McDonald's employee doesn't want people coning in his restaurant

[Video Link] One McDonald's employee takes a stand against coners. (Via Blame it on the Voices)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Bevatron Repairman

It’s like that guy in DC — near DuPont Circle — who refuses to serve iced coffee in his coffee shop and, indeed, refuses to give people ice at all lest they ice their coffee on their own. It’s a stand for the integrity of the product. Bravo, McD’s, bravo!
spacemanmatt

Kids, get in the car. We’re having ICE CREAM!
millie fink

Yes, I’m with this guy. Coning is one more super-stupid trend, and much more stupid than planking. Which is why so many love it, I suppose.

Fastfood ice cream probably isn’t especially decent food, but still, it sucks to see people wasting it like that. It’s a fad for the blithely privileged, the type who, at the end of the day, throw their pocket change in the trash.
- RobDobbs
  
  Better waste it in the trash than in your mouth.
- Gulliver
  
  Fastfood ice cream probably isn’t especially decent food, but still, it sucks to see people wasting it like that. It’s a fad for the blithely privileged, the type who, at the end of the day, throw their pocket change in the trash.
  
  Isn’t that illegal?I’m not sure McD’s qualifies as food, but it’s a sure sign our would-be coners don’t give a crap about other wage laborers that they’re blithely willing to leave a mess for someone else to clean up. I wouldn’t assume that means they’re privileged, though. Even paupers can be inconsiderate and wasteful.Either way, good for this fella for standing up to dickish customers out to leave him and his crew a mess.America: where as long as someone else has to clean it up, take the heat or pay the price, who cares about manners?
  - Walter Dexter
    
    I learned years ago that the general public in America are filthy, disgusting pigs.
    
    They’ll spill things and neither clean it up nor tell anyone, leaving a dry, sticky mess for the end-of-day mopping. They’ll piss on anything in range, and wipe their backside with whatever is available and leave it on the floor.
    
    This is one of the dumbest things I’ve seen on both parts. It’s a dopey trend to be sure, but the restaurant employee (I don’t know why we believe he’s a manager) handled it poorly, too.
    
    If he wanted to do something sensible, it would have been to explain that littering is a crime, and he will be calling the police if they intentionally throw their ice cream out of the car on restaurant property except into a garbage can.
    - A Nonny Moose
      
      We(or at least I) don’t “believe” he’s a manager, I know it. He’s wearing a tie. The manager is the only McD employee authorized to wear one (in fact, he’s required to).
      
      [Disclosure: I worked in a Mc Donald's for several months before getting disgusted with the manners and general bad attitude of the "average" customer and finding a better job]
    - BeaverBeaver
      
      It’s not just America. Paris, in the less central areas is a giant trashcan.
Tommy Timefishblue

Pierre Berton, on the other hand, welcomes coners.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lMOxuciYQ#t=1m1s
http://www.facebook.com/ramseyhong Ramsey Hong

We live in America. People can grab their ice cream cones however they want to. Whether you like it or not. Pffft. What a wet blanket.
- Keisar Betancourt
  
  after they accept your money they have no choice in how you grab it or anything else about it. it’s your property you can do as you please.
http://twitter.com/strugglngwriter strugglngwriter

I’m with the McDonalds dude. I love how the two dummies in the video were foiled. I mean they were filming the whole thing just so they could have a laugh at the guy’s expense and then upload it to whatever stupid media they use.

Also, get off my lawns.
- ChicagoD
  
  I can’t figure out how the laugh is at the manager’s expense. Now, if they then drop the cone and he has to clean it up from the drive thru, I can see some issue, but otherwise this just seems particularly pointless. I mean, even more pointless than usual.
  - http://twitter.com/strugglngwriter strugglngwriter
    
    I guess only because if it had gone down as planned, they would’ve grabbed it by the ice cream, manager guy would be stuck holding the cone, and the two very smart individuals in the car would be laughing in his direction and then posting it to the web.
    
