I worked for McDonald's for years and went through many of their "experiments". It took us workers about 12 minutes to figure out how well something would work

I worked for McDonald's for years and went through many of their "experiments". It took us workers about 12 minutes to figure out how well something would work out. We often wondered who thought up this stuff up and why didn't they ask us first. Some of the losers: - A hard ice cream cone that was supposed to "soften" while the customer ate their food. But no matter how much we pushed them, no one ordered them with their meal. They came back for them, but they were too hard to bite into, so people just stopped buying them. - Hamburgers with tomatoes. There just wasn't an easy enough way to handle tomatoes at the volumes McDonald's does. - Grilled cheese. No one wanted them. - Plastic trays. They were supposed to reduce paper costs. But people just left them on their tables, so we had to hire an additional dining room cleaner, offsetting any savings. (Once they changed the garbage cans to have tray receptacles on top, people got the hint and started using them again.) On the other hand, there were some real winners: - The Egg McMuffin. duh. All that store capacity had been wasted on coffee and donuts. - The Quarter Pounder. Hard to believe McDonald's was so successful with those tiny burgers for so many years before. - And of course, the Big Mac, which was invented by my boss's boss in order to compete with Eat N Park's Big Boy: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_383369.html http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_383369.html (The most amazing fact was that he lived to be an old man even though he ate at McDonald's every day.)