Dear McDonald's: Why all the mind-numbing conformity, a former McOperative asks the corporation as it prepares to double the number of its branches in Britain

YOU ARE responsible for the destruction of one of the most beautiful things I have ever created: bun, then cheese, then sauce, quarter pounder, lettuce, more cheese, more lettuce, another bun, quarter pounder, more sauce, cheese and a final sesame-sprinkle bun. I remember standing back and admiring my six-inch high creation. I gave it a name: The McEnormous McFabulous McSuperStuffer StomachFiller. Lunch.

But as I cradled it from your kitchen to the staff canteen, one of your managers stopped and shrieked in such a manner that I was convinced she would faint into a heap of polyester on the floor.

'That]' she wailed, pointing a finger at my McHuge. 'That is not a McDonald's]' My lunch was consigned to the bin and the cost deducted from my wages. My McJob, I was warned, was on the line.

You see, while a student in France, I scraped and shovelled for you, scrubbed and wiped, grinned and bore it - for six gruelling months.

It's not the cultural imperialism that irks me. Indeed, I took great pleasure in serving cheeseburgers sans fromage, or, even better, catering for the customer who asked for a hamburger sans viande and left with a bun containing a squirt of mustard, a splodge of ketchup and two gherkins.

It's those two gherkins that are the problem. Wherever the hungry traveller ventures across the globe - Paris, London, New York - it's two gherkins. Never three. Never one. Two in a Big Mac. Two in a hamburger. Two in a cheeseburger. My heart bleeds as I think of Moscow - all those Vogue-flicking Western wannabes tucking into two gherkins.

It's the regimented, formulated, calculated, soulless, tasteless, senseless uniformity that you peddle. Not the ketchup that wouldn't come off my grey trousers. Not the pre-packed, pre-cut pre-washed lettuce. Not the cleaning out of the grease pit. Not the 18 months before I could walk into one of your restaurants again. Not the two years before I could look an Aberdeen Angus in the face.

It's your corporate culture that stamps in the face of the individual. The lean-mean-burger-machine that had no place for my McHuge. Timers on grills. Timers on toasters. Timers honed to the second so that the grill chef would be behind the toaster chef who would be behind the salad chef and behind the manager, who was behind the team and behind with his mortgage.

This is why I McHate you. McLoathe and McDespise you from the bottom of my little McHeart. This is why I never want to work for your chain of silly McRestaurants again.