My friend owns a deli here in town. He’s from New Jersey and everything about the deli is Jersey style including my friend’s attitude. If it’s in the middle of the lunch rush and someone gets to the front without deciding yet, he makes them stand to the side and takes the next customer’s order. It’s a beautiful thing.
The first time I walked into the place, I made the mistake of making a suggestion about how to improve the deli. He told me off in no uncertain terms. We’ve been the best of friends ever since.
Ok, so I admit that I do the conference with the friends while on the phone with the pizza place. There are two reasons for this.
We usually think to order pizza about 20 seconds before they close. Now, if you call up late, they’ll tell you they’re closed. But if you call up before the deadline, they won’t hang up on you, nor will they give you a time limit.
Sometimes it’s hard to get people to actually pay attention and decide on a pizza until I actually have the damn guy on the damn phone and he’s waiting for the order. This is selfish, yes, but sometimes it’s how things get done.
What about the picky people that want all this extra stuff and if it is right they bring it back and complin.It fast food. Eat the junk and leav. /i see lots of intresting mess. It always makes me smile an know that I can get along esialy whith anyfood. I’m not picky. I guess I’m getting read for the fall of “rome” and all the civil unrest sure to follow. Learn to eat anything and like it…
To the op, yes it sucks. Especially at a drive throug. It gets out of hand becase on orboth are beeing asses and asking each to repeate the order. The customre got mad and pulled of and I placed my order fine and aske the gil, do you always have to put up withh schmucks like that? She sai yes…sick job to have…
sigh You must be in line behind Ms. D_Odds. Despite all her good traits (foremost being the ability to put up with me), decisiveness is not one of them. I’ve several times threatened to order for her (but I value life too much to actually carry through on that threat), as she’ll stand in a line or stare at a menu the entire time, and still waffle over a decision when her turn or the waiter comes.
I love my wife, dearly. She is a wonderful person, a terrific mother and a loving, supportive partner. That being said…
She is utterly guilty of this.
She must be the last to order. No matter how many people we’re dining with, she must go last. But she’s still not decided–ever-- when the waiter gets to her. Oooo, do I want the tripe almandine or the carp au gratin?
She even does it at McDonalds. Or White Castle. How much decision making is involved?
It used to really frost my shorts, but now I just accept it. One of those little foibles we learn to overlook in our life partners. It’s not like I don’t have 10,000 that are more annoying…
d_redguy, where I work in Tyson’s Corner there’s a McDonalds like that. The drive-thru has several stations with two-three car slots each, and the waitresses are all outside with headsets and pads. Usually four cars are being served at a time.
Have menu waved at you
Give order
Receive post-it on side mirror with money owed
Give money
Get food
Its all crazy-efficient, and extremely terrifying. We only go when we know exactly what we want. Only takes about five minutes, though, despite the swarming masses.
Most boards fall into two categories: Too much detail, or not enough. Most of the major fast-food chains have menus that I am already familiar with, so I can order off the top of my head.
Things are a little different at a place like Panera Bread, though. Their menu changes more often than at a hamburger joint, and there are all kinds of variations on their food. And at our local restaurant, the board is at an angle that makes it hard to read while you’re in line. Fortunately, they have paper menus I can read while waiting so I can make up my mind before I get up to the counter.
One other thing. I often have to order for Aaron, as well. Most restaurants don’t spell out what comes on which sandwich. I have to ask a lot of questions to make sure that whatever I order is appropriate for him. So please be patient with parents who have to order for kids.
Say it isn’t so! By the sound of your post, it appears that you don’t realize that both of these things are rude as all hell and a VERY easy way to get something you may not exactly want in your pizza.
Here is your food service public service announcement for the day: Do NOT call a food place 20 seconds before they close and proceed to have an “ordering conference” on the phone. That’s just freakin’ obnoxious. If it’s 20 seconds before the place closes, FIND ANOTHER PLACE. That’s just cruel to do to the people working. Especially the poor driver who now has to sit around for a half hour waiting for your pizza to be done so he can deliver it to you. Of course, by the end of your “conference” it’s probably more like he has to wait an extra hour.
Me: Do you know what you want?
Wife: No.
(I pull into a parking space)
Wife: What are you doing?
Me: I’m not pulling into the drive thru until you know what you want.
Wife: Well I need to see the menu.
Me: What, you’ve never been to McDonalds before?
Wife: Just pull up and tell them to wait a minute.
Me: No.
Wife: Why not?
Me: It’s rude.
Wife: Just do it!
(I drive up to the speaker)
McDonald guy: Can I help you?
Me: Just a sec.
(about a minute goes buy)
Me: Well???
Wife: There’s nothing here I want.