    The entire thing is pointless, as you say.
EvilCatBucky

He should have walked out of the building and started planking on the hood of their car while singing Chocolate Rain in his best Fred Figglehorn impersonation.
Pickleschlitz

I hadn’t heard of this, so I checked the coning videos on YouTube. You can see one guy tossing his fistful of soft serve in a bush at the end of the drive through lane while giggling, and dumping a coke on the ground right at the service window. Good way to attract insects and vermin. If I was that manager, I’d probably be sick of cleaning up the mess too.
PJDK

I too have just discovered what coning is.

Either I’m getting old and crotchety, the world is getting stupider, or most depressingly both.
irksome

When coning is outlawed, only outlaws will be f**king hipsters.
peregrinus

Just wait until the Chinese Princelings start doing this.
Knarf Black

So people actually go out and make their own coning videos? It seemed like kind of a one off joke to me. (Planking at least can be done in a variety of situations and locations.)
_Username

I heard the lastest “fad” is to film going to a drive thru and ask for a large drink with no cup just spray it into an open car window …now get to it.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_RHG2QORT54PKZY4LHHVHBOZBZY Abe Lincoln

Wyatt…. I just aint gotz the werds.
bluest_one

Someone has control issues!
bcsizemo

This is like two steps away from “Oh my balls!” show from Idiocracy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_4jrMwvZ2A
waetherman

Rather than being rude, the manager should have outwitted them by putting a cone on both the bottom and the top of the ice cream. In fact, that should be the new corporate McDonald’s policy against coning.
robert reyes

so the guy who has to work for a living is a wet blanket because he doesn’t want to put up with the privileged kid’s shit? give that kid a raise! maybe this country has a future after all…
- http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb
  
  What exactly is he “putting up” with? A customer choosing to get ice cream smeared on her hand? What is the harm? Where is the imbalance of privilege? 99 cents or so for the ice cream, and video cameras are a short step away from being ubiquitous. If I was the boss of this hostile control freak manager, I would reprimand him for threatening a customer, and start interviewing his employees to see if he treated them like children too.
Allen Norvick

I love that these two little douchebags try to play it off like they’re indignant that he would suggest such a thing. ”Good sir, we are just trying to enjoy a delicious McDonald’s soft serve ice cream!” Unoriginal and pathetic.
sugarsails

They pay a dollar and get ice cream all over their car interior

Does this hurt the manager’s feelings or is there an inconvenience to coning that I’m missing?
http://twitter.com/davidlrattigan David L Rattigan

At first I thought the guy just overreacted because he was suspicious why they were filming, and it wasn’t until second viewing I could see she actually appears to go for the top of the ice-cream. What obnoxious behaviour.
endymion

The fast-food guy totally wins!

The “coners” come off as stupid and inarticulate.

What an idiotic trend. (And I kind of like planking.)
Recluse

I do not understand this at all. What is more I do not WANT to understand it.
- http://twitter.com/strugglngwriter strugglngwriter
  
  They were cones!
  http://youtu.be/kXvTn6-Z6Cw?t=12s
Lobster

He wasn’t even supposed to come in today!
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_OPGXFDZJLFSBW2ZLGC2IAVASWU Rosiemoto

This is illegal dumping or egregious littering, let the courts decide.
http://www.facebook.com/ramseyhong Ramsey Hong

You don’t know that these two people are “privileged kids”. Of course it’d be wrong if they were to just throw the squashed cones out the window afterwards, but you don’t know that that’s what they would have done. All you do know is that the manager refused to let her take the ice cream cone however she wanted to after she’d already paid for it. Of course it’s silly. But he’s still a wet blanket.
- millie fink
  
  Cone much?
Brian Damage

As usual, The Simpsons seems to say it best:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn4Frslsq8M
awjt

Uhhh, none of us nerds besides me realizes this girl is hot?
- EH
  
  I guess so, if you like sun-damaged cheerleaders being dumb for their boyfriends approval.
- bwcbwc
  
  Uhhh, only if you have no standards for what’s inside the package.
- http://grumer.org/ Avram Grumer
  
  Or maybe most of us have evolved past the need to reflexively comment upon the appearance of every women we see.
Happler

