Onionless Wimp
Yesterday we ordered some take out food and the waitress guiltily approached Tim and said they forgot to put the onions in the dish and would he mind if they weren’t there. He said no, just so we could eat, but we both wanted the onions! We could have been jerks and demanded to speak with the manager or make them give us a discount and they would have done it graciously and probably given us a coupon for a free meal…but instead we got an onionless meal.
I decided that restaurants should voluntarily give you a coupon for a free meal or a discount when things go poorly and you respond nicely. Parents do not give their child extra allowance for yelling or acting inappropriately so why should restaurants cater to onlly those who get angry (which I find is the only way to get action in places…anger = free meal).
I have been teaching assertive communication skills in my guidance class…I suppose I need to take my own advice.
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Glad to know we aren’t the only whimpy resturant patrons. Tonight we went out for dinner and our waiter was the slowest guy on the planet. For the most part our meal showed up quickly, but it took him forever to remember to bring a refil and the dessert menu. Then it took twice as long to bring dessert as it did dinner - we could see him in the kitchen getting it ready and we could see the 1 or 2 other waiters make the same dessert and leave the kitchen way before he did. When he finally brought it to our table he blamed it on his “gimpy” finger (as he put it). He had one bandaged finger. Nothing that should slow up cake cutting.
But did we complain to anyone? Nope. We just complained to each other on the way home. (although he did get way too small of a tip.)
I was just talking about crabby customers last night with some friends, so your story made me smile. From the service side, not yelling and being crabby is pretty nice, but I understand both sides completely. What I don’t understand is when a customer is just crabby from the start for no apparent reason. Every couple of weeks we get one of those, and I don’t know whether to be really nervous or to just laugh at them. I made it my goal to get one crabby customer to cheer up and enjoy his time at our store. And it actually worked. But that is rare.
I went to dinner last night and asked for my meal without the red onions and it came with it. I, too, was pleasant and just picked off the onions and was offered to have my meal discounted. To my husbands horror, I declined. It was still good and so what if I had to pick off four or five onions!
A couple months ago I pre-ordered my meal from Chipotle over the web. When I got there, a customer ordering food for about two dozen people was ahead of me and it took quite awhile to get my meal, so the manager just told me it was free and I left a happy man.
Here’s the bizarre part. Ever since then, maybe 10% of the time that I go there, they give me my meal for free. Same manager. He’ll just see me, smile and nod, and then the guy at the register will tell me the food is free and the manager will say “Thanks for your business” from the back.
It’s like being in the mafia or something. I don’t get why this is happening, but you can bet I’m not complaining.