Drunken rant - Customer service failure.
misterorange
Kamala, you're FIRED!
Okay, earlier today I ordered food from Boston Market. I get it. It ain’t some five-star snobatorium. But for fuck’s sake, any asshole should know the first rule of customer service is you never quote “company policy” as a reason you can’t resolve some ridiculously simple issue.
I placed an order on-line and paid for it with a credit card. Receipt was sent via email and it specifically said, “You DO NOT need this confirmation to pick up your order, just give your name at the counter.” So off I went. I didn’t print the email and didn’t even bother bringing my phone.
Inside the restaurant I tell the guy my name, and he’s like, “Your confirmation?” And I say, “I don’t have it. Your website said I didn’t need it.” Dude literally says, “Well then I can’t give you the food,” with a straight face, as if refusing to hand over paid orders is a regular part of his job. So I’m like, “Help me understand this. I paid for the order, your website says I don’t need the confirmation, and now you’re keeping my food.” Dude says he’s gonna get the manager. Perfect. (NOTE: I wouldn't have gotten heated, except that I could see my bag on the pick-up rack. Otherwise they'll spit in your food, or worse.)
He disappears into the back and a few minutes later some Jabba the Hutt fat fuck comes waddling up to the counter and says, “I’m the manager.” I swear, this was like a bad movie. He says, “May I see your confirmation please?” Holy shit, the only reason he dragged his fat ass out of the office was because I DIDN’T HAVE a confirmation. Now I’m explaining the whole story again to this piece of shit who says, “Well it’s this store’s policy that we need a confirmation.” Then he just stares at me. And I’m like, “So, you’re not gonna give me my food?.” And he’s like, “It’s our policy, sir.” I go, “It’s your policy not to give people the food they paid for?” And dude is like, “Not without a confirmation.”
At this point I’m shaking I’m so fucking pissed off. I'm superfly TNT. I'm the guns of the Navarone. Not because of the 30 bucks this guy was basically stealing from me, but the principle of the thing. This jerkoff has a pretty good job for a major restaurant chain, yet I’ve met panhandlers on the streets of Manhattan with better people skills.
Finally I’m like, “How about if I show you my ID?” Ohhh yeahhh… big light bulb goes off in this guy’s simple fucking brain. Now I gotta go out to my car and come back with my wallet. He gives me my cold fucking food and doesn’t even apologize. Instead, he tries to justify his handling of the situation by saying he’s been ripped off by other people who turn out to be thieves. Ohhh… so now I look like a fucking thief to you?. Got it. Great job bro. Promote this guy to district manager!
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It's all part of the great resignation. Customer service Jobs suck because people are assholes. Those who still work customer service are too stupid or lazy to work elsewhere, particularly fast food and chains like Boston Market.
It’s probably been slowly in the rise for years, but in the 3 years they’ve all just exploded. The pandemic gets blamed for a lot of things - who knows the reason - but just dealing with everyday life (for me) really sucks right now
Human behavior is at its worst right now
@Shadow: Were you punishing yourself for some reason by ordering that crappy chain pizza? 😁
But seriously, what do you expect from minimum wage earners at a fast food restaurant? Boston Market is a national chain, but most likely locally franchise - owned by some small potato investor who’s trying to cut corners and expenses wherever he can.
During COVID a lot of people retired. Those jobs needed to be filled, so low level employees filled those jobs. Some of them deserved the promotions some of them didn’t. Now, those low level jobs are being filled by people that normally wouldn’t have even been hired. I have found this more in larger cities where the labor market has a lot of gaps needed to be filled, the rural areas seem to be a little less affected.
THEN you have this new “silent quitting” trend where people are doing the bare minimum at work because they know they won’t get fired because they can’t be replaced. We are talking about the low level workers doing this who wouldn’t even had been hired 2 years ago in the first place! With a recession looming, and everyday you’re reading about tech companies doing mass layoffs it’s only a matter of time before retail and food companies are going to start laying off people too and these silent quitters may regret performing poorly at their jobs on a daily basis.
and fuck boston market!!!! those cocksuckers took the apples off the menu. does anyone here know a joint where they sell those apples?
I sometimes wonder if this stuff is happening primarily in my area (NY/NJ) as the folks working as managers in fast food likely feel undervalued and they can’t really support a family on their fast food salary. But, it’s likely not just in my overpriced part of the country.
