Another another Customer Service Rant

Does it bug anyone else when you are eating at a sit down restaurant and after you are finished eating but before the server has even brought your bill, they are cleaning off your table? I don't mean removing a few plates that you are finished with or empty drink glasses when they bring you a fresh drink to make more room on the table. I mean the server is standing at your table taking every last piece of everything off of it while you are sitting there trying to have a conversation with whoever it is that you are eating with? It annoys the crap out of me. "Go away server. I'm trying to have a conversation that does not concern you." You can clean the table off after I'm gone.

What ever happened to bus boys?

An while we're on that subject, what ever happened to the baggers at the grocery store? Why do I have to bag my own groceries or sit there and wait while the cashier bags everything which takes twice as long and usually results in my bread being bagged with my raw chicken and a bottle of Windex? I know I have complained before about having to ring up my own groceries which I now refuse to do unless Dave is with me so he can bag, but this is the next worst thing. So let me get this straight, I am paying twice as much for most of my groceries as I did two years ago and now I have to either ring it up and bag it all by myself or I have to suffer my bread to be soaked in salmonella juice?

Another Customer Service Rant

Okay, first of all I have been eating soooo bad the past week or so. Let's just establish that before I go any further in this post. I have to admit that other than last night, my family has eaten out every night this week. I'm ashamed to admit it but it's true. I blame winter and let's just leave it at that.

Now, on to my rant.

I left the relative warmth of my office today to run up to Arby's and grab some grub. It is one of the few places around here that has a drive through and while fast food is not at the top of my list, probably because of all the other crap I've been eating this week that is full of high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated shortening that makes you crave more junk food, sounded good. So I go to the drive through and order a beef 'n cheddar, get my order and come back to the office.

I just down at my desk with my sandwich, my space heater is blaring and my toes are starting to warm back up and I just opened the sandwich.

It was made with two butt pieces of the bun. You know how the beef 'n cheddar comes on a nice fat onion bun? Not this one. It's two butt pieces with not one piece of onion on it. Then when I took it apart the roast beef is crusty. Like either it sat out under the heat lamp for 3 days or it was the butt end of the roast beef. And, on top of that, it smells kind of gross. I'm so grossed out right now that I want to take the sandwich back to Arby's and bitch them out. I mean really, what would posses a person to make a sandwich with two butt pieces of bread? But, I'm torn, because it's freezing outside, and it's 12:30 which means there will be 1,000 peeps in line and it's freezing outside.

So the sandwich is sitting here in the bag on my desk. And I'm not sure what to do with it.

So I was in Victoria's Secret the day after Christmas (I was buying a pair of sweatpants if you can believe it. Dave got me a pair for Christmas and they were so comfy I decided to brave the after Christmas crowd(which there ended up being none) and get another pair. Why do I feel the need to explain why I was at Victoria's Secret? I don't know)

Anyway, I was in Victoria's Secret waiting in line to pay for the sweatpants I was buying and the woman in front of me was taking forever to get her money out like she was thinking about it really hard. And she finally she mumbles something to the cashier about being ticked because she can't use a coupon she has and how stupid it is that she can't use said coupon on sale items. (I'm unclear what happened prior to that because I was spacing out standing there in line)

Now let me interject here that I have a friend who used to work at Victoria's Secret and I can tell you that they don't pay well. I mean the girls working in this store are probably making whatever minimum wage is now, and not a penny more. And they are all about 16 or 17. Not a lot of worldly experience. Or communication skills.

The cashier looks at the customer with her sweet, angelic, blue glittered and 16 year old face and says, quite innocently I thought, "Well if you want I can ring it up full price."

And like quicksilver, the customer put her money right back in her wallet and said, "Well you can just void the whole order. I don't need to deal with that kind of attitude." And poor glitter girl is just looking at her with a look that says, "What? What'd I do?"

The customer continued bitching, "Why would I want to pay full price, is that going to save me money?"

Glitter girl says, with doe-like eyes, "I don't know. I'm just trying to make you happy."

Customer says, "F**k you." and walks out of the store.

So I'm curious, have you ever told a customer service rep to f off? I mean, I'm a big fan of the f word, but I have never dropped that bomb on a customer service rep.

Okay, once I used the f word about 17 times when I was yelling at one of my electrical contractors, but that was construction Melanie, not every day shopping at the mall Melanie. Does that really seem appropriate to you?

Customer Service Overload

Okay, so I know in the past I have complained about the lack of customer service in restaurants and stores, but today I had the worst shopping experience of my life because of a sales person who was trying too hard to be helpful.

I stopped by the Black and White store on my way home from work tonight in the hopes that I might find something nice to wear to a show we are going to at the DSO on Saturday night. All I was looking for was maybe a dressy pair of black pants and a nice top. Or one or the other.

The minute I walked in the door, the sales associate (one of four in the store) was on me in a flash and the minute I picked up a pair of pants to try on and she knew what size I was, went crazy. Y'all, by the time I got to the fitting room, there were, I'm not kidding, 7 pairs of pants, 6 sweaters, two camisoles, four blouses, two jackets and a skirt in that tiny room. Not to mention I told her that I don't wear skirts or pants that zip up the side (there were three pairs of those.)

Okay, I wasn't really up for a Pretty Woman'esqe try on session, but I figured I'd give it a go. But let me mention that I am feeling a little "puffy" right now being that I haven't seemed to be able to get my appetite back to normal human proportions since our vacation. So I expected things might be a little snug, but as soon as I started trying on the pants I remembered why I don't own any pants from the Black and White store. They just don't fit me right. So the more I tried on, the hotter I get, my cell phone has wrung 3 times and every 2 minutes a sales associate was knocking on the door asking me if I need anything.

On top of that, a couple of the tops required me to remove my bra. So I'm standing there in a pair of pants with a muffin top hanging over, bare chested and the sales associate barges into the room to give me a pair of heels so I can see how they look with the pants.

I was getting really irritable. Coupled with the fact that I'm getting psycho about not having anything to wear Saturday night, I had a minor meltdown in the dressing room, put my clothes back on and ran for the hills.

It was just too much. Do you think I'm just being a cranky old lady?

I'll get back to the stuff I'm thankful for tomorrow!

Whatever Happened to Customer Service?

I rarely order drinks in restaurants for two reasons.

#1 It is ridiculous to pay 2 bucks for a soda and I'm cheap.

#2 I'm trying to avoid the extra calories.

So I almost always order water. With a lemon. I find it gives the water a little something extra.
I am always very clear about this. Can I have water with a lemon?

And nine times out of ten they bring it without a lemon. Why is this? It's very annoying.

Am I just being a bee-atch or does anyone else experience this?