Ask. Nicely. Thou should receive.

I just got home from having a meal at McDonald's Bandar Utama. I'm quite pleased with the outcome. At 3am it's not likely that anything on the rack is fresh. It might be but most probably it's not.

I was polite, I was friendly and I was nice. I asked about the food on the rack and they readily admitted that the burgers there had been there for a while. I asked for a fresh McChicken to be made and it wasn't a problem if I didn't mind waiting for 5 minutes.

So I waited 5 minutes. I got a freshly made burger and even fries straight out of the fryer. That's worth waiting 5 minutes for I think. I even apologised for being fussy but de nada, it was nothing. Many Malaysians I suspect, would have taken the burger off the rack, found it to be somewhat stale and grumbled privately to themselves or whoever was with them at the time. How many times have you gotten soggy fries from McDonald's?

Don't settle for poor quality from the service industries. If you don't ask, you're not always going to get what you want. So ask but ask nicely. We are known for being a friendly and generous nation of people. Yeah. To foreigners. It's time we extended such behavior amongst ourselves.

I can accept that at 3am the staff can afford to be more accommodating to me than at a busy hour. I'm also not likely to be pushy at a fast food outlet at lunch hour. If however, I am at a proper restaurant and I get sub standard food or service you can bet I'm going to say something about it.

But I'll be nice about it. Until or unless I'm treated otherwise.