I’ve met folks in Florida and in parts of Pennsylvania - who seem to be very helpful in fast food/customer service jobs. But I must have just been lucky.
I think some folks have bachelors degrees and can’t find work, so they feel very demeaned having to work in fast food. They likely don’t interview well, if they have the look of Jabba the hut, and very low drive. So they could easily end up working in fast food for a long time.
I remember when I was working fast food in high school and college. The managers seemed like they knew everything! Some had their own cars and own apartments. But, knowing everything about a fry basket and driving a 1970 Dodge Dart while living in a basement apartment in East Orange NJ isn’t so impressive once you are in your mid 20’s.
But the days of customer service are gone. And they think of everyone as ampotential thief who might buy something along the way
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS7bpVsN…
If we’re talking about the ‘trend’ or ‘national issue’ you guys all seem to be complaining about the entitlement of the workers because they know they won’t be fired and if they do, there’s plenty of other restaurants where they can get hired the same afternoon. We all cheered the great economy prior to covid and the hallmark of that economy was the low unemployment numbers and great jobs market. Well, this is a side effect of low unemployment. You know who works hard at minimum wage, unskilled jobs? Immigrants. We’ve got thousands or millions of them lining up at our doors with their families wanting to come in and work. But the two parties that run our country won’t get together on an immigration policy to let these people in and work. Someone needs to hit Washington over the head with a common sense hammer.
Customers are fucking assholes for next to no reason too though. The shit I've seen people flip out over lately is equally as ridiculous. And customers are out to steal at every chance.
There's something to be said for the younger generation's desire to enjoy life while they're still young & not feed in the whole idea of living to work, but learning the balance and where those lines are comes from those experiences early on.
We used to be semi-regulars at Morton's. The last few times we noticed the experience going downhill. Food was still good, but the service just not what we were used to. The last straw was when we were seated, and within 10 seconds we knew there was no way we could stay with this server. They must have hired her from the diner down the road.
I am NOT a fan of over-the-top kiss ass service like you get at Capital Grille, which is why I don't go there. But when I'm spending $500 on dinner for two, I expect that the waitress will not be calling me "hon" and "darlin" especially with my wife sitting right there. Plus she's asking for, and expecting, our drink order *literally* before our asses touched the chairs. We immediately made up an excuse. My wife took the blame and quietly told the host that she must have screwed up making the reservation on-line, because we had intended to sit at the bar.
We really did our best not to show our disappointment with the server - we didn't want to make a scene or embarrass her. We just wanted to quietly move. As the host was escorting us to the bar, Miss Waffle House comes up behind us and starts asking, "Oh, what's the matter? You don't want to sit with me?" loud enough for half the restaurant to hear. Then she suggested that she could still "take care of us" while we're sitting in the bar area. WTF? All she wanted at this point was for us to reject her directly, apparently to "prove" what bad people we are.
We should have up and left, but the bartender was nice so we made the best of it. It was no secret this woman tried to sabotage our evening after we changed seats. Even customers at other tables were rolling their eyes at her behavior. You think a manager might have stopped by to apologize and maybe buy us a drink? Nope. No one other than the bartender even asked how our meal was. It was like they were avoiding us for fear of pissing off the waitress.
I've been going there 5 or 6 times a year since they first opened in NJ, around 1999 I think. That was the last time.
What were you getting at burger king Rick, I thought you only get the highest quality beef.
Also whats going on with pizza hut, their prices are double that of dominos, and their mobile app has the strangest offers. No deals on pizza other than a large 5 topping, and so the large 5 topping is actually cheaper than a medium no topping pizza... a regular place would have carryout offers for any size of pizza.
Should be pretty-obvious that “honor system” of just putting out the orders and relying on the public to be honest is likely to be abused (perhaps there are some areas where it’s not but def not where I live) – so I can see restaurants taking precautions but giving one’s name should be enough and it’s enough in pretty-much every place I order from – the only time where I seen people show a confirmation has been UberEats (and similar apps); perhaps those apps require the restaurant to verify the order for some reason?
I go thru a McDonalds drive thru every morning for an Iced Tea, there is always a long line but it moves right along. The employees are working women 25+ and this is their full time job. They are courteous, friendly and professional. (Well as much as a fast food worker can be). They are dedicated to providing a good experience and it shows.