So, the manager tried to refuse handing over a product that was paid for? I would have grabbed the ice cream anyway (even if I have no want to do this “coning” thing). Once I have purchased an item (especially food) it is mine to do with as I please. If I wish to throw it away right away, that is my choice. Next they will be telling my 5 year old that she cannot take the pickles out of their hamburgers. .
- bwcbwc
  
  Yours to do with as you please within the limits of local dumping, littering and vandalism statutes. Manager should have given ice cream, taken license # and called cops if the ice cream was improperly disposed of on restaurant property. Or if in a less “play it by the rules” mood, toss the drippy cone on the rear window of the vehicle as it departs.
Amphigorey

Ech, I don’t get it. It’s a stupid fad for sure, but how does it effect the manager? The kids paid for their ice cream and if they want to wreck the interior of their car with it what does he care? I’m with the ‘two cones’ suggestion by waetherman up there.
- EH
  
  “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.”
  - Jack Wood
    
    Problem is, they’d already been, technically, served. They’d paid their money, legally obligating McDonald’s to provide the services for which it had been contracted: ie, provide them with ice cream cones. At this point the employee could not even legally give them a refund instead of their ice cream (at least in my state, and I doubt it works much differently elsewhere).
    
    The man’s actions were _literally_ criminal (well, in the sense that they were illegal, though probably just a violation/infraction rather than a crime, ie, misdemeanor or felony), equivalent to petty theft. Oh, except the threat of assault—smushing the ice cream in her face— was probably actually criminal.
    
    The fact that the two “coners” are complete and total fucking morons doing what is almost certainly the most pointless action in the history of shiftless modern culture does not in any way absolve the manager from following the law.
    And of course, if they threw the ice cream on the ground, they’d be responsible for, admittedly more reprehensible, littering. But half the people here seem to be saying that there’s no doubt these people were going to throw it in the bushes, just because… the commenters, who wouldn’t cone anyways, would? Because some other people littered? And it’s not like the employee forcing them to pick it up by the cones wouldn’t prevent that either….
    
    (Not a lawyer, doesn’t play one on TV, just likes to read publicly available state and federal statutes.)
    - millie fink
      
      Let me guess–people avoid you at parties.
- http://twitter.com/TheRealBIZKeT Scott Jones
  
  I would assume he cares because he doesn’t want to have to go out side and clean up the ensuing mess. The few videos I have seen with idiots doing this show that most of the ice cream doesn’t land inside their car but on the ground or the side of the building.
- http://www.tulgeywooddesigns.com Amphigorey
  
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A Nonny Moose

If I were the manager here, I’d let the moron hipsters do as they please. If they had the poor judgment to throw the cone on the ground after having their easily-amused fun, I’d forward the security tape (something tells me that these cameras are already in place at most fast food drive-throughs) to the police for an easy $100-$500 (the range of fines for littering violations, depending on state) revenue enhancement. Anyway, I predict this fad to be shorter-lived than planking. Especially if it is widely ignored.
Bubba73

Wait what? This is a thing now? Seriously?

Recession my ass
http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb

Strange. If this stunt caused problems or delays or a mess for the worker, I can see why they might get hostile, although not enough to justify threatening violence. If the workers doesn’t want his surprised reaction being filmed or publicized, then the issue is whether he can ask or demand that they not show him on camera. (Although he’s seen the prank before, so why should it be a surprise? Why not subvert the prank by handing it out and not reacting when they take it?)

Dude feels like he can control the situation, treat people like children (customers!) just because they’re putting him into a mildly embarrassing situation. Weird. Looks like a manager. I bet he’s a joy to work for. I’m angry at how angry he is.
- Kalon Hinds
  
  Seems to me like they are children and the manager is pretty justified treating them that way.
  
