So you wanted a fudge and brownie topped sundae including mint ice cream with chocolate chips, served in a chocolate dipped waffle cone bowl and a cookie dough ice cream sundae with fudge and caramel in another waffle cone bowl? Because that’s what those Cold Stone Creations refer to. I don’t see why you can’t be expected to just make the effort of telling her what you want.
You know, I would have thought myself a shoo-in for “Tightest-Assed Customer In The Western Hemisphere,” but I see I must cede the title to you.
Cold Stone – eh. Seems to me they have a known schtick and if you don’t like the schtick, you don’t go there. I don’t, since overpriced mediocre ice cream with a side of singing is not my thing. I also don’t go to Chuck E. Cheese and then complain about the strange guy in the big mouse suit cavorting around, and I don’t go to Benihana and complain that they interrupt my party’s conversation by slicing and dicing and cooking right there in front of us. Why? Because that’s what those businesses do. They are selling not just a product but an experience, and if you’re not interested in the experience, you don’t go to the establishment.
If you honest to God did not know how Cold Stone Creamery worked, then I can see why their insistence that you follow their script in ordering might be aggravating. If you knew how it worked, you took your chances going in there and trying to buck the system . Either way, I’m sure they’ll miss you very much.
Assuming they have an IQ of higher than 40, they knew goddamn well what I wanted. And by ordering a FLAVOR off of the MENU, I was under the impression that I WAS telling her what I wanted.
I was at a Benihana last week, and sat at a table away from the annoying cooking show. However I could not escape the annoying drums that accompanied a birthday song for the neighboring table. I didn’t even mind that so much as paying a fortune for what was at best, mediocre food.
I won’t. Not anymore.
I bet you’re a fun date, Gabe.
I can see improvement on both sides of the counter. The worker shouldn’t have been so quick with the “you need to tell me the specific ingredients” she could have suggested a combination or two and Gabe could have asked for help selecting the ingredients before walking out.
Gabe, there IS more than one way to make mint chocolate chip:
Peppermint IC with choc chips
Mint IC with choc chips
Vanilla IC with mint choc chips
Mint IC with mint choc chips
Peppermint IC with mint choc chips
True, but if you’re good at customer service, you figure out what the customer wants. When I worked at a coffeeshop, we routinely made off-menu drinks. Sure, we didn’t have a macchiato, ristretto, or red eye on the menu, but we all knew how to make one. If someone came in with a drink we had never heard of, we’d say “Sorry, that’s not on our menu, but if you explain what it is, I’ll make one for you.”
I mean, how hard would it have been for the server to give CynicalGabe options? Not everyone knows how a Coldstone Creamery works, but if CynicalGabe was so obviously confused, the server should have done a better job of hand-holding.
Personally, I would not have walked out in frustration, but I would have probably muttered to myself something about how nobody in the service industry seems able to think a little for themselves anymore. It simply is amazing to me how anything even slightly off-script completely befuddles them–if there’s not a button for it, it can’t be done.
Did you not know about the show they put on at Benihana, or do you just like going to places specifically to have something to bitch about?
I don’t see why CG keeps insisting that he ordered a flavor from the posted menu. He says the menu listed “Mint Mint Chocolate Chocolate Chip” and “Cookie Dough and brownie bullshit”. So did he order one scoop of MMCCC and one of CDABB? No, he asked for “one scoop of Mint Chip and one scoop of Cookie Dough.”
If you are not ordering the item as it is named on the menu, you aren’t ordering what they sell. Especially when they have several similar alternatives, and the store prides itself in specializing each order.
Do you go into McDonalds and order a large hamburger? Or a Whopper? Or whatever is close?
Anyone else reminded of the jerk who tried to make a point by ordering “plain American coffee” or some such shit in that recent Starbucks thread?
Sure, the clerk could have responded more subserviently to your attitude. But you could easily have been more clear when any confusion became evident. Especially when you suggest you were aware going in of the options available and their marketing scheme.
