Over a woody?
A guy walks into the bar and starts complaining about a car parked in our togo parking spots.
We have two spots right next to the door and we have no way of telling which car is for togo and which ones are just douchebags hanging out in the bar.
Normally, I'd agree with the guy, but we know him and he's a bigger douchebag than whoever owns the car outside. He wants to talk to the manager and I don't feel like arguing with him since it's 7:30 on a friday night, we're on an hour wait and my bar is a tad bit busy. I send him to the hostess desk where three managers are hanging out and the other bartender and I laugh.
The bar gets caught up and I decide to see what he's talking about. I walk outside and a perfectly restored woody is sitting in the togo parking spot.
I walk back inside and the guy is still arguing with management that he wants the complex security contact to have the car towed. I decide to join in the fight and ask "how do you know he's not actually waiting for togo?"
"Oh he's not. I used to own beautiful cars and that's just a fuck you to everyone in here. I used to do that."
"Again, how do you know they're not waiting for a togo order."
"Because that car has been here as long as I have and I'm waiting for a togo order."
I look down at the beer in his hand, "you're waiting for a togo order too?"
"Yeah! I had to park all the way down the street."
"So you're mad because he beat you to the parking spot?" All the while staring at his beer.
"No. You're missing the point. He's not waiting for a togo order. I know it."
"How? Maybe the kitchen screwed up his order and he had to wait another 20 minutes for a remake."
"No. No way. It's been too long."
"But if that spot would have been open when you got here, you would have parked there and had a beer or two while your food sat in the window waiting for you to pay?"
"Forget it man. You're missing the point."
And with that he left his half finished beer on the counter and headed to togo. I'm sure the 16 year old togo girl got an earful.
The Woody was beautiful. I'm glad I got to step outside and see it.
posted by Waiter @ 11:06 AM
7 Comments:
i am a firm believer in the 80/20 Rule of Sales. 80% of your business is from 20% of your customers. Its converse application is that 80% of your problems are caused by 20% of your customers.
Guess which ones you need to fire? Unfortunately from your story I believe you work in a chain place and they never grasp the above rule. And with a whiner like the douchebag in question you cant attempt to fire him thru poor service as he would only be too happy to whine to corporate which will only be too happy to shower him in free gift cards for his trouble.
It's not a corporate chain. Never again for me. Just a franchise and I work for the first one. The owners are family and they really have no business doing anything that involves interacting with the public. Every customer is gold to them, but they're learning. They make my job pretty easy though, since they hate confrontation.
-chowda-
Bottom line----it isn't a customers place to tell a manager that a car is or is not in the proper parking spot. What is this guy---the good sumaritan of the year? And because he had a beer in his hand, I'd say he would have taken full advantage of the "to go" parking spot.
I have never worked in the food industry but I have to say what is that bulls*** you have to deal with? Was this guy drunk? Who the hell cares who is in the togo spot. People who need food to go come and they leave, then another comes. What a looser. Wasting everyones' time with petty s***. If I was in your place I'm gonna need a raise after day like that :)
hey violet check out my blog as I have posted on self entitlement gone too far before-http://foodserviceninja.wordpress.com
But as things go the parking space is a minor deal -what sux about it is the fact the guy wont shut up about it.
I could see his point if it was a handicap spot plus then he would have a remedy as he could call the cops tho they would probably laugh at his ass.
And Chowda I consider franchise operations to be chain tho it is preferable to chain owned and run.
One time at burger camp...my 1st food industry job was naturally McDonald's. Eventually I got bored with the breakfast options and got the idea to make donuts out of the biscuit mix and fry them in the fries fryer. Since they were quite tasty everyone took to making them since the managers loved anything new to eat. Along comes the corporate somebody from McDonalds who FREAKED out about our donut making option. The kid caught making them was fairly new corp drone almost force management to fire the poor kid. Thats why I consider a franchise a chain place too -they arent as rule driven and promotional stupidity in action but they still have to follow corp policy when the drones are around.
Glad to hear you have owners willing to lean on your experience and make your life easier in the process. I am spoiled tho I havent worked a corp gig since '98 at Macaroni Grill.
this place doesn't have any policies, yet. I could agree that franchises can be over-rated, but for this one, it's the only one, owned and run by the franchisers, so if we want to do something new, we do!
Woody, I had the wrong thing in mind.
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