Me: "Thank you for stopping, how can I help you tonight?"
Customer: "I'll have... two hardshell tacos, three Taco Bravos, and a medium Pepsi."
Who knew such a simple exchange of words could reignite a long-forgotten passion of mine.
It was a pretty busy night, which has been a mysterious typical trend at work lately. Supper hours are busy, of course, then it slows down around 7:30, but then as the procrastinators of the world begin to realize that restaurants begin to close around 10:00 or 11:00, we start to get more business as the night unfolds.
Which means I need to mop faster during times I'm not helping customers. Which distracts me.
Carrie made the four food items and handed it out the drive-thru window to him, thanked him, and told him to have a nice day (although on the inside, just like me and anyone else working a fast food restaurant late at night, she most likely wished he never even stopped). After he begins to drive away, she calls out into the lobby, "What's this medium pop doing here on the counter?"
The guy pays a ridiculous $2.12 for 32 oz of pop, and we forget to give it to him. I grabbed the drink, threw a lid on it, whipped a straw out of the straw basket, and bolted out the side door as fast as I could.
This was nothing too unusual. For whatever reason, I was born with a borderline-ridiculous amount of sympathy for the customer of any establishment I've ever worked at, so whenever a customer forgets something that they paid for (especially if the only reason they don't have it is because we forgot to give it to them), I chase their car down like a crazed fan running after Jimmy Page's tour bus for his autograph.
I ran around the side of the building, hopped over a boulder, sprinted towards the black pickup as fast as I could, knowing that the 15 or so customers in the lobby were probably watching me. Most people would be embarrassed; not me -- I'm the type who plays air guitar and drums on his steering wheel while driving in traffic.
I sprinted about 50 yards or so before it was plainly obvious that the guy did not see me running after him with a drink and a straw that he paid for. I managed to gather looks from people at the gas station I stopped running in front of, scared some people riding bike, etc.
About ten minutes later, I was mopping the lobby, and a group of four adults eating their food struck up a small conversation about how I tried to chase down a car.
Guy: "Hey, can we ask you something?"
Me: "Uhh yeah, sure."
Guy: "How fast do you run the 100-meter dash?"
I laughed a little.
Guy: "You were booking it pretty fast there."
Me: "Well I ran track in high school, and I usually averaged around the mid-13s."
Guy: "So pretty fast, then?"
Me: "Mmmm... faster than the average person, yeah. But for people who are in track, that's about average."
Guy: "Fast enough, I suppose. No state I take it?"
Me: "Haha, no."
Guy: "Did you catch him?"
Me: "Not even close. I normally do, but by the time I reached the gas station half a block away I gave up. Hopefully he comes back for it."
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It's now about four hours later, and I just got back from having climbed the fence at the local college to run 100-yard sprints up and down the track. I had completely forgotten about it after graduating and filling my life with so much more "important" things, but running was the only thing in my life that made me feel truly alive.
There was nothing I loved more than standing in a line of eight, waiting for that gunshot to set me free from the prison that was my starting block, to where I would run faster and harder than I had ever run in my life, every single time, every single race.
Being completely out of shape (...And slightly sick thanks to the girl I was with a couple nights ago, who didn't tell me she was sick until about four hours into the night, which I laughed at, because if she was really concerned about her getting me sick, she probably could have told me a lot sooner. But hey, I'm not complaining.) I felt like death after every run. I had to lay in the grass for a minute or two after some of the runs.
I was struggling to breathe, my legs were cramping up, my side felt like it had been stabbed a couple times, and it's a good thing I hadn't eaten a thing since about noon, because I started dry-heaving several times and would have thrown up had any food been available for my stomach to project out of my mouth onto the grass.
I drove home barely being able to work my legs, surprised I was even able to jump back over the fence, completely dazed, confused, and light-headed. Even my back is sore, which still puzzles me.
And I love it. It felt good to get in my car completely exhausted after only about 30 or 40 minutes, wanting nothing more than to just pull over, lean onto the passenger seat, and pass out for an hour. I don't know if this will become a regular thing, me running, and I don't even care either way. It'll probably be like how a smoker who's been clean for years will go have "one last cigarette" and then go back to being tobacco-free again.
I wasn't racing anyone but myself, but isn't that how most of life goes anyway? Other people might be running the same track right beside you, but they have their own strengths and weaknesses, and really aren't running the same race. They can only run as fast as they can run, and so can you. The race is completely statistically and biologically predictable, and is already decided before it starts. And how is this any different from life? Other people might be in the same job as you, the same class, the same whatever, but they are running their own race. Same track, different individual lane.
My goal in track was never to beat the person next to me. It was to beat myself. I had them the first year, but for every year afterward, I didn't even buy spiked shoes. What's the use? I knew I was never going to be Jace Nelson and run a 10.5; I was a 13.4 at best. The only use "track shoes" would have for me is making me faster compared to everyone else. It doesn't make my muscles any better, so the same improvement will be made with or without them.
You are running your own race. Stop worrying about fixing everything in your life that will only make you appear to succeed more. Just focus on the things that really matter: The things that are affected by you and you alone. New shoes do not cure the blues, no matter what that stupid plaque at Hobby Lobby said.
If I can find my god out there on the broken, cracked, low-budget asphalt, you can find it anywhere. Release your inhibitions and rediscover what deeply-subconsciously makes you tick. What you love more than anything. Reignite your passion in life.
And now, the bed three feet to my right is calling me. Within 60 seconds of posting this; I guarantee I'll be so asleep I'll be in danger of not hearing my alarm in the morning.
(This blog entry is also located at another blog I have called Falling Is Easy.)
To the first part ... thank you for being that caring, it made me happy to know at least one person in fast food would care at least that much (i have lost plenty of fries and mcnuggets... sad :(.)
