Fast Food From Another Angle

For those of you who read my Myspace blog you know I have been fairly critical of fast food establishments. In particular I targeted one orange and white establishment which will remain nameless, but what a place it is.

I ventured into this place late last week for lunch. I have found that no matter which one I go to the staff is usually slow, incompetent, and despite the claim of thousands of ways to customize your order any deviation from the norm results in disastrous consequences.

Every time I have gone in from the panhandle to the coast I have been dissatisfied with some aspect of the service. I thought all this time that this was the fault of the restaurant. But, in fact the fault may be my own. Yeah I know. That's exactly what I thought. ME!

I set my expectations way to high. I went in expecting prompt, competent service and the food I ordered to be prepared quickly and correctly. You see the fault lies with me. Here is the attitude I should have had and the attitude I took in with me last week. Yes I have beaten the system and I'll share it with you now.

The key is approaching it like an Adam Sandler movie. Lower your expectations. If you do that you can't lose. I went in thinking, "If I leave with two pieces of bread and a piece of meat I'll be happy. Anything else is just icing on the cake."

I entered and my attention immediately went to the two people behind the counter. One a short female, the other apparently a tall male. I approached the counter and the female asked me for my order. I looked at the menu and saw the add for the bacon BBQ cheese something or other.

I decided on that, but in the junior size because I'm a cheapskate. (It's easy to be cheap when that's the only option.) She turned and stared at the add behind me for a few seconds and then turned back to the register. (This was a tense moment as one of my experiences with this restaurant in a different town had yielded the response of, "we don't have that one," after they turned and looked at the advertisement for the thing I had just ordered right behind her.) I breathed a sigh of relief as it seemed we were safely past the initial ordering phase.

She looked over the many brightly colored keys at the register. (They are dazzling.) I was standing where I could see the buttons and all that she was doing. I could also read the handwritten instructions taped to the top of the register that explained exactly how to ring up this particular order in the event that someone ordered it. It involved pushing a series of buttons in the right sequence. The sequence exactly as it was written on the paper. Uh, oh roadblock on the way to Full-Tummyville.

Not to fear her partner quickly came over and after soem examination, interpreted the instructions for her and he pused the colred buttons in the sequence listed. But this did not work. Ha Ha. Not as easy as it seems smart ass blogger! So it seems.

The manager was called from the kitchen. She swooped in like a super hero and pushed the colored buttons in the right order and the register beeped. A beep, oh yes the sweet beep signaling that food will soon be mine.

My female order taker continued to push buttons to complete the combo order. The price lit up on the LED screen and, "What the crap? It's not that much." I didn't even have to say it. This order taker unlike many I've had before recognized that this was not correct. Her male helper sweeps over and realizes that his first attempt at pushing colored buttons in the correct order was successful but had not yielded a beep. He corrected this by pushing more buttons which did yield a beep and then the correct total. Yeah this is going great. Lowered expectations do work.

This staff was head and shoulders above any I had come into contact with. As I took my cup I looked at the tall, short haired male's name tag. "Emily" Yeah, that's what I thought, too. I looked at Emily, back down to the name tag, back at Emily. Yep not seeing it but OK. Bravo. Every time it's like dinner and a show, and I just failed to enjoy the show the previous times I ate at this chain. This time the plot twist was out of this world. I think I'm getting great service from a male/female team and boom "It's Pat." Bravo! Bravo!