My Dad does this, and always has. He’s kind of slightly dyslexic or something. Whatever he has, he doesn’t read normally. Anyway, for some reason, in my parents’ wacky lives, my Mom always carries the big amounts of money BUT then has my Dad order for us at fast food places. My Mom, brother and I would tell my Dad what we wanted and he’d go get it. One of us would go to help him carry. Anyway, it was tortuous for EVERYONE involved. Dad has a great memory, so he’d rattle off everyone else’s stuff and then not know what he wanted. So, he’d look at the menu. And look. And look some more. Finally, after he was getting really irritated, my brother or I were getting really embarrassed and the cashier was getting really bored, he’d figure it out. As my brother and I got older, we learned how to help him cope with ordering better. Mostly we’d order our stuff and let him just figure out his stuff & Mom’s. It helped.
Now, as an adult, I understand that there was a lot of stuff wrong with that whole scenario, and it basically amounted to us putting the burden on the one who could bear it least successfully. Why didn’t my Mom do the ordering? Got me. It’s a sex roles thing, I think.
Anyway, the point is, just because someone’s looks like a dork in front of you trying to make up his or her mind, you don’t necessarily know how his or her brain works. Often, the more pressure you put on someone in that sort of situation, the worse they’ll be able to handle it.
That’s fantastic, tdn. Makes me really miss working in retail.
My favourite are the people who manage to make it to the front of the line without having been asked “Can I help you?” by the numerous staff who are asking for the precice purpose of making check-out more efficient.
“Can I help you.” says cashier, noting massive line-up behind customer.
“Yes, I’ll have a cup of tea.”
“What kind?”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter.”
GRR !! It doesn’t matter? DOESN’T MATTER? What in Og’s green earth gives you the impression that the kind of tea you drink is MORE important to ME than it is to YOU???
For lunch today, I had called in a pick-up order from a local deli that tends to be very busy at lunch. When I get there I go to the express pick-up counter line where take-out orders can be placed or picked up. I wait in line for a bit behind a couple of other customers and notice that as I’m waiting to be served next another woman had come up to the register and was catty-cornering herself into the line.
So when the cashier asked "What can I do for you today?’ I wasn’t that surprised when she started ordering. I begin to send her the evil glare for line-breaking when she turns around and says “I was next in line. I’ve been here for twenty minutes in line and was just sitting over there waiting for my turn.” Over there was a table over in the corner of the deli and was not in close proximity to the cash register in question. The woman was young and without an obvious medical condition that would preclude her from standing in line. If she did have a condition that prevented her from standing in line for a long time, there was a seat by the cash register that she could have used or if she had politely explained why she was unable to stand in line I would have gladly let her go first.
The lady did not know what she wanted to order. She did not know if she wanted to pay with cash or with her credit card. Once she made the decision to pay with cash she searched through her purse for exact change and when she was unable to find exact change began the search all over again for the credit card. Alas, this also was a perplexing task for the woman to perform as she could not decide which card to use.
When a car pulls up, a bell chimes in our ears. We click a button, and talk to the customers. The bell only chimes when the car hits the speaker though, so if you pull too far away, we miss it sometimes. But from the time the censor goes off, we hear everything said outside.
(Are you at McDonald’s, Pammi? That’s where I’m working this summer.)
Typical drivethrough dialogue:
Me: Thank you for choosing McDonald’s, how may I help you?
Customer: Just a minute.
Me: Go ahead and order whenever you’re ready.
(Three minutes of silence pass.)
Customer: HELLLLOOOOOOO?!?!?!?!?!
Me: Yes, go ahead?
Customer: I thought you left. Okay, I want…
What the hell? I told you to order when you were ready. I didn’t say, “I’m leaving now, when somebody takes my place, they’ll tell you.” I didn’t say, “I have to go help deliver a baby, once they’ve chosen a name I’ll come back and then you can have your food.” I seriously have no job while in back booth but to take your order and do dishes, and I can’t do dishes while you might order at any minute.
There’s another side to this coin: people who know EXACTLY what they want and are ridiculous about it. Don’t rapid-fire rattle off an order as fast as you can possibly say it. I can get it because I have the short-term memory and fast fingers to do it. But 90% of the people back here have to look for stuff, and you’ll end up repeating yourself and taking more time than if you had just been reasonable in the first place.
And driving past the menu to the payment window with the intention of ordering at the payment window helps NOBODY. If I have my headset on and no beeping in my ear, I assume I have no order, and will be elsewhere. Perhaps I will be all the way across the store. The sensor is there for a reason.
In defense of the people that shout HELLO after needing more time, in the drive thru’s around here, unless the cashier is speaking, there’s silence. No background noise or anything. Complete silence. I’ve always assumed that since I can’t hear them, they can’t hear me. I think it’s safe to assume that others may think this as well.
That’s why I asked about it.
(Not that I would ever shout HELLOOOO??!!!, because that’s pretty rude, IMHO)
I get this to when I’m at drive thru’s
Me: I’d like a blah blah blah
Them: Okay that’s a blee blee blee?
Me: No, a blah blah blah
Them: hold on
About three minutes pass by with absolute SILENCE from the speaker, no background noise, just silence.
Them: okay, so you want a blee blee blee?
