It's just business
Her co-worker must have been sick, because she was the only person staffing the fast-food restaurant that night. She took my order, but then, instead of serving me, took a phone order and two more in-person orders. At that point, I was getting pretty ticked, and told her so. "I'll serve you in about five minutes." "But I've already been waiting for five minutes."
Finally, she was finished taking orders. But instead of serving me, she started serving the last customer to enter the store, who'd flashed his cell phone at her. "Why are you serving him? I was here first!" "No, he ordered online, so he's first."
After calming down and thinking about, I realized that the restaurant worker had had no choice. She'd had to take all the orders first, then do the serving, lest potential customers got tired of waiting to place an order and left. As for the guy with the online order, well, people order online because they don't want to stand on a line. So the delay wasn't something that I should have taken personally.
I apologized to the worker for having given her a hard time. "That's okay," she replied. "It happens all the time."
Which made me feel about two inches tall.
Oy. There's another one for my Al Chet list.
Finally, she was finished taking orders. But instead of serving me, she started serving the last customer to enter the store, who'd flashed his cell phone at her. "Why are you serving him? I was here first!" "No, he ordered online, so he's first."
After calming down and thinking about, I realized that the restaurant worker had had no choice. She'd had to take all the orders first, then do the serving, lest potential customers got tired of waiting to place an order and left. As for the guy with the online order, well, people order online because they don't want to stand on a line. So the delay wasn't something that I should have taken personally.
I apologized to the worker for having given her a hard time. "That's okay," she replied. "It happens all the time."
Which made me feel about two inches tall.
Oy. There's another one for my Al Chet list.
posted by Shira Salamone at 11:44 AM
2 Comments:
I was in a city in the US recently which I shall not name because it only has a couple of kosher places and I don't want to publicly malign them. I got back from my day's business around 8 pm and called them to place an order. Fine, they said, it'll be ready in an hour.
So an hour later I showed up there. Place was busy so I waited quietly in line for 20 minutes because there was one guy both answering the phones, serving the people in line and coordinating the cooks. But when I finally got to the front of the line he rifled through some papers, found my order and said "No problem it'll be ready in fifteen minutes." But now they'd had almost half an hour longer than they said they'd need. So I waited because I was hungry. Fifteen minutes later I asked where the food was and they said they were just about to get the order started. So I told them to cancel it, walked out and bought some snacks at Wal-mart. They want my business? They better do what they promise.
Sigh.
Garnel, I think the owner(s) is/are at fault: They're too cheap to hire enough staff to take care of their own customers. In the long run, their businesses will suffer as people conclude that going to their restaurants is more trouble than it's worth.
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