Tuesday, January 30, 2007

to serve or not to serve?

Is it me or does it seem like these days there is a complete lack of work ethic in most people? I say this knowing that there are certainly those out there who still have a knowledge of what it means to provide customer service and earn an honest day's pay. However, I must vent here about the interesting dinner experience that we had tonight. Given that I am almost 37 weeks pregnant, we'll say that I have not been a stellar at-home cook of late. If I don't have a plan for dinner by the time I get up in the morning, it is all but a lost cause these days by the time I get my piano lessons done for the day. Such was today. Jon arrived home from work and it took some time to decide where we wanted to grab a bite to eat. We finally left the house around 6:30 and drove to the new Chinese buffet in town. All reviews had been good so far, and although I'm not much of a buffet gal (I'd rather spend the same amount of money on something that I know I'm going to like instead of a bunch of different items that are just so so), I agreed to give it a shot. Shortly after I got Abbie settled with her dinner, I started in on my own plate of adventurous fare, sweet and sour chicken. Within several bites, I discovered a rather large hair in my food and that did me in. While I did let the rest of my family continue to eat, having discovered no other intruders on their plates, I did point out to our attendant that I wouldn't be eating anymore from the buffet and that I would not be paying for my meal. She was very apologetic and changed our bill, no questions asked. All in all, the exchange was very amicable. So, while I'm still disgusted and we are not likely to return in the future, I have no hard feelings or intentions to go out of my way to let people know what happened. We left, but having still not eaten dinner, I needed to grab something on the way home. I decided on Quiznos, which I usually enjoy. We pulled up in front of the store around 7:40 pm and I wondered out loud if they were still open. Some of the lights were turned off and chairs were put up, but it seemed unlikely that they had closed that early. I proceeded to go up and check their posted hours, to find that they were supposed to close at 8:00 pm. So it tried the door. It was locked. Then I noticed the two employees who were crouching behind the counter in hopes that I wouldn't see them. One made the mistake of looking my direction. He knew I had seem him because he tried to wave me off. I pointed to the sign and then at the clock on their wall, which was set 10 minutes ahead but still showed 7:50 pm. He then turned his head and pretended like I wasn't there. I went back to the car, told my husband, and we backed out to where we could see them still hiding behind the counter. We even sat there for about a minute before pulling out. They didn't move until we rounded the corner, at which point they popped back up and continued to close down the store. Now, am I the only one who finds this infuriating? Am I crazy to feel an intense need to call up the owner tomorrow and make sure he knows how disrespectful I found this behavior? I guess it all comes down to principle with me. I could care less when Quizno's wants to close, but if you're going to post a closing time, then stay open until that time! All I want to do now is tell everyone I know not to eat there. Sure, some of that may be my cranky pregnant evil twin talking, but I suspect that I might still feel the same without fluctuating hormones. I guess that I am big on customer service, having spent most of my working life practicing it in some form or another. I don't know if it is generational, cultural, or what, but I sure wish that it would come back in style, don't you?

3 comments:

Emily said...

I would be furious. If I were you I would have sent Jon to the door and told him to bang on it till he got me my sandwich. I hope you finally got some dinner. And yes, I must agree, customer service seems to be a lost art.

Sierra said...

That drives me crazy too! Why do people think they are entitled to a "free ride" or "easy ride?" And what happened to the common descency to at least attempt to make an explanation as to why they were unable to help you out? I too hope that you finally got some dinner. But more, I hope that you made that call to the owner to help those workers claim accountability for slacking on the job. :)

1tiredmama said...

I would have called the owner for sure. It would be annoying enough to find them closed, but even more annoying that the employees were actually trying to hide from you! I am so glad to find you blog!