I went to Dairy Queen on Miracle Treat Day and this Calgary Stampeder totally goofed my order. I asked for a Royal Oreo Treat Blizzard, not an Oreo Cookies Blizzard Treat, you idiot!
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Occasionally there are things I get annoyed about, but in the end the impact on my day is negligible, and I know nothing about the personal circumstances of the person who causes me annoyance. I get that venting on the internet is a valid way of venting such frustrations (and I've done this too... see my posts on Tim Hortons employees making my drink in a disposable cup before pouring it into my travel mug).
It's honestly never occurred to me, in fast food restaurants or otherwise, that someone serving me may be a TFW, but more power to them; keeping that in mind I'll try to practice even more patience and kindness with fastfood workers, as I can't imagine what a difficult journey and circumstances that would be.
Good post and it pretty much reflects my feelings too. I eat out all the time and the number of times where I've had what I would consider to be poor service I can count on one hand. I worked in fast food when I was young and I know what goes on behind the scenes.
It's easy for people to label places like McD's or Timmy's as being slow service and whatnot. But those are human beings behind the tills. I love hearing people complain about their order taking 20 minutes in drive thru, yet there are only 3 people working. Blame the corporation, not the workers.
And for what it's worth I find TFW to be much more efficient food workers then Canadian born teens who don't give a crap about what they do and are simply there for drinking/weed money. TFW come to this country to provide a better life for their families back home and it reflects in their work. They actually give a crap.
North Americans have such a sense of entitlement when it comes to how they expect service to be, it's insane. And it's those unrealistic expectations that set the bar to high that is the problem. Not the service itself.
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Chain restaurants have trained any problem solving abilities right out of their workers and if it deviates from the pictograph flowcharts for every procedure then you get the deer in the headlights look.
As somebody who trains new entrants to the work force it's not trained out, it's non existent to start with. They need a formula for everything
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I went to Dairy Queen on Miracle Treat Day and this Calgary Stampeder totally goofed my order. I asked for a Royal Oreo Treat Blizzard, not an Oreo Cookies Blizzard Treat, you idiot!
thoughts and prayers to you for having to live thru what must have been a horrific ordeal
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Walmart and their recent changes are a perfect example of this. They now charge for bags, you have to put a dollar to get a cart, and they don't allow overnight RV parking anymore. Basically, Walmart has realized that low prices are the primary reason anybody shops there and will do anything to increase efficiency and reduce prices. TFW's could also fall into this thinking.
You can't really blame these companies though. It is the public's insatiable need for the lowest price that is driving things.
I'm sorry, what?
Do you feel that they owe you an overnight parking spot for your RV?
AltaGuy has a magnetic personality and exudes positive energy, which is infectious to those around him. He has an unparalleled ability to communicate with people, whether he is speaking to a room of three or an arena of 30,000.
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: At le pub...
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My sneaking suspicion, having read this thread, and after giving much thought to the OP's grievances, is that TFW's - being people, and thus humans, and thus fitting into the broad category "human workers" - will have among them some outstanding workers, many average workers, and some who you wonder just how they are able to tie their shoes in the mornings.
Do you feel that they owe you an overnight parking spot for your RV?
(sorry for the derail)
It's a thread about customer service. This was a service that they used to offer, free of charge, in the hopes that some of those "campers" would buy something from the store before shoving off for the day.
Good customer service happens when a business does whatever it can to make shopping/dining/service experience as enjoyable as they can in the hopes of the customer spending more money. Simple. The decision to remove this free service is the opposite of good customer service. Even if you're technically not a customer yet.
Location: Close enough to make a beer run during a TV timeout
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AltaGuy
My sneaking suspicion, having read this thread, and after giving much thought to the OP's grievances, is that TFW's - being people, and thus humans, and thus fitting into the broad category "human workers" - will have among them some outstanding workers, many average workers, and some who you wonder just how they are able to tie their shoes in the mornings.
I have a few family members who are TFWs, or come over to Canada as TFWs. The amount of effort involved in successfully applying to be a TFW would weed out the shoe tying strugglers. That in itself is what I like about the program. It brings over the people who want to work to make this country great.
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Good post and it pretty much reflects my feelings too. I eat out all the time and the number of times where I've had what I would consider to be poor service I can count on one hand. I worked in fast food when I was young and I know what goes on behind the scenes.
It's easy for people to label places like McD's or Timmy's as being slow service and whatnot. But those are human beings behind the tills. I love hearing people complain about their order taking 20 minutes in drive thru, yet there are only 3 people working. Blame the corporation, not the workers.
