Jonathan Brown 5178 Millstone Drive Catawba NC, 28609 Jbrow373@uncc.

edu September 9, 2013

Dear Manager of McDonalds on Highway 70, I was going home from play rehearsal in Newton with my girlfriend on July 28 , 2013 and we planned to go to the newly designed McDonalds on highway 70 with a friend from rehearsal because my girlfriend wanted a strawberry lemonade smoothie. So we drove to McDonalds with joy and happiness because rehearsal was fantastic. Then, we arrived at McDonalds. The air outside smelled of urine and asphalt when it rains, we looked at each other in disgust and walked inside feeling slightly nauseous. The overwhelming odor of a smell that resembled a hospital took over our senses which again, made us turn to each other in disgust because of this horrible smell in McDonalds. Well we went McDonalds to eat so we went on to order. The employees were really unmotivated and created an atmosphere of laziness and tiredness. We decided not to leave because my girlfriend really loves the smoothies at McDonalds, so we stayed and continued ordering. I ordered only a large tea because I was short on money, my girlfriend ordered a chicken McNugget, a smoothie, and 13 cookies to share among us, and my friend did his own thing. The lady gave me a large cup for tea and I went over to the drink station and there was a cluttered mess of ice, drink spills, napkins, straws, lids, and even ketchup all over the station. Then I went to pour my tea. It was around 8:30pm and the tea dispenser said Use by: July 28th 9:54am the date was today and the tea was almost twelve hours old. The th other dispenser was empty and it said Use by: July 28 4:30pm. I again turned to my friends who were also pouring drinks, pointed at the Use by signs, and looked at them in disgust. I completely understand how hard it is to make tea, considering it only takes concentrated tea syrup and a machine that practically does all the work for you. But seriously? I brew tea very often, and I know that tea gets nasty and bitter if it sits out unrefrigerated for a long time. I religiously do not drink soda so I didnt have an alternative drink. Against my better judgment I poured a cup of tea because I was dying of thirst. I took a drink of it and of course, it was sour which ultimately ticked me off. I approached the table where my friends were sitting, it appeared to be the cleanest area to eat at, yet there were crumbs on the table, paper bags on the floor, more straws and there was even a disregarded spill under the table adjacent to the one we were sitting at. I was thoroughly dissatisfied with McDonalds at this point. Me, my girlfriend, and my friend, you guessed it, turned to each other in disgust and started talking about how nasty the place is. Then my girlfriend opened her chicken McNuggets. They were soggy, they were undercooked, and they were nasty. She silently ate them with a sour face because she had paid for them and didnt want them to go to waste because she had no food at home. This experience with McDonalds was the best example of how a fantastic day can turn upside down. I have eaten at this McDonalds off of 70 many times before and it has been exceptionally great compared to other McDonalds. That was before the remodeling however. The management was fantastic and the valor of the employees was at an obvious high in the past, everything was clean and it was clearly much better. Im not sure if there is new management or a th th completely horrible new staff but my experience on the 28 was ridiculous. I have not eaten at McDonalds since the 28 and I will not unless things shape up. This experience ruined all of the joy from my rehearsal and left me feeling sickened. Sincerely,
th

Jon Brown

Jon Brown Adam Padgett English 1101 9/19/2013

Analysis In my paper I tried to use the three persuasive devices as fluently as possible and I think that my letter would be very successful in increasing cleanliness and order at the McDonalds on highway 70. In the first part of my letter I say So we drove to McDonalds with joy and happiness because rehearsal was fantastic. Then, we arrived at McDonalds. This phrase makes someone think that something happened at McDonalds to ruin this joy and happiness. Then I introduce the first fault of McDonalds, the air outside smelled bad and the air on the inside smelled worse. This shows pathos because it makes us feel sick about McDonalds. Then I stated my excuse to why I didnt just leave because of the nasty conditions, that my girlfriend wanted a smoothie. Then I said that the employees showed tiredness and laziness. This statement further shows McDonalds faults. The next statement I made toward the conditions of McDonalds was the statement about the drink station. This showed the nastiness of the place and it was fortified by the statement about the tables and seating area. I used the fact that I dont drink soda as an excuse to get tea. Then I made the remark about the tea, I tried to focus most of my anger towards that part of the letter, I wanted the manager of McDonalds to know that the fact that the tea was twelve hours old was the biggest concern I had. I then used sarcasm to explain how making tea isnt a hard thing to make especially at McDonalds where they use processed s yrup anyway. Then the fact that I was going to sit down in the cleanest place at McDonalds that was also a mess continued the examples of distastefulness of my experience at McDonalds. I then mentioned; as a dessert to the meal of dissatisfaction, that my girlfriends food was soggy and nasty which topped off how horrible an experience this was for all of us. At the end of my body

Jon Brown Adam Padgett English 1101 9/19/2013

paragraph I said that this experience had turned my happiness from rehearsal in the opposite bringing in more pathos. I ended my letter by praising what McDonalds used to be and slandering the new, horrible McDonalds by saying that the new management and employees must be the problem. My goal through this letter was for McDonalds to improve the conditions of their facility. I made the comment that I do not eat at McDonalds anymore and wont until things improve to show my goal. At the very end of the paper I restated that my day was turned from happiness to loathing McDonalds. Throughout my essay, I tried to focus on ethos and pathos. I didnt see very much room for logos in a complaint letter of this kind because the fact that the area should be clean and orderly is common knowledge for a restaurant business except when I used sarcasm to imply that its very easy to make tea from a machine that requires water and syrup. In my letter I used the phrase Looked at each other in distaste repetitively to show the level of dissatisfaction increasing. This showed pathos because of the distasteful effect it had on me and my friends. Ethos was used by the overall effect of the letter, the facility should be clean because its a place for eating. Overall, I think this letter would do a good job at showing McDonalds that things need to improve and I think after reading this letter on the management level things would definitely improve at McDonalds.