When the electronics go down...

I'm not a big fan of McDonald's (although I do like McDonald's in China better than in the US), but there is one almost directly across the street from my school and today was exam day (day 3 of 3). I was giving my Chemistry exam right after lunch and so I decided to join a couple of my coworkers at McDonald's for lunch. McDonald's is usually an easy place for foreigners because they have kiosks where you can order in English. Today, however, as we walked in we noticed that all the kiosks were down. We then proceeded to the ordering counter (as opposed to the pick-up counter) to order and discovered things were even more interesting. Apparently, McDonald's entire electronic system was down. At the counter, two women were taking orders on paper and then telling the kitchen staff what each person's order was. This made ordering quite a challenge because while there was a partial menu on the wall, there was no complete menu available. I decided I wanted a plain hamburger, a small fry and a bubble tea (something delicious, but definitely not available at McDonald's in the U.S.). This order was more challenging than you might imagine. First, the Chinese word for hamburger is not specific to, well hamburger. A hamburger in Chinese could be made of beef, chicken, fish (possibly other things, but those are the only choices at McDonald's). Next, I not only never order in Chinese, but plain hamburgers aren't very common. I told the woman I wanted a hamburger and she asked me if I wanted chicken, I replied, "no, beef." Then I told I want just the beef nothing else on it. She then replied you want a single burger, right? Yes. The small fries were easy and the only thing with the bubble tea was I had to specify that I wanted a cold one because it comes in hot or cold. Then they had to figure out how much I needed to pay. They didn't know how much a plain hamburger costs. Luckily I did (at 7 yuan, it's actually more expensive in China than in the United States). One of the women knew how much a small fry (which is truly small unlike the small fry I ordered at Arby's when I was in the States for Christmas) cost and they both seemed to know the price of the bubble tea. One of my coworkers tried to pay with a debit card and they told him cash only. This caused me a bit of concern because I didn't have my wallet on me, only my phone. I asked if we could pay with WeChat (the Chinese version of WhatsApp, but it also has a pay function that works similar to Apple Pay) and thankfully we could. Thus, after they added together my order I scanned a woman's phone and paid via WeChat. I saw afterward that it was a personal account and so apparently she was collecting all the payments and would eventually pass it on to the restaurant when they had their systems restored. I can't imagine a restaurant in the U.S. operating this way, but I guess it works. I got my food and hopefully, the restaurant will get their money.