Contrast this to the BK right next door. I rarely go there but when I do I realize I made a mistake. There is never a line yet it takes forever and the food is still cold. Not sure how that happens. The employees aren’t rude - but they don’t say a word either. The managers are bad and they hire bad employees
I was watching a finance-podcast a few days back where part of what they were discussing was the lack of workers and quality-workers – the person being interviewed was describing how his brother who is a small-business-owner had complained to him several times about a particular employee that was giving him fits – the guy told his brother “why don’t you just fire him” to which his brother replied “and replace him with who”; apparently the guy couldn’t find anyone else or at least not someone else that was not gonna be the same headache as the current-employee or worse.
IMO it all starts at the top – I think a big-part of the problem is the current “take down America” leftist movement that has been mostly supported by the current administration (e.g. war on cops; war on small-business; etc) – a business-owner requiring a worker to work-hard can often become the target of the mob and be painted as an “oppressor” etc. – to me this “quiet quitting” shit is part of the movement to do away w/ everything America has always stood for although it may not be obvious on the surface.
I havent tried it with waitresses but was thinking wearing a nicer watch would help with credibility to show you have money to blow and aren’t some random joe looking to scam or worse.
Yeah starbucks , chipotle and panera, even before the pandemic just leave mobile and other orders sitting on the shelf. Its way too easy to steal those, and people likely wont be motivated to review camera footage and try to go after someone for stealing $10 of food.
They should at least keep orders in the back and ask for a first or last name.
Asking for first names can easily be abused since you’ll have people use common names like joe john etx to get free food.
And as with everything else its not always about being poor, some people think its cool or funny and pull stuff like this to brag or show off how much free food they can get.
IMO i would ask for a first and last name and confirm what items they ordered, and if it’s a common like smith look for some confirmation.
You mean waitresses at a restaurant?
At Boston Market I used to really like their “creamy spinach” – I’ve never been a fan of spinach but I really liked theirs.
What turned me off about Boston Market was their portions – I would usually order a Turkey Carver sandwich but they just skimped too-much on the turkey – it was all bread and veggies and hardly any turkey – the bread was a sub style bread and each slice of bread was very thick; so when I hate the sandwich all I tasted was mostly bread and the veggies it came with – they would just put a thin slice of turkey to where it tasted like I was just eating-bread while getting charged for a sandwich – and add to that; the bread was always at room temperature as it had been sitting around all day and they seemingly never bothered to warm-it-up.
As a result I haven't hit a Boston Market in about 4-years although I tend to like their menu and thought it was pretty-good fastfood food - I just felt they skimped on the portions too-much.
They used to be owned by McDonald's. That's when it was really good. But Kenny Roger's was the fuckin best. I think they got bought out by Boston Market and then McDonalds.
Service at the local Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds and restaurants I visit is consistently good to excellent. I can think of a few places where the service is uninspired but passable. Very few experiences with shitty service, but when it happens it is unpleasant if not frustrating.
https://tuscl.net/photo.php?id=12378
The sign out in front of this Subway restaurant has looked exactly like that for well over THREE YEARS and that is NOT an exaggeration. I remember it annoying me long before the pandemic and related shut-downs of everything.
So why is this of any concern to me, you ask? It's just a sign. Yes, but here's the way I see it. When you're running a restaurant, attention to detail is critical to ensure you're selling a product that's safe to eat. It doesn't matter if it's a sandwich shop or some high-end place. I understand, the workers at Subway are probably kids - too stoned to notice or give a crap. But there's a manager who drives in and out of that parking lot every fucking day for THREE YEARS and he never thought, "I should send someone out to fix that sign."
So I figure if this guy takes so little pride in the appearance of his store, he's probably not monitoring the refrigeration temperature, or expiration dates on the meat, or supervising his employees to properly clean the work area. Hell for all I know, the guy doesn't even wash his hands after he takes a dump. Maybe he just wipes his ass and then starts finger-fucking everyone's food.
And taking it a step further, I'm sure Subway must have area managers or corporate people that come around from time to time. Apparently, none of them care either, so for that reason I don't go to any of their locations. Believe it or not Subway has almost 37,000 stores - about the same as McDonald's. I'll bet you never see a McDonald's sign looking that way for three days, forget about three years.