  If you don’t combat idiocy just because it supposedly doesn’t affect you, you’re just creating an environment where idiocy can thrive, and that *does* affect you.
  - donovan acree
    
    Why does anyone care what another person does with their food? The cone is paid for. If someone wants to rub it on their face and say booga booga booga booga ha ha ha ha.. who cares?
http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb

Cone Nazi says NO CONE FOR YOU!
http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb

Just because some ppl have littered after making coning videos doesn’t mean most or all of them will. If he gets that hostile about everyone who might litter, he should bolt the doors and windows, because half of the regular customers who really want food will leave part of it smeared on tables, stomped into the floor and scattered all over the grounds. Never thought I’d be pointing out false dichotomy fallacies in arguments pertaining to an ice-cream grasping fad.
GuyInMilwaukee

I’m really enjoying the coming of age of Idiocracy. I like ice cream.
http://youtu.be/L0yQunhOaU0
http://www.facebook.com/john.tobe John Tobe

The problem with this fad is it makes a mockery of people doing an honest job for low pay. These “customers” aren’t buying a snack they’re buying the opportunity to have some laughs at some “fry jockey’s” expense. Some people have pride in their work and to see the result just wasted is an insult.
SamSam

1) Why do all the dumb-kid apologists seem to think that they want to drop it in their own car? E.g. “The kids paid for their ice cream and if they want to wreck the interior of their car with it what does he care?” Hello? Even if you haven’t seen other videos of the prank (I haven’t), obviously the prank isn’t to wreck your own car.

2) Why does everyone keep calling these kids “hipsters?” A sunburnt blond cheerleader? I do not think this word means what you think it means.
- A Nonny Moose
  
  Although hipsters can often be spotted solely by their dress and appearance, sometimes you know them only by their actions. Watch some of the other videos that you acknowledge having not seen and evaluate whether or not you fully understand the meaning of the word. I am unaware of any hard-and-fast rule that states that a “sunburnt cheerleader” (How do you know she’s a cheerleader, BTW?) can’t be a hipster.
  - thivai
    
    There is a rule about who can and cannot be a hipster, but you probably haven’t heard of it.
http://www.facebook.com/john.tobe John Tobe

If the point wasn’t to insult the fast food workers why do it when you pick up the ice cream instead of when you’re out of eyesight? As for the pickle comment made earlier, they allow you to request without pickles and I’d think it just as callous to pick them off right at the counter.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_MLAKC2J76NFB64XLSLUKEHF4J4 Daniel

Private businesses like McDonald’s are entitled to refuse service to any person at any time for any reason. If you walk into a bar, order a beer, and start trouble you don’t automatically get to finish your beer just because you “paid for it.”

If the manager is the one in charge then he gets to decide what’s acceptable behavior on the premises. It is his decision whether the situation warrants kicking the girls off the premises whether or not they’ve already paid for whatever. If the owners disapprove of the manager’s decision he will be reprimanded or fired.

I wholeheartedly approve. In fact, it would be even better if the girls could be forced by court order to work fast food jobs so that they could learn some fucking respect for people who work for their money.
Angry Chief

Finally. Hopefully the death of this trend will come to pass in the foreseeable future. Way to go, McD’s guy. Employees aren’t there to be shit on made a meme out of. I have an idea though. Give every drivethrough a gun of whatever type, bean bag, 9mm, who cares. And every time a coner comes through, shoot them in the face. Better yet, make it lethal and we’ll just call it natural selection.
LogrusZed

I’m kind of shocked at how many BB readers have clearly been raised in such privileged circumstances that the idea of having to work in a drive-thru window and having to clean up after some shit-heel makes a mess of soft-serve in the tracks the sliding windows rests in is completely foreign to them.

Nobody who has had to do real work gives a rat-fuck if you paid for it if your intent is to make their job shittier by making a mess. Fuck you and your lack of respect for people who for whatever reason have to do actual work.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Rickety-Rack/100000236110604 Rickety Rack

Litmus test, litmus test! 1) a-hole uptight employee; people can do what they want with their purchase, so give me my fucking ice cream, bitch; 2) a-hole elitist trash; surprise, bitches! the world is not your little plaything. Now get out of my restaurant so I can earn a living.

(My vote: #2)
anansi133

Does McDonaldsCorp respect me as an individual? I doubt it. But a cashier who doesn’t show respect to the customer isn’t going to last long at his shitty job. In return, is there any obligation on my part to show some respect to the counter jocky? If all you can point to is the receipt and the uneaten ice cream cone, then I’m guessing you don’t understand the question.