To the second part welll um. i kind of know what you mean, at the moment i can not think of a story that would go along with it but i do know what you mean.
Saint O Nothin' Says
Always go FORWARD, going straight will get you no where!
-Greenday "Jaded"
So many things upset me today because people are so dumb and lazy sometimes I could just choke them. The thing that was more irritating then all the children I saw in leashes and inconciderate smokers smoking on my kids was the dumbass McDonlald drive thru kid.
I am hyperspecific when at the order mic since I do not like talking to invisible people. I say I want A big kids chicken nugget meal, w/ orange juice, sweet and sour sauce for a boy. Mic person says what kind of drink would you like with that. ~T says OJ. Mic person says small medium or large. ~T says its a big kids meal and so it comes with either a small or kids sized drink. Then I say I also want a regular size chicken nugget kids meal with white milk, sweet and sour for a girl. Mic person says oh so you dont want the other one. ~ T does not know how to answer this with one word and I say I need both. Then he asks me which drinks I wanted for both meals again... and so the rest of the ordering went. When I got to the window I was asked to pull to the side because it was going to take awhile to cook all the nuggets I ordered, fair enough I did order a lot.
It took over five minutes for him to doddle to the truck with our meals. I say thanks and asked if there was ketchup in any of the bags, He said No would you like some? ~T says Yes and thinks a bunch of mean things and tries really hard not to say them. He slinks back inside and another minute goes by and he comes out with a handful of ketchup must have taken him a entire minute to drag his feet across the parking lot. The whole time I thought of you the sprinting customer loving guy and wondered why I did not go to your store.
Eventually we leave to watch the firework show and when I we got to our sidewalk I went to get the ketchup for the kids and they were covered in honey mustard yuck.
I guess I deserved that.
The point is how amazing customer service people like you, which should be just a little above standard, really is way to rare.
~T
A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins. ~Benjamin Franklin
I replied to your post, but didn't enter it in the reply form. It's right there
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"The point is how amazing customer service people like you, which should be just a little above standard, really is way too rare." -whispers awnesty
That about sums it up. I mean we shouldn't expect everyone to chase down cars -- I admit this is a little much -- but is it too much to ask for workers everywhere to simply give a shit at all? Whenever we forget someone's anything, no matter what it is, I usually slip them a free pop cup or something, or a side of nacho cheese, something, anything for their loss.
If you're in the drive-thru, and you realize that someone forgot some of your stuff, so you pull around the building and walk in to tell them that they forgot it, and all they do is give you what you paid for... if you hadn't taken the extra time, you would have been just out an order of fries or whatever you paid for. But even though you did take the extra time, you get the same treatment as any other customer: You get what you paid for.
Yes we do sometimes give free coupons and such for order mistakes, but this should be the absolute standard.
I am not a business major (although I do plan on having my own business some day, but that's another story), but this is the way I see it: Skimping out and not giving a customer a little something for their trouble to make them happy -- only to save the business 50 cents -- loses money in the long run.
I was cheated out of $5 once at McDonalds, and now I rarely go there. It does not take a whole lot to "boycott" a store, and you don't even usually think of it as "boycotting." I don't stand there with protest signs, I don't tell all my friends about it, I just don't go there. Because I know brainless high school dropouts work [at the one in this town] and can't tell the difference between a $5 and a $10.
If you go to a restaurant, and they forget some of your stuff, you bring it up to them and show them they forgot it, and then they treat you like royalty and give you a bunch of free stuff and make you feel all better, the wrong has been righted, and you don't feel cheated anymore. You still feel good about that business, and you might even think more highly of the establishment for taking customer service so seriously. You might eat there more often than you did before.
("Free stuff" costs the store a lot less than the retail value; you may pay $2.00 for a drink, but it only costs the store 10 cents at the most.)
But suppose the restaurant doesn't care. With 200 other restaurants in the city, it doesn't take some aggressive action to go somewhere else. All you have to do is choose another store. You might not even be angry about it; you just don't want to go there anymore.
Nobody sees this, though. The people I work for are pretty smart and good about this sort of thing, but many people just see the bottom line of the here-and-now. We forgot their pop, so give them their pop and send them on their way. Giving them anything more is just wasting money. Did they pay for it? No. So why should they get it?
Treating the customer like they should be treated doesn't lose the store money. It makes them want to come more often, and if they tell a couple of their friends about the good service they received, the friends might come around and eat there as well.
Oh, and another thing. Suppose I was mistaken, and the store didn't really cheat me out of $5. Suppose I really did give them a $5 and not a $10.
Again, people think I'm crazy for saying this, but it might be in their best interests to just go along with it and give me the $5 I think I deserve. (Okay imagine it was someone other than me. I don't want it to seem like I just want money; I'm trying to make a point.)
If a customer thinks they were cheated, to them, they don't know the difference, so they are still effectively being cheated (even though they really aren't). They still are going to act as if they were. McDonalds didn't give me my money back, and so I don't stop there.
Even if they were right and I was wrong, I still don't go there. If that hadn't happened, they might have made $20 or $30 off of me in the time since this has happened, which is more of a profit than they have now, which is $5 they cheated me out of.
The only argument I get against this is "Well then we'd just be giving everyone money; anyone can say 'Oh you still owe me this' or whatever."
Why not wait until it actually starts happening a little more often than it should, and then do something about it? Most people do not attempt to cheat and lie their way out of getting free stuff, but some do. Why let the cheaters spoil it for everyone?
Give them what they think they deserve, because you might be wrong, and send them on their way. If it really does start to happen often, and you notice it's becoming a trend, then put a stop to it. But don't speculate that it's going to become a problem the first time it happens and refuse to give anyone anything.
Anyway.