Bad service at Wendy's in Fremont.

[gridlore]

After a near-11 hour shift driving a truck, I was bloody hungry, and there was a Wendy's along my route home, so I hit the drive-through for a quick bit.

Now, a bit of a disclaimer: I'm a picky eater with a couple of digestive issues. So when I order a hamburger, it is always no cheese, ketchup and mustard only.

I order a #2 Combo (Double burger, fries and a Coke) and specified my special order. The person taking the order repeated it correctly, and when I paid, my receipt showed the correct instructions.

I must admit I was less than surprised when my order came out and there was cheese on the burger. This happens quite often, and is usually attributable to the fact that the kids working these places do the same thing over and over. What happened next, though, was over the top.

I waved the person working the window back over, explained the error, and handed my burger back. A minute or so later, she handed me a fresh burger. Thinking the problem resolved, I pulled out and started heading back towards the freeway, opening my burger...

..which had cheese on it.

Quick U-turn, and I head into the store. Remember, I'm exhausted, hot, and really fucking hungry by this point. What should have been a three-minute stop has now consumed over ten before I reach the front and ask for a manager. I explain the situation to the manager on duty, keeping my temper. She goes over to the grill area, which was within my line of sight, reviewed the orders, talked to a few people, and several of her crew started laughing, and I heard at least one of them say something like "so cheese is going to kill him, what a weirdo!"

Now I was pissed off.

When the manager came back up, this is what I said.

"Thank you" (she handed me the correct burger, finally) "I'm glad to see your crew finds messing up my order so amusing. I think I'll share their casual disregard of what we actually pay for with my coworkers. Oh, and with the drivers from other trucking companies we interact with. What the hell, I'll just post this locations amusing approach to customer satisfaction on the Internet and let your corporate office know that the crew here mocks customers within their hearing. Good day!"

She was already screaming at the staff as I left.

I'm not normally one to react like that - I make special, odd, orders, so I expect some confusion, but the utter lack of professionalism and screwing up and order when it has just been explained to you verbally what was needed is unforgivable.

Posted to gridlore and bad_service

Comments

[kengr]

Those staffers need educating with a baseball bat. Because with some customers it just *might* kill them.

I've got a friend who got hospitalized because a restaurant didn't pay attention when he told them he was allergic to lettuce and then when he pointed out that there was lettuce on the (hot) sandwhich he'd ordered and that due to his allergy, they'd have to *remake* it because the heat would have leached stuff out of the lettuce, ignored that too. They just took it into the kitchen, waited a bit and brought it out without the lettuce.

He won the lawsuit...

[biomekanic.livejournal.com]

Asshats.
While I hate Carl Jrs. owner's politics, it's the only place I've found where I can order a bunless burger (the joys of wheat allergies) and they don't give me a ration.
But I do have to explain that yes, I know it's a low carb burger, and yes, I want the ketchup, and the fries too, I can eat those, just not the bun.

[lysana.livejournal.com]

No In-n-Out Burgers near you?

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

Oregon. Too far north, I believe.

[katster.livejournal.com]

Yep. Closest one is Redding, California.

(remembers the story of the guys that got an In and Out jonesing. At 2 AM. In Portland, Oregon. They immedately drove to Redding to get their fix.)

-kat

[biomekanic.livejournal.com]

I think there's one up in Salem, about 70 miles N of here.

[sossity.livejournal.com]

it sounds like fear of the unknown, in the infant stages. because those unimaginative cretins could not imagine why a person might REQUIRE a burger without