Monday Night Suckage (Long)

[BaristaTrav]

Because our company has one of those lovely 100% satisfaction guarantees, and it's clearly stated in the menu that we will do WHATEVER it takes to make them happy.

If corporate catches wind that a manager didn't do everything in their power to appease the customer, they will go as far as firing someone on the first offense.

I really need to look for a new job!

Bingo.. you do. They will be back and pulling the same crap again, or others of their ilk.

[sms001]

Doesn't anyone look at empty tables nearby and steal the ketchup off of it when they want it?

yeppers. (Or salt, etc.) And if you're a good customer you give your server a little heads up like: "Hey, I hope you don't mind - I snagged that (point) table's catsup. Let's 'em know one will need replacing.

Of course, we're not looking to steal food, are we?

[It shouldn't]

Reminds me of the one time (previous job waitressing), this lady wanted her meal free, cause she didn't like the taste of the lettuce.

Lettuce???? She had a fried chicken dinner with mashed potatoes and corn, no salad anywhere in sight.

Turns out she ate the Kale decoration.

[chinashirtgirl]

Well if your company has the lame-ass policy of pleasing everyone no matter what I guess it will only come back to bite them in the ass when they start losing profits over entitlement whores and scammers.

The really sucky thing is that you have to deal with it. The policy sucks because they might as well just give all the food away for free because that will really make people happy.

Also, the "at least" comment was so stupid. She didn't have any ketchup and she didn't ask for any ketchup, so now she should get some huge compensation even though her server came over three times and could have fixed the problem in a second.

And to top it all off the little girl never even got to eat any dinner because of this stupid EW!! Nice grand-parenting hag!! The two adults get their dinners free and the kid gets nothing, at least that's how I interpret the "she doesn't want it anymore" comment.

What a bunch of losers.

[calulu]

One can only hope the kid scarfed down her free dessert and once they made it out to the car the sugar levels kicked in and she tormented Granny and Mommy at full sugar rush hyperactive speed.

I'm just bend on believing that karma got those bitches somewhere down the line.

[bainsidhe]

I'm with the others here. What you're suggesting is that corporate has taken away all power of management. So you can't refuse service (what if they had been bothering other customers or acting reeeeally creepy?), you have to give them WHATEVER free stuff they want (loss prevention, where art thou?). In due time, corporate is going to change their policy or go out of business. Not a savy business model, I dare say. And way to teach your kid values. Best of luck finding a happier place to work. At least you have supervisory experience, it really does count for something.

Also, I'd love to know where you work, free meals are cool, especially with rising grocery prices

[tollbaby]

You're the sucker for giving in so easily, especially if you suspected they were the type to call corporate over that sort of thing.

I just don't get you.

Dude, that was a bit harsh. If Corporate automatically sends out a $20 gift card, whether a complaint is justified or not, then obviously this company has a policy of caving in order to keep customers coming back, whether they're good customers or not.

I do agree with you, to a certain degree however. As a waitress, I'd have been damn pissed off to have someone get comped a meal for a problem they DID NOT inform me of, complain that I was too helpful and friendly, and then get a reward from corporate for their efforts. As a manager, I'd have stood up for my employees and not given in to the obvious demands for freebies... I think the OP was a bit spineless in that regard, and I would NOT have wanted to work in that sort of establishment. However, I do understand that it was probably company policy and the OP likely had no choice.

[icmedia]

Having worked in a multitude of restaurants over the past 14 years, as both a lowly peon and in management, I have to side with the OP here.

In my experience, if a restaurant is privately owned (or part of a smaller corporation of 10 or less stores), often management can tell a customer to shove off when their complaint is truly ridonkulous.

However, huge corporate chain restaurants have always held policies of "The customer is always allowed to make unreasonable demands, berate the staff and walk out with a gift card and a free meal." Bob Evans does it. Red Lobster & Olive Garden do it. Bill Knapp's does it. Applebee's does it. See a trend here?

These chains view ANY negative opinion of their restaurant as the OMG worst possible occurance in the world. So, they require their managment to kiss customer ass -even when the customer is complaining about how happy someone looks.

Which is why I tend to look for privately owned restaurants at which to work.

[csever01]

Exactly.

I would have loved to tell the women where to go, but I'd be risking my job by doing so. I just made sure that when I did talk (at least near the end), I sounded annoyed so she knew I had caught on.