How not to succeed in business.....

So I was in one of the few fast food restaurants yesterday that you can actually dine in. Most are still “drive-through only”. There are severe staffing shortages at all of those places since Hurricane Katrina and most of them are making unprecedented offers, like signing bonuses and considerably higher wages, to attract employees. They’re not having much luck. Many entry level workers have evacuated or been evacuated, lost everything, and don’t have the resources or the inclination to come back. People who are still here and who might be inclined to take those jobs normally aren't because they can get jobs in the disaster-relief effort making considerably more. I digress. I ordered an Icee (That’s what they used to be called but every fast food joint that serves them gives it their own name) to go with my meal. I ordered a large. She heard large and gave me a large but charged me for a medium. I didn’t know she had made a mistake because I don’t know one size from another at most of these places. She went and got that for me and I started on it while I waited for the rest of my meal. She then went on to the next customer. The place was pretty busy. The manager was coordinating. He calls my ticket, sees the Icee on the ticket, and starts to make it. I tried to stop him but he wasn’t listening. He makes the medium Icee, which has one of those bubble tops with the hole in the middle for the straw. He slams it down on the counter, Icee shoots up through that hole onto the counter, and a little got on me but I wasn’t too concerned about it. He apologized and I explained that I already had one and showed it to him.

To me: “Where’d you get that?”
Me: “She gave it to me”
The cashier was taking an order from another customer. He interrupts her.
To her (Rather sternly): “This is a medium. That’s a large.”
He turns to me.
“OK, go ahead and keep it.”

I was both uncomfortable and angry. It was spilt milk. What was he going to do? Take it from me after I’d already drank some of it? I don’t think so. In fact, he wasn’t going to take it from me, period. The retail difference in price is 10 or 20 cents (I would have gladly paid the difference if I had known a mistake was made). It was really no big deal. He should have just let it go. If she makes the same mistake again, pull her aside and point out the difference. Instead, he chewed out an employee in front of me and 20 other customers over nothing. It was totally unnecessary. Unfortunately, I knew he was the jackass but the other 20 customers probably didn’t. My guess is that loser will have some staff turnover and he’s not long for that job.

Quote of the Day

You can't squeeze $3.7 billion out of this state to pay this bill. Period. That would be difficult for us on a good day.

Denise Bottcher, State of Louisiana

Blog of the day here.

Quote from said blog: "Haydn looked around at Rebecca and said, "Mama. You know that easy breezy beautiful Cover Girl stuff.""

Go to the blog for the next part. Priceless. -Rob