Sunday, October 5, 2014

Do you want your food fresh, or are you just an ass?

It is not uncommon for people who come through our restaurant to ask for their food to be fresh. Everything at Foodies is on a timer. Our fries, for example, get dumped into sections and then a button is pressed that times them for 4 minutes. After those minutes are up the timer starts beeping uncontrollably until someone gets annoyed and hits the button again. When the button goes off we are supposed to dump the old fries out and drop new ones so we always have fresh fries. Unfortunately this doesn't always happen.
When we get busy and the timer starts beeping, all we do is get annoyed. People hit the timer just to stop it and don’t dump the old fries. This happens all too often, causing our customers to get old, not so yummy tasting fries. All fast food places have timers for their fries, more often than not I would say that you have gotten expired fries. Not that we ever do it purposely like, “Oh these fries are old, I bet this customer deserves it anyways,” It’s just that when you’re around constant beeping from timers on every item that we have going off in 4-10 minute intervals you will do anything to get the noise to just stop. But mainly, we are people and you shouldn’t treat us like crap just because you are unsatisfied, especially because we will do anything in our power to fix it.
Naturally, our regular customers know to ask for fresh fries when they walk through the door, and can tell 100% when they are being robbed of them. This being said, we know exactly who these regulars are and drop fresh fries for them right when they see them so they won’t have to wait for them. This is beginning to come with a price. An older man came in last night and ordered fresh fries. There were already some in the fryer and they would be up in about a minute, so he completed his order and by the time he was done the fresh fries where up. We bagged his order, and I actually burnt my hand while putting the fries in the bag because they were so hot. The man was furious. Why? Because he wanted fresh fries.
I tried to tell him that the fries where completely fresh, that they just came up. But he wasn't having it. “You’re trying to bullshit me,” he kept saying. “Every single time I come into this store and order fresh fries I have to wait for them! And I will not tolerate being lied to by this incoherent staff.”  He yelled at not only me, but my manager as well for about 10 minutes straight. At that time, now that the fries are certainly cold, he went to make his point and pulled out the cold fry, fueling his anger even more.
The man did not even look in his bag before that moment. He jumped to anger before gathering evidence to back it up. Of course your fries are going to be cold after 10 minutes of sitting in the cold air. Maybe they weren’t completely disgusting but they definitely weren’t going to be the fresh that he wanted. Working in fast food is such a lose-lose situation. It’s fast food so people are mad when they have to wait, but if they ask for fresh and don’t wait they just assume it is a lie. Our job is to supply fresh food, and yes, sometimes that doesn’t happen. But when it doesn’t we are more than happy to fix our wrong for you. All I’m asking, is check the quality of your food before throwing a 50 year old temper tantrum. 

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