And for what it's worth I find TFW to be much more efficient food workers then Canadian born teens who don't give a crap about what they do and are simply there for drinking/weed money. TFW come to this country to provide a better life for their families back home and it reflects in their work. They actually give a crap.
North Americans have such a sense of entitlement when it comes to how they expect service to be, it's insane. And it's those unrealistic expectations that set the bar to high that is the problem. Not the service itself.
I find that people who get chronically bad service have not worked in the food service industry.
Today I ate at subway and it was really funny watching this person struggle to order. The cause was that he was doing things backwards and not waiting for responses. Yes the person across from him didn't speak great English but the cause of the problem was his deviation from the correct procedure. -- Size, type bread, wait for them to ask about cheese, cheese, wait for them to ask about toasting, toasted. Then when the condiments come let them lead and go through the whole process in order. No lettuce, no tomatoes, green peppers, onions, then the other non common items. He went with everything but 3 different things. That's just confusing.
Simplifying communication and following the restaurants structure makes things much easier and makes it more likely that your order is completed accurately
Last edited by GGG; 08-17-2016 at 12:31 PM.
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I find that people who get chronically bad service have not worked in the food service industry.
I've always believed a huge part was a person's mentality. Those that get "bad service" seem to get it consistently. Then there are those who never seem to notice whether or not they get good or bad service.
I have a few family members who are TFWs, or come over to Canada as TFWs. The amount of effort involved in successfully applying to be a TFW would weed out the shoe tying strugglers. That in itself is what I like about the program. It brings over the people who want to work to make this country great.
I work for a company that employs many TFWs, there have definitely been more than a few useless ones. However, there have been a few outstanding ones as well. I would say the ratio is about equal to hiring out of the general population.
I think you can pretty concretely say that people who get bad service on the regular (like OP) are just bad customers.
Whether they don't know how to order, or their expectations are unreasonably high, or their just grumps.
Treat the person behind the counter like they're a human being who is working a job (often one nobody else wants to do) and you get consistently good results.
My beef with customer service is when the drive thru person interrupts me while I am placing my order. For example, at BK I'll get a whopper with cheese, onion rings instead of fries and a coke zero and at some point while I am placing my order I will get interrupted.
As for Timmies, I have always found the best to be ones with mixed staffs, i.e.white black, yellow green, blue etc.
My beef with customer service is when the drive thru person interrupts me while I am placing my order. For example, at BK I'll get a whopper with cheese, onion rings instead of fries and a coke zero and at some point while I am placing my order I will get interrupted.
I don't suppose it could possibly be to ascertain a pertinent detail that you missed mentioning in your order.
But you're right, the acne ridden 16 year old should keep a mental running list of these to save for the various items you're ordering so he can go back in his till and correct everything at the end when he politely addresses them.
My beef with customer service is when the drive thru person interrupts me while I am placing my order. For example, at BK I'll get a whopper with cheese, onion rings instead of fries and a coke zero and at some point while I am placing my order I will get interrupted.
As for Timmies, I have always found the best to be ones with mixed staffs, i.e.white black, yellow green, blue etc.
Does this happen all the time? If so then you are ordering wrong.
Whopper with Cheese Combo, (wait.... with what to drink), coke zero, (wait.... with fires), no with onion rings instead of fries.
Short single command statements when ordering through microphones, or with people who can't speak English.
You have to remember that they punch things in the way they have to given their interface so the closer your order mimics their interface the better result you will have.
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I've been vacationing in the Okanagan. I miss Calgary service. Even the Tim Hortons here are a train wreck. There's way too many seniors here working in the service industry that are trying their best but not as sharp or as quick as they used to be.
I don't suppose it could possibly be to ascertain a pertinent detail that you missed mentioning in your order.
But you're right, the acne ridden 16 year old should keep a mental running list of these to save for the various items you're ordering so he can go back in his till and correct everything at the end when he politely addresses them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GGG
Does this happen all the time? If so then you are ordering wrong.
Whopper with Cheese Combo, (wait.... with what to drink), coke zero, (wait.... with fires), no with onion rings instead of fries.
Short single command statements when ordering through microphones, or with people who can't speak English.
You have to remember that they punch things in the way they have to given their interface so the closer your order mimics their interface the better result you will have.
Wow, way to jump down my throat, didn't realize it was acceptable to be interrupted while ordering. No wonder I don't post on here very often.
