Fed Up

Don't worry -- this is not another political post -- though I can't promise that there'll never be another one. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee it.

This is something much more mundane -- it's about how we fuss about not getting good service -- at stores or restaurants -- but we don't actually complain to or at the source. We bitch about things to our family and friends but lack of good service usually goes unchallenged while we're in the midst of it.

I'm as guilty as anyone -- I'll chalk up bad service or a bad attitude to being one of those things -- after all, we've all had those kinds of days, right? And most of us don't want to be seen as complainers 0r as someone for which nothing is ever right -- there are some folks who you just can't please, no matter what -- I call them the People of the Wide-Berth.

But, I often think that these kinds of things continue unabated because we don't speak up. I mean, how is a company going to know if something isn't right if customers don't complain about shoddy service?

Well, today, I complained. It was over something extremely small but I sent an e-mail to the company to tell them about it. I won't mention what restaurant it was because I really like this chain -- the food is almost always good and the service is usually fine. However, today, when my order arrived, it was wrong. Well, half wrong -- I'd ordered half a sandwich and soup -- but received salad and soup. No big deal -- perhaps I didn't speak clearly (though I know what I ordered) or perhaps the cashier simply misunderstood -- but, in order to correct my order, we had to go through the line again -- and pay the extra money my actual order would have cost. Now, the extra amount was 39 cents -- so this is not really the issue -- though, in truth, if they messed up the order, they should have eaten the 39 cents (plus tax!) -- but what they really should have done was corrected this at the pick-up counter -- with no ado, much or otherwise.

I told you this was mundane. And more often than not, this is something I would have let go by with only a grumble but I got to thinking about it and realized that maybe it's all of these little things that we let go which lead to bigger problems. I don't know -- maybe I'm just having a sensitive day.

Anyway, I sent off an e-mail and told them pretty much what I've told you here. We'll see if they respond. They'll either ignore it -- since the website seemed to be asking for compliments, rather than complaints -- or they'll say "sorry" or "sorry with coupon". But I'm thinking the local restaurant may never hear a word about it.

Nobody needs to be chastised -- they just need a little tweaking in the "wrong order" department.