1 post tagged “calgary”

Years ago I made a conscious decision to NOT bring lunch to work everyday.  I could not take eating leftovers or some sandwich made 12 or 14 hours ago; not to mention the task of making lunch every day.  As a result I eat out everyday and often eat at Wendy's once or twice each week. 

With the very low unemployment rates and extremely high demand for the unskilled labor I realize that I need to lower my expectation for customer service; however at some point we have to draw the line.  Today I needed something quick so I went with the Wendy's default of combo number six- Spicy chicken, diet coke and a plain baked potato (instead of fries). 

Now lunch time in downtown Calgary is a bit different that what many would expect.  In Calgary approximately one third of the city's one million inhabitants all work downtown.  Most of these people are downtown durring the day but are gone by supper so all of the eateries have to survive on the lunch crowd.  This motivates the fast food vendors to cycle through the lineups as fast as possible.

At one of of the Wendy's we affectonately refer to the Manager as the "Wendy's Nazi" she is very intimidating if you are not prepared to quickly and clearly communicate your exact order.  There is also a certain order in which you need to place the order (to stay or go, sandwich, side, drink, other, etc). 

Anyway to the point of my post... today I placed my defualt order to-go and was very specific.. plain baked potato with four packs of butter (really margerine).  Of course when I was handed my bag I checked and found that it was void of butter.  When I managed to get her attention and ask for the butter she (the Manager) made a point of asking me to make sure that I ask for it when placing the order.

At this point I was faced with the decision to either explain how I did clearly request this when I placed my order and this person with all the face jewerly screwed up or simply ignore it and move along.  Based on the long lineups wrapping around the corner I chose to quelsh my initial response and just ignore the lecture.

Do you think that I made the right choice?  SHould I have explained how I actually did it right and once again a Wendy's employee screwed up? 

I think that it was a no win situation.  The choice to ignore it saved the minimum wage clerk face, avoided slowing down the operation and saved me time.

Thoughts?