Crappy customer service is one of my favorite topics to rant about.  And if you know me personally, you have seen the rolling of the eyes and grimaces I make when I tell the stories before a live “audience.”  Unfortunately, I have not chosen to become a podcaster yet, so here’s my latest:  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! blog.

It’s mid-day and about 400 degrees outside.  I am making my way into work, via a drive-thru burger joint that shall remain nameless.  If I had the energy, I’d call their manager but maybe I’ll just mail him this story some day…

Because COVID has put the kibosh on “dining room seating,” the line wrapping around the building is about ten vehicles long.  I feel like I am in a roller coaster car waiting for the thing to get moving.

Finally, I make it to the kiosk with the speaker in it.  I have been going through these drive thru’s for decades.  I go to the same ones.  I order the same things.  I am a creature of habit.  I expect the same results.  The place where I get my coffee makes it the same every single time…. Unless …. I go to the same company but a different franchise location.  Last week I had a frozen coffee that had me trembling for hours from caffeine or espresso overdose.  I am wondering how that fool made it.  I keep checking to see if I have hair growing on my upper lip now.

But at the burger place I said:  “I’d like a cheeseburger with no onions and no pickle.  I’d like a small iced tea.”  THAT WILL BE 3.54 she blurts back through the speaker.  I go, “Wait.  Do you have any cookies?”  She doesn’t say no.  She doesn’t bother to say we are out of desserts.  She says:  “We have mini milkshakes for $1.  Vanilla and chocolate.”  I blink with mild confusion.  Shakes are not baked goods. 

I try again:  “Is the speaker working properly?  I asked you if you had any cookies.”  She comes back at me with:  “And I said, ‘we have mini milkshakes for $1.  We have vanilla and chocolate.”  I am astonished that she got curt with me.  I am wondering where she was educated that she doesn’t know the difference between an ice cream product and a baked good.  If she was my employee, she wouldn’t be anymore.  Is there a reason that the phrase, “The customer is always right” is etched on a tombstone in front of a car dealership in the city?  Is competent, pleasant customer service a thing of the past?

I drive forward, asking God to NOT let her be the one at the window.  (It’s the “lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil” clause.)  No, she wasn’t.  The young man takes my money, hands me the bag o’ burger and says, “You’re all set.”  And I say:  “Not without the iced tea, I’m not.” He hands it to me, and I tell him to have a nice day.  (Isn’t HE supposed to say that first?)

I look at the plastic top.  Do you know that on cold beverage tops there are bubbles for the worker to PUSH to indicate if it is Regular, Diet, Tea, or Rootbeer, because they all look the same in the cup?  True fact.  And yet we’ve got a whole generation of kids that don’t push the stupid button.

Well, they can’t push that one button, but they sure know how to push MY buttons!

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