a walker as she was exiting the store. There was not much space so the
woman with the carriage said excuse me. The woman with the walker grew angry at this request
because there was nowhere to really move, this then escalated as they began to shout obscenities
at each other. Eventually the women with the carriage walked away. There never seems to be a
dull moment at this restaurant, with all the altercation that takes place here, due to the clutter.
While looking around after the dispute to see what I could see, I saw another argument spark. It
was between a woman who appeared to be homeless and a drug addict, and a man who she was
trying to solicit money from. She began to touch the customer, she got close to him and he was
uncomfortable with that and began to scream at her. They went back and forth for a little while,
until he shouted, “Get the fuck away from me” serval times. She then exited the store. I then
realized that in the span of a few minutes there had already been two disputes in front of me.
The neighborhood in which the store is located isn’t the nicest location and that is
reflected into the store. There are many drug addicts who hang around the store. At the front of
the store there were four people who were obviously under the influence of drugs and possibly
alcohol as well, leaning against the walls in an effort to provide themselves stability and to shield
themselves from the frigid weather outside. There are many people in the community who use
and abuse illegal substances and the byproduct of that is seen in the franchise. As I was sitting
there I realized there were a few people talking to themselves as well. Undiagnosed or untreated
mental issues are also common in the community. Many people in the community with any
issues tend to self medicate. These people not only add to the crowdedness of the store, but also
make other people uncomfortable, which in turn makes people agitated. This could also be a
reason why there seems to be so much chaos illuminating from the store.

As I was focusing on all the people who visibly looked impaired, I was interrupted by the
sound of angry customers. The toilet in the bathroom began to overflow and pour out all over the
floor. There was a pretty long line to get into the bathroom and the line was suddenly at a halt.
This event heightened the tension in the store. After a few minutes an employee came and fixed
it and mopped the floor. The line resumed but not without an uproar from customers who were
annoyed by the inconvenience. Not only were the customers annoyed but the employee who had
to fix the problem was annoyed as well. It was present on the employee’s face that he didn’t like
the way the customers were talking to him and began to get enraged. He was also trying to clean
the rest of the store, whilst doing this, a woman dropped her french fries on the floor and left it
there, and a customer dropped a wet floor sign and didn’t bother to pick it back up. This angered
the employee, and as he went to pick both of those things up, I heard him whisper under his
breath “son animales”(they’re animals). The employees are affected by the chaos as well. Both
customers and employees are presumably irritated by the store.
There seems to be a lot of mayhem erupting within the store and I wonder if it is because
people are just getting out of work, is it because it’s packed, or is it because of the location in the
“hood”? Maybe each of these factors individually contribute to the commotion that I have
witnessed and have grown accustomed to. However, this store is almost like a staple in my
community. I think almost everyone has a funny or insane story they’ve gathered from eating
here. This is the place you go, to grab a happy meal and to witness the mayhem unfold.

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