When the whole world becomes 4chan, then there’s really no point in playing any more.
kristen55

I’ve got to say I’m on the Manager’s side here. This is one case where the lowly McD employee is a far more mature person than the idiot buying the ice cream. No harm, no foul, the customer looked like they enjoyed getting foiled just as much as they would have enjoyed doing their little stunt.I thought planking was brainless. This is even worse. People really have nothing better to do with their time and money?
- penguinchris
  
  At least planking had a point – it was hardly brainless – in that you wanted to get a cool photo of it (I’ve only seen a few, they may have just been particularly good ones, I guess most are probably garbage photos).
  
  I watched this video and I’m still not sure what coning is. It’s just grabbing ice cream from the top? Then what? No, I’m not going to seek out other coning videos, I’d rather just let this mystery linger.
zebbart

I can’t believe all the righteous anger on both sides here! It’s just a silly child’s prank, and the hard-ass manager gave them the reaction they were looking for. (“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but I could actually mush this in your face,” should be the mandatory speech every time a McD employee hands a customer anything.) I know when I worked at BK and other dumb jobs, I did my job as expected but I did not care if people refused to respect the institution and its protocols. I appreciated anything that broke the monotony and called attention to the idiocy of the whole franchise fast food minimum wage situation. And as a teenager I was always looking for ways to transgress harmless but seemingly sacrosanct social boundaries. I never thought of grabbing ice cream, but I think it is pretty funny in the same way that almost all the victimless bits on Jack Ass were funny. Sure, littering sucks, but that’s just as likely to come from aggressive and crabby old people as from goofy kids pulling a prank. Lighten up people, it’s a dumb job and a dumb prank, but at least someone’s laughing and everyone has something to talk about when they go home.
hypnosifl

Why is it so bad to throw foodstuffs on the ground, anyway? Various creatures will make use of it, they probably need the calories more than we do.
optuser

It was funny when the Australian comedian did it and posted it on YT. Six million views later you would think it was funny enough just to watch it. Thousands of obnoxious Americans repeating it to show off to their friends only encourages it. McD Corp doesn’t care about their individual franchises dealing with this problem but this is just more work for the local managers. If I had to clean this mess up multiple times I’d react just like this guy did. And yes, I used to work at a McDonald’s so I have a slightly biased opinion in this matter.

Actually, I’d be tempted to mash the cone in my own face, laugh maniacally, then say….”oh, that’s not how it’s supposed to go, is it? Let me get you another.” Repeat.
optuser

Also, sunglasses at night. Douche.
BeaverBeaver

He threatned her. That’s pretty lame. He looses any cred he may have gained by foiling the situation. He missed a good oppurtunity to actually be kind/funny/ and win all at the same time. It’s ashame. It’s like the opposite of the cop video that was floating around a few months ago, where someone was legally carrying an unloaded and exposed firearm. That guy was awesome.
- http://lectiblog.blogspot.com/ lecti
  
  Loses. A shame. Please!
  
  On the topic, I think planking was pretty amusing, but coning got old real fast.
  - BeaverBeaver
    
    I blame the English language. Loses… Hoses-Poses-Roses. Looooses. It doesn’t make any fucking sense. I’m American, so I can only partially hide behind that reasoning. Im living abroad and learning a new language. I have this nasty habit now of speaking incorrectly in English to communicate better and I keep spelling things as they sound because that’s how I’m learning French and for the most part it’s consistent.
    
    The ashame thing is just me being dumb. I do it… alot. It’s a shame. I feel ashamed… ;)
    - http://lectiblog.blogspot.com/ lecti
      
      I tell ya, it creeps up on me as well.
benenglish

I guess I’m being thick, here. I apologize. Really, I do.

But where’s the evidence that she intended to do this “coning” thing? I went to the youtube page and the poster didn’t say “We tried to grab the product by the wrong end but were foiled.” Her initial reach for the cone didn’t seem to awkwardly out of place. She ordered two, which would have made “coning” very difficult.

So how do we know she was trying to grab the ice cream instead of the cone? What did I miss?
borkbork

What need is there to ridicule people working shit jobs because they don’t have an option?