This thread has perversely made me want to go to a CSC, since it appears you can actually get peanut butter as an actual mix-in (rather than chocolate peanut butter crunch or some other abonincation.)
Then someone had to mention the singing. On second thought, maybe I won’t.
“You be illin…”
sorry. Losing it here. I need a burger. Or an ice cream. Or something for my blood sugar. The free cookie from The Economist has made me ill.
I’d never even heard of Benihana before.
Please… Once again, the lack of ability on the part of the employee to make 1+1=2 is not my problem.
No, but when I WORKED at a Burger King, if someone ordered a Big Mac, we knew they meant a Whopper, and we would give them one. No PhD necessary to figure that one out…
Apparently a Bachelor’s degree is.
Hamburger University: http://www.mcdonalds.com/corp/career/hamburger_university/our_college_degree.html
Once again, what those were were sundaes, and not what you wanted.
I’m no expert (and regrettably lack your employment experience), but I’d think that a Quarter Pounder would be a better substitute for a Whopper than a Big Mac. Or am I also unable to add 1+1?
Let’s see - who had the best opportunity to avoid any confusion. By adding 3 words totalling 5 syllables to your initial order - and adding maybe an “s” on the end, you could have ordered:
[vanilla with] cookie dough and mint [with] chocolate chip[s].
And you would have gotten exactly what you wanted.
But that would have been too much work. Yep - it was the employee who was being the tool. Not you. Nope - definitely not you!
I am wondering if you have seen the plethora of posts in this thread that have mentioned that what you wanted could result in a variety of combinations and misunderstandings if you just clarified what you wanted. The lack of ability on your part to communicate is not the clerk’s problem.
I do have to mention that clerk should have tried to clarify what you wanted by asking you questions, but I’ve been there, and I’ve done what she’s done. I’m generally a nice person, but there are days when I just feel like shit, and want to get my shift over and done with, and don’t really have the patience to stand there while some bumbling idiot repeats himself over and over again despite my insistence on not having the product in question. There are days when I just don’t have the energy to suggest alternatives to demanding customers who think that dropping a few bucks entitles them to all the demands in the universe.
Shitty customer service? You bet your ass.
But, as a previous poster has mentioned:
I didn’t get paid enough to care about you
At the end of the day, you are nothing but a faint (very faint) memory in my mind
You are a stranger that I will probably never see again, don’t care about, and quite honestly, if you choose not to patronize at my store again, good riddance.
Also note: I am no longer in retail because I can’t handle the stress of assholes… being assholes.
I too thought I might be in the running for the dubious distinction of TAC-WH division. I think I had a good chance of beating Jodi out too.
After all, I did go to a Round Table Pizza recently where I went to two levels of manager and got the number for the regional manager to complain about the attitude there. I got the manager to confide that by every survey they’ve ever done, that location did the worst on everything from food to customer service. Given my pizza was only $5.99, I thought I had a good chance to grab the coveted title.
But Gabe took this thing to a whole new level. Complaining about the company doing business as they should. Well, that’s something I didn’t even consider before.
Hmm. New opportunities abound.
I bet that could be arranged. Or don’t they hire attorneys to flip burgers. You could always sue for discrimination.
You gave me the setup, the most I can get for it is an assist!
That’s how ya score joke points!
CMC fnord!
One thing keeps me going back to CSC - strawberryless strawberry ice cream. I get the kids size which at $1.50 isn’t bad for an occasional treat. I hate strawberry ice cream with bits of strawberry is it - which is, I know, weird and possibly proves my insanity.
Sorry, here I agree with the OP. If they want to think of cutesy-ass names, that’s fine, but I don’t have to lower myself to their level by parroting that BS.
I still ask for a “small” fry at McD’s and they serve it to me, despite the fact the menu has no size less than Medium.
I think a Whopper is an appropriate substitute for a Big Mac. As of the time I last worked there, anything small would have been too small.