Back in early June, J. and I were on a thrift store adventure, heading south out of Seattle looking for, well, pirate treasure, secret prizes, vintage Hawaiian shirts, you know. And at some point during the day, we got hungry. Because we were in strip mall hell, we opted for the strip mall hell lunch choices. We went for what seemed like the lesser evil and ordered our lunch at the Taco Time counter from sluggish, nobody home behind those eyeballs fast food employees.
I screwed up the order because there was apparently no one home behind my eyeballs, either. It took the counter staff forever to figure out how to remove the extra burrito, but whatever, it’s not like we were using our time that effectively anyway. I kept wondering if the staff had been drugged, but maybe you need drugs to get through the day at your plastic and vinyl job. When we finally got the order fixed and sat down to eat, our food was cold. But not like it had gone cold, more like they’d neglected to cook it.
Normally, I’d have sent it back. But the youngsters at the counter who had taken the job because it was the only way out of that strip mall hell hole (okay, I’m speculating) had left me with so little confidence in their abilities that it didn’t seem worth it. To make them fix something twice in one order seemed unfair, a little like asking your dog to run out for groceries, so far did it seem beyond the scope of what they could deal with. I picked up the “Tell us how we did!” card on the way out, after throwing out about half of my meal and when I got home, I told them how they did.
I was a little bummed out that the letter from Taco Time Corporate focused on the staff. Slackjawed and fisheyed as they were, I actually had some sympathy for them. Working in fast food sucks mightily. While I did mention that they seemed a little dull, I believe I gave equal weight to my complaint that my meal was a sorry ass excuse for fast food, even if it was fast food. Expectations being equal to the task and all.
But get this. In addition to the letter, they sent me a check for the price of the meal. Who says there’s no free lunch? Maybe it was cold fast food, but it was free. Moral of the story? Never settle for less, even when your expectations are about as low as they can get.