I’d say, potentially yes.
I say that, because 1, is been over 2 decades since I worked a McDonald’s, so things could have changed. And 2, it depends on the time of day. And secret third option, depends on the customer.
So generally speaking a certain amount of food will be cooked before hand and kept in a warmer for only so many minutes (ideally). So it is possible that there wasn’t enough chicken nuggets ready to go and they just had to be counted out. If that’s the case the person just needed to make more chicken nuggets.
However, even back when I worked there you had a plethora of customers who would demand fresh stuff and I know it’s only gotten more popular to do (don’t do that). So if this individual demanded that they be freshly made and it was done during the rush… Then yes absolutely this could have made somebody’s day worse.
Fresh McDonalds!? 😂
But seriously… who demands McDonalds to be fresh? It’s literally fast food.
Fresh in they want it cooked “fresh”. People do it all the time because they are under the idea that the food just sits until sold, and it’s some life hack to demand it be made fresh. People do it with fries all the time, or they’ll demand “no salt” (forcing someone to make it fresh) and then once getting the food, ask for a shit ton of salt packets (the salt will not stick to the fries at this point). For sure, not all McD’s hold themselves to the corporate standards, but I’d say a fair number do.
Its especially silly to ask for it to be “made fresh” during rush, since they’re likely cycling through everything in minutes.