We Found That The Service Was Lacking....

I'm tired of leaving tips. Maybe it's just that the service I've received lately has been so shitty.

In my first example, my wife, our four children, and my mother went to have dinner at a nationally known 24 hour restaurant. Sure, there's better places out there, but hey, we were hungry and the food is passable.

So we get there and they tried to seat us at a large booth, which is a good thing. Unfortunately they had seated us at this booth before, and it really sucks. On one side you're facing a window where the sun shines directly in your eyes, and the blinds aren't thick enough to filter out the sunlight, so if you happen to be the one sitting on that side from about 4:00 PM to about 6:00 PM during a nice fall evening, you can pretty much expect to be squinting the whole time while your eyes suffer damage from UV rays. Here's a thought: maybe they should offer UV protection sunglasses for the people they seat there.

The other side of the booth is no better. Apparently the seat is so old and in such disrepair that it's probably not safe to sit there anyway, and you will quickly find yourself at the bottom of a hole. Moving left or right doesn't really help because someone else is sitting next to you, and unless you can move over one whole space, you'll find yourself sitting at an angle.

In short, the booth sucks.

So we asked them if they could find us another table. Now there were plenty of smaller tables that could have been pushed together, but they decided to usher us off to the back room and give us the big banquet table there. Hey, I like this idea. This is really good service.

Except that the moment we were seated, a manager walks up to the person seating us and rather rudely informs us all that we can't be there because the place is reserved. The girl, as politely as possible mentions to the manager that they have over an hour before the other party is expected, and we even agree that we can be out of there by then. Frankly, we just wanted to grab a bite to eat and then get the hell out anyway.

This conversation is repeated as a second manager comes and voices her dissatisfaction at our seating arrangements. And then a third.

Hey look, we didn't ask for this particular spot, and even if we had, wouldn't the proper thing to do be to pull the person who seated us off to the side and find another solution that doesn't involve staring into the sun? So we ate our dinner, worried about the time, and generally not enjoying the fact that we were eating out as a family. Was it really worth pissing us off to make sure that that table would be empty by the time the other party showed up?

At any rate we did tip because it wasn't our waitresses fault that their managers were acting like asses. For a brief time, I have worked for a restaurant, a major grocery retailer, and other sales based retailers in the past, and at no time was it acceptable to yell at your employees in front of the customers, or in any other way make your customer feel awkward or unappreciated. The fact that these people are doing so, and they work for a national chain is disgraceful. We still aren't sure whether or not it's worth a letter to the corporate office.

Example two, which occurred during the same week as the previous incident involves a local pizza joint. This time all I did was order in pizza and breadsticks for the family. Since the single container of pizza sauce is never enough, I ordered a second pizza sauce so there would be enough for everyone. The previous few times I had done this, they had neglected to deliver the second pizza sauce, so this time I checked while the pizza guy was at the door and, lo and behold, one single pizza sauce. I pointed this out to him and he said it wasn't on the order. OK, so the guy on the phone fucked up my order, but I still did order it, and I still did want it. I had written in a two dollar tip into the check I gave the delivery guy, and he had obviously seen this, so he said he'd run back to the place and grab more pizza sauce.

Take a guess who we didn't see again that night.

Hey, I understand that mistakes happen, and that there will be differences of opinion, but if you say you're going to do something for a customer, you should damn well come through for them, especially if they put a couple extra dollars in your pocket. I'd go elsewhere if it weren't for the fact that I like their pizza better than any other place in town, and I've been a pretty loyal customer for half my life.

I would complain to the management, but I'm reasonably certain that the guy who fucked up my order to begin with by not writing down everything I ordered was the manager. Also, when sending in complaints about the service in the past, my experience is that no action is taken and they do not typically offer compensation in an effort to try and secure your future business.

I suppose it all comes down to whether or not the company perceives that they will save any significant amount of business by keeping you happy. How is it in their best interest to go out of their way to keep their customers coming back if they're already making enough money to keep their shareholders happy?