You know. The shitty thing is, when you go out of your way, you never seem to get a great review for it.
For instance tonight, a lady came in and ate, but didn’t have her credit card, thus she didn’t have a way to pay. No cash, no credit, no nothing. This is dine in mind you. So she wanted to pay via a text of a picture of her husbands credit card. Ok, yeah it seems fishy. That’s a first. We ask for an ID. She doesn’t have it. Lovely. She shows her insurance card. Last name matches the text pic of the credit card. Sigh. Fine, I’ll take the risk. We take cards over the phone, so what’s the difference, right? Sure… Sigh. Yeah, shit happens, and it’s quite possible it was legit, who knows; so we didn’t make fuss at all. We never do.
This is what we do in the Foodservice industry, right? To strive to stay relevant. I should put that on our shirts… “We strive to stay relevant”. Anyhow, try that at Walmart. Good luck. Worst part is I’ll be expecting the chargeback next, along with the lovely fee they tack to it. “Oh, I never dined there”. Sigh.
My point here? Guaranteed we won’t get a review for it. There won’t be a, “holy shit, these guys are amazing. I dined at their establishment, spent 89 dollars on meal and paid via a picture of someone else’s credit card”. Keep dreaming.
I didn’t have to do this. In the real world, who the hell does? I can’t go into the Apple Store and buy an iPhone with a photocopied credit card number that isn’t even mine. But us? Sure. “I’d hate for you to leave unhappy ma’am”. “Let me bend over backwards and take financial risk for you ma’am, because let’s be honest, we need you”, and the last thing that I want you to do is somehow put a spin on this whole situation and turn it into, “wow, I dined at their establishment, spent 89 dollars on a meal and THEY WOULD’NT accept my payment!!! NEVER AGAIN!!!”. Ah yes, that sounds much more realistic… Sigh.
Things like this are constant, yet people don’t go out of their way to write positive reviews. It’s like anger, hatred and drama are the only things that motivate people now a days. What a bummer. What a stressful, shitty bummer. Is this what we’ve become? Why can’t I just listen to all of the happy customers? Why can’t THEY fuel my fire? Why is it the one out of one thousand creates loss of sleep? Stress? Loss of life? What a shitty, shitty bummer. Thus is the business we chose I suppose. Thus is the nature of humans. Sigh.
Sometimes I wish I owned a company that mindlessly produced widgets instead of food. Steady business, you know what to expect, you know how to staff accordingly and there aren’t bullshit review sites dictating if someone purchases your product or not.
Ok, I take that back. Sure, there are reviews online for mostly all products, but some how it seems like negative review on yelp and negative reviews on Amazon are worlds apart. The furious anger that some people show over their 12 dollar pizza that feeds 3 that was 5 minutes too late for their liking versus the “comfort level” of their 900 dollar message chair is down right disgusting. How did we get to this point as a society? When did the bar get set so high that if someone shows up to your door on a day you aren’t even open for business, they get so upset and furious over it that they get online and tear you to pieces? What the actual fuck.
Pardon my French here, but fuck yelp, fuck TripAdvisor and fuck anyone else who’s business concept is based upon angry people who don’t have the balls to speak up in person and allow us to - like you know good god damned well that we would - solve the problem!
This is what makes me so angry. If anyone has a problem, other than the fact that our store is closed when you came, we fix it. This is 101 basic stuff here, and we all know it. “Didn’t get your side of jalapeños on your delivery?”, “Ok. I’ll send a driver right out with it, no problem sir”. “Didn’t enjoy the dish you chose”? “Ok ma’am, we will take it off the bill and take the loss no questions asked”. “It took an hour and a half for delivery yet “it’s only Monday” but you have no idea of the amount of stress we are all under because it’s spring break and we can’t actually staff for two weeks of extra business when our business will drop 40% immediately afterward for the next 3 months straight”? “Sure, no problem. I’ll take care of that without question, because I know you have no clue of how this actually works”…
No problem. That’s our motto. It should be, “let me just pull down my pants now before you even place your order, because I know you’re going to fuck me one way or the other”.
And yes, I know some of you have great reviews on yelp - and some of you even win awards like top 5,000 restaurants nation wide - but i speak for the rest of us grinding ourselves to death, only to have some random person shit on us. UP YOURS assholes!
Look, I’m tired, worn, and just down right saddened by what some people are capable of. But hey, I suppose this is what makes this so “interesting”. Right?.. right?..
Keep on keeping on y’all. Don’t let the haters get under your skin. We all struggle a struggle they would never grasp.