Idle & Blessed Update and Other Stuff

[rabid1st]

Hello all!

Yes, I know, I am behind on the update I promised. But this isn't like the last time when you waited for months. I just had to change the POV on this one. I was going with ALL TEN all the time, but this chapter I think is better as a Rose POV chapter. So, we are going to romance novel this one and switch back and forth on the POV. Don't worry, the TEN POV will return in later chapters.

Meanwhile, I have a slight rant. As you all know, I am living on a disabled person's stipend. As such, money is very, very tight. This means, when I eat out, I really want to get my money's worth. Lately, I have had some trouble with that. Last week, I went to Wendy's. Yes, that's the type of splurge Uncle Sam's budget allows us. I ordered a double Jr. burger with cheese. It costs 2.00. And an order of chicken nuggets with barbecue sauce. It was not rush hour. I was the only person there, actually. But still, the young man at the counter had trouble concentrating on me. I repeated my order a few times for him. It wasn't, you understand, much of a special order. Only the sauce and the fact that it was a double burger was unusual.

He got the order wrong. But it is worse than him not listening as I gave the order. When he brought the bag to me, it felt light. I said, "This is the DOUBLE burger?" He said, "Yes!" No...the correct answer was NO! Also, there was no sauce for the nuggets.

Now, that irritated me, but I thought, well...that will teach me to waste my 4 dollars on fast food. So, this week, I upgraded to a local, non-chain, burrito bar and created my own healthy burrito.

But, even in the more upscale environment, for a higher price, I encountered the same vacant eyed service. This time from a young woman, about the same age as the young man...19 to 22ish. She was making me a burrito...it was the vegan one on the menu...with one additional item. I wanted just a few black olives, let's say 6 slices of olive. "I would like the vegan special with a few, just a very few, black olives on it," I instructed.

Simple enough, I thought. But still, she asked me every question as she put the burrito together in a vacant, zombie fashion. "Do you want tomatoes?" YES. "Do you want guacamole?" YES. "Do you want beans?" YES. "Do you want sauce?" YES. WAIT. OLIVES. JUST A FEW. OLIVES! OLIVES! JUST...A....FEW! She slams a fistful of olives onto the burrito...enough to feed a small army of olive lovers. Not in an angry way...but in a vacant, zombie way. So, I ask her to remove the olives and she does...one by one...like a zombie. Then, she "cooks" my burrito. Only, she doesn't, because, zombies can't cook things. She obviously isn't giving it time to cook, as she wafts it over the grill. She gives it to me cold and doughy. SIGH!

I mean, I don't really believe we should get good customer service for under 10 dollars. But no customer services seems odd. Not even a vague understanding of what products your establishment sells, seems odd. Should I just go up to the counter and say, "Give me 5 dollars worth of whatever you want to stick in a bag? Don't bother to cook it, I can make fire at home." I do think there is absolutely no incentive to work in this country, so we need to come up with some new values that don't involve getting paid for a job well done. Because, let's face it, nobody is paid properly to do a good job anymore.

Comments

[finding-neo.livejournal.com]

Your experiences in fast food hell has all the hallmarks of a dystopian future that we are living right now. We do not produce workers, we produce automatons. That was fine back when workers produced metal products, but not food for humans to consume.

As someone who has worked retail management jobs for almost 30 years the squeaky wheeled customer gets what they want. So next time this happens, ask for the shift manager. Tell them you are unhappy about the service and that the product you received is substandard. You should get a remade meal, made right and with more care. If not, complain to the franchise manager.

Unless a guest demands to be treated fairly and respectfully they are subject to the substandard service which has become all too common in the service industry. You have to let the business know what their standard should be.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

As a lifelong service worker, myself, I am notorious for sending letters to management or speaking to them. I do agree that a business has to be made aware of problems. But, I've found that in today's environment that approach isn't as effective for a couple of reasons.

First, it often just leads to the hapless employee being reprimanded or fired. My complaint was aimed more at the epidemic of zombie workers I've encountered lately, rather than one disgruntled worker. Second, management is often clueless or unable to comply with requests. I do believe in firing a warning shot over the bow of a company, before I desert it. But I've found in the last few years that even corporate offices don't seem to care if the quality of service or products is well below what it used to be. I do put this down to the economy in a lot of cases. As someone else said, it could be these workers are on their second (or third) part time job and are just burned out or half-asleep.

Still, I agree that guests should be treated fairly and respectfully. I am just concerned that substandard service is becoming the norm, to the point that talking to management is like talking to a brick.

[thisficklemob.livejournal.com]

People who work fast food need to be paid enough to work fewer than three jobs. Then maybe they could sleep and not be zombies. :p

And, if Papa John's whining is to be believed, it would only raise prices about thirteen cents a pizza. Probably a similar amount for your vegan burrito.

I have had similar experiences with local pizza places. The worst was when I paid ahead, and then they charged the person who picked it up, too. Man, I was pissed. (Also, I'm not positive that the guy who picked it up would even tell me if they failed to refund his credit card.)

