barbie toys

Barbie or Hot Wheels???

Who knew that a childlike question could cause quite a ruckus?  I’m not referring to the proposition beyond the shadow of a doubt of “Barbie or Hot Wheels?” here, rather the question of “Is it for a boy or for a girl?”  It turns out that myriad people are asked “Is it for a boy or for a girl?” in McDonald’s all over America when ordering Exhilarated Meals and many are outraged because they feel the question is downright sexist.  Every now and then, McDonald’s On top of the world Meal comes with either a Barbie toy or a Hot Wheels toy and who’s to say that a Barbie toy is strictly for girls and a Hot Wheels toy is strictly for boys?  Beats the other place out of me!  I’m not in the mood to get into a debate, but I am interested in finding out where McDonald’s stands on this stem.

It turns out that when people take their complaints to McDonald’s, whether via e-send or in person, McDonald’s representatives always (a) apologize for the way their employees handled the case and (b) assure that this is not the way they train their employees in dealing with Joyous Meal toys. 

It so happens that I have a good friend who works at a McDonald’s and when I told her all this vivid gossip, she immediately shot me a look and said “They don’t educate us!”  She told me that all they do is tell them what the current flier is and that’s it.  I asked her how she asks customers what toy they lack and she told me that she asks “Is it for a boy or for a girl?” and that she never still thought twice about it.  All her co-workers do the same thing.  She then relayed to me that there’s been various occasions where she’ll have a parent ask for a Barbie toy for their daughter and the daughter asks for a Hot Wheels car preferably.

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