This was gonna be one of my most ambitious (some might say, before knowing the full details, ridiculous) writing challenges.

How to compose a credible letter of complaint to (Indooroopilly) Shopping Centre Management alerting them that one of the retail employees working on their premises had looked at my wife, seven-year old daughter and myself with less than welcoming eyes?

You think I’m joking?   I’m not.

For starters, let’s substantially upsize the aforementioned ‘less than welcoming’ look to what it more correctly resembled and really was:  a withering stare of unbridled loathing that could easily have peeled the paint off any unsuspecting metallic street sign for miles around. A common enough weapon amongst the passive-aggressive crowd I know, but when it’s directed at you, you’re left in no doubt you’ve just been given a deliberate black-eye minus the visible mark.

Then there was the time factor.

By that I mean how long this malevolent optical blowtorch was applied for.

Which, if you haven’t begun forming a mental picture yet, was, I’ll tell you, a bloody long time. Too bloody long. Way too bloody long! Like ‘mentally irregular’ (as Rocky Balboa might say) way too bloody long!

Still reading? Good, ’cause here’s the details.

Last week’s blog post mentioned a family outing to the movie CARS 3 I had taken along with my wife and daughter. I described that though the movie may have been full of car chases spun in together with the occasional car crash, the real action, at least for my family and I, had started in the shopping centre carpark before the movie had even gotten underway.

At this point in the retelling, it’s simpler if I just reproduce the letter of complaint I was asked to compose after contacting both Indooroopilly Shopping Centre management and McDonalds Brisbane head office (located at Chermside). Yes, you read that correctly. This is another one of my adventures involving the golden arches, only unlike last time, (February 24th – Miracle at the Drive-thru  ) this was definitely no McHappy meal.

Hi Courtney,

This morning around 10am, my wife, seven-year-old daughter and I entered the Centre car-park from the Musgrave Rd side near the cinemas. The purpose of our visit was to take our daughter to see the movie CARS 3.

In the process of parking our car an awkward and unnecessarily uncomfortable encounter occurred with what I was to later discover was one of the store employees who works at the Centre.

I chose to reverse park my car into the available space. Immediately, I activated my hazard lights to signal to cars behind me (of which, important to note, at this time, there were none) my intention. In the process of reversing, a car with a young female driver continued to approach and come forward, making it a very tight turning circle for me to enter this space. Once parked, my wife and I watched the driver of the car pass in front of us making every effort to cast her best unblinking hard stare in our direction for what seemed like an overly long time as she drove past.

Unfortunately, as we were to find out 30 seconds later, this driver then regrettably chose to park in a space approx 8 metres behind us (when there were numerous parks available further down). Upon exiting our vehicle, we were greeted with the sight of the young lady now standing next to her car and continuing to stare in our direction with what was, to our eyes, a look of hostility. This was unpleasant and I felt unnecessary (in layman’s terms – I believe she was spoiling for a fight). Bizarrely, as she walked ahead, going toward the sliding glass doors that open to the cinema, with us also pointed in the same direction, she continued to look around at us defiantly while all the time walking with her elbows noticeably cocked outwards from her sides like something from the Wild West. As I say, awkward!

After purchasing our tickets at the cinema, my wife and daughter then visited McDonalds in the foodcourt to buy a coffee. As luck (if you could call it that) would have it, who should we see behind the counter working as an assistant manager but the young lady we had just encountered in the carpark. My wife then spoke to the manager (Luke) who offered the idea that Megan (the young lady’s name) hadn’t meant any harm and was probably just in a hurry. While I understand Luke was seeking to calm the situation down, we were not content with this explanation as Megan’s actions were most certainly a display of deliberate impatience/bordering on aggressiveness from someone who should have shown a more responsible, peaceable attitude while wearing an identifiable company uniform.

My family and I had been looking forward to this day since the beginning of the current school holidays but to have the morning blighted in this way (when we did nothing wrong in the first place other than to inconvenience a person for at the most 10 seconds by our reverse park) by the unpleasantness of a worker who, one would think, should be acting as a role model to others in their interactions with the public, was disappointing and did to some extent take the shine off the morning.

I have no doubt Megan is a very nice girl under other circumstances but on this occasion, to us, she did not act in a remotely friendly way or one which I believe her employer would support. While there was no swearing, rude finger signs or horn beeping from her, she did everything else in her power, I believe to ‘punish’ us for our reverse parking action which impeded her travel so briefly.

If, based on what I have described, you see fit to speak with her at some future time, her manager or possibly both, I would very much appreciate being let known the outcome. I may be contacted either by phone or email.

Regards,

Glen Donaldson

Forest Lake

Ph: 3372 3958

If I live to be a hundred, don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget the sight of feisty young Megan walking that last 30 metres across the car-park and then stomping into the shopping centre with elbows cocked like a gunslinger and a stride like she’d just stepped off a horse. If it wasn’t so bizarrely over the top it would undoubtably have qualified as a moment of bona-fide comedy gold.

My wife and I joked later that maybe that day it would have been more fitting had we seen the movie DESPICABLE ME(GAN). Was I too hard on the young girl, dobbing her into her bosses? (My wife also spoke face to face with her and her in-store manager while being served at Maccas).

I don’t think so. A person who chooses to get all huffy like she did while dressed in a company uniform and direct their frustrations (and hate) at a guiltless family, including a seven-year old girl, needs, I believe, to be corrected by someone outside of her immediate colleague serving alongside her in the same store.

It all goes to prove my theory that try as one might to avoid conflict in this world, there’s no getting around the fact conflict sometimes comes searching to find us. Really, there are times when I think the only reason I go out some days is to get me a fresh appetite for being at home. That, and to see with my own eyes how truly strange some people can be.

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