That, plus budget reasons, is why I eat out or get takeout only every couple months. (And this is with having two restaurants within a hundred feet of my apartment, and at least ten more within a half a mile.)

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

It is getting very bad out there in "things I can afford" world. Yet another thing that bothers me about corporate whining. Because, yes, I could, even on my tiny stipend pay 13 cents more per pizza, but what I would like is a pizza that tastes good and is served hot and with some measure of happiness on the part of the employees. Yes, the sort of happiness I imagine comes from this being their starter job with more steady work ahead of them and, also, this being a job that rewards them enough that they don't need two others to pay for their own basic needs.

And I frankly do not care if Papa Johns ever makes another cent of profit if they don't use it to take care of their people. Why the hell should I care if some CEO's and stock owners make more money than they made last month? None of that money is coming back to make my life even a little bit better.

Rae

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

I didn't think so much that YOU were concerned about Papa Johns, but rather, I was expressing my reaction to his complaint. Which, as you say, was mirrored by everyone NOT in the business of screwing over the world to make a profit.

I think, personally, that our entire system is screwed up, simply because our paradigm seems to be "Well, if you have to do it to make a profit, it's okay." When, instead, our first thought should be, "Well, if you are going to hurt the economy, environment, your customers or community, then your profits don't matter to me at all."

[thisficklemob.livejournal.com]

Yes. And the paradigm seems to be that we all should care about corporate profits. Ok, yes, corporations employ people... but since the Great Recession started, corporate profits are way up, and they're still not hiring. They've disconnected corporate prosperity from human prosperity. And most of us don't own enough stock that whatever 0.3 cents their stock price might go up could matter to us.

Add to that the fact that companies can be in obvious trouble in terms of their actual businesses (e.g., right now, Walmart's sales are "disastrous" and shelves are going unstocked), and yet their stock prices are just ducky.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

This is the part that Jan always talks about...Add to that the fact that companies can be in obvious trouble in terms of their actual businesses (e.g., right now, Walmart's sales are "disastrous" and shelves are going unstocked), and yet their stock prices are just ducky.

Basically, that the stock prices are not relative to real world events, which means, essentially the whole thing will collapse again like a house of cards...if the card were made of smoke. And no amount of coddling these high rollers is going to change the fact that in order to save an economy...you need to pay lots of money to lots of people...not a select few.

[thisficklemob.livejournal.com]

When Walmart isn't paying Walmart workers enough that they can afford to shop at Walmart... then Walmart is just whistling itself off a cliff.

Some people are saying the stock market is gonna crash soon. Something called the Greedometer is up, and corporations themselves are selling stock at 40x the rate they're buying them.

Personally, I own no stock, but lots of people put as much as they can in it, hoping to fund their retirements.

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

A lot of people own stock through their retirement packages as well. I'm one of those people.

But, my ownership still doesn't change the fact that elevated stock prices don't mean that businesses are doing well. And my policies as a stock owner shouldn't be to invest in a gambling scheme. Though, for all I know, that is what my money market acct. does.

But no matter the cost, we can't prop up this wall of smoke forever. We would have been much better served if the government had taken over and broken up the big banks instead of bailing them out last time. Big organizations can be broken into smaller subsidiaries and the jobs and money would come back to our towns and people. This is what the whole anti-trust movement was about, back in the day. And we set that aside in the 80s and some people did get filthy rich, but their free fall ride should have hit the ground by now, and would if we had any sense as a nation.

[thisficklemob.livejournal.com]

Agreed. And reinstate the separation between savings banks and wacky stock market shenanigans banks!

[thisficklemob.livejournal.com]

Oh, Papa John can pound sand. My point was, when he threatened that he'd pass this cost on to customers in order to comply with Obamacare, most reasonable people were like, "Why should we mind that? We want the people making our food to be able to go to the doctor when they're sick!"

Thankfully, I live somewhere where there are bunches of independently owned pizza places, not to mention decent frozen pizzas that go on sale and decent pre-made crusts at the discount store, so I never have to eat at these corporate cardboardarias.

And yes, people should have good employment to look forward to, and even if they're in retail or restaurant work their whole working lives, they should be paid a livable wage. I hope the non-chain little grocery store I go to does that for their employees; at least they haven't had their workers out on strike like one of the local chains.

(I have a funny story -- well, funny to me -- story about "things I can afford" world, but I'll save it for a non-public post.)

[julesndairyland.livejournal.com]

I hear you on not wanting zombie employees to get reprimanded and that no one is paid a sustaining wage anymore... BUT. Part of the problem with it all is that many people do not take pride in what they do. Period. Regardless if it is fast food, garbage removal, or corporate/executive duties. So being a supervisor myself I have worked with lots of people who really NEEDED that negative feedback. It was the only thing that got through to them about the "zombiness" of their work. Then they were at a place to make a decision to 'fish or cut bait' as my mom would've said.

I strongly believe I am worth getting quality service/products; I won't be vicious about it but will be calmly assertive.