I’m fucking tired of this. This Pitting doesn’t go out to any particular business or even company. It’s endemic in any mortar and brick business.
I’m tired of waiting in line patiently at Chipotle behind a phantom office order for 10 people who couldn’t fucking bother to show up. Whose organizer will also cut the line to pay for said items because their time is more important than everyone elses.
I’m tired of waiting in line patiently at the Windows and Doors department desk at Home Depot behind someone who happened to call between the guy in front of me and my turn.
“Excuse me for a second.”
“I’m sorry, just a minute”
“I’ll be right with you.”
How about no. How about the fucker on the couch with the remote or his dick in his hand waits. How about you take care of me and the cute old lady behind me who fucking walked here first.
I have no doubt the Service Seminar the boss went to last week in the Holiday Inn convention center taught him it is statistically more likely that a person will hang up before people will walk out of the store. But I’m telling you all now, it is a fucking certainty I’ll will unleash my shit when this happens from now on. And it will be loud enough that not only will those waiting with me hear but the asshole on the other end of the line will bear witness to it.
And your one order is worth more to the business than their ten orders because…?
Well, there’s certainly no better way to endear a business, and its other customers, to the value of your patronage than by shouting profanities as loudly as you can. Why not take a swing at the cashier while you’re at it? That’ll show him who’s boss!
Calling ahead is a common and useful convenience that saves people who use it a ton of time. I’m all for it. Anything that lets me use electronic devices to minimize wasted time spent in the physical company of strangers is lovely.
Edit: Ah, shit, Smapti’s on my side. Now I have to go rethink my entire life.
And what does that have to do with the price of bread in China? Ten people paying $10 each for some combination of meat, cheese, tortilla, and carbonated sugar water is worth more to a business than your impatient ass which, judging from your general attitude, is going to order the cheapest thing on the menu anyway and then demand that it be remade because the pile of beans is slightly askew.
That is exactly how it works.
It’s not that customers in store are less likely to walk out though. It’s because customers in store can see how busy it is and are more likely to be understanding. People calling up don’t know how many people are in line so offer the sales associate less leeway. So at least at home depot they are trained to help call in customers first.
On the flip side wait times for people at registers are very concerning to management. I think it was at the 25 second mark people start thinking about their purchases and leave items behind they could do without. A sure sign of an understaffed front end is clutter around the registers of items left behind.
My service background was in retail, and it was drummed into my head that you assist the people in the store first. After you’ve done that, you can answer the question from the person who called you (and is calling every other store in a 20-mile radius to save five cents).
Restaurants are more tricky and I wouldn’t want to have to juggle that. But FWIW, it would be nice if callers-in to restaurants a) paid with credit card and just picked up their order, or b) had a special register to go to, so the flow of the in-line customers isn’t affected.
In practice, that would mean that the people on the phone would never get served. I can accept giving flesh-and-blood customers some degree of priority, but not absolute priority.
Waiting until the lobby is actually empty of breathing customers might mean waiting hours and hours. It might not happen at all that day.
When you’ve got two tracks – say, the dine-in and drive-through lines at a fast-food restaurant – the management has to balance the needs. If one line starts to back up more than the other, the manager will swap people over to help out. This slows down the other line. You know what? Tough! If you don’t like it, go somewhere else. The manager is attempting to maximize a system of parameters, which he cannot alter to the degree of perfection.
(As they used to say in the old Soviet Union, “The time spent waiting will be divided equally among the peasants.”)
I’m with you. Fuck those guys, and also fuck the assholes that buy lottery tickets. They need a separate line for those motherfuckers, I just wanna pay for my gas.
I see no difference between the dude/dudess cutting in line in person and the same cutting in line over the phone. Unless it is a question that can be dealt with quickly, the counterperson should either transfer the call to someone who isn’t busy, or make note of how many people are waiting in line and add the online person to the queue.
Here’s how it goes at the cafe I work in, which is inside, but not economically associated with, the library itself.
We get long lunch lines. Employees of the library sometimes call in an order to us. When they do this their order is made up as if the person calling was in line. But when the employee comes down to fetch their order, they can’t cut to the head of the line to pay for the meal. So they save some time. At first we had some who would call down and expect to be able to cut to the front to pay. This was our comprimise.
Do what I do, ask for a second cash to be opened. Most gas stations that I have seen, usually have more than one till, so its not too hard for the cashier to open the second atm POS. But its the above room volume, but not yelling voice that you want the lottery dick to hear. Most of them will get embarrassed enough to finish their order early and get out of the way.
I’m with the OP. Phone in an order? It gets made when the fucking people standing in front of you get served. If that time doesn’t come? Well, then disconnect the fucking phone, cause you got more business than you deserve. Or hire more fucking people.
Seems kinda bizarre to be angry at the people calling in. Regardless of Chipotle’s policy, its hardly the fault of the guy calling in. The dick move is showing up unannounced to place a large order, calling ahead of time is considerate.
Plus from a practical perspective, your better off being held up for a minute or two waiting for him to call in a ten person order than being behind him if he actually went into the store to order ten burrittos. In the former case you get held up for a minute and than the staff can wait to actually make his order when there’s no one in the store ordering. In the latter you have to sit around for the 10-20 min it takes to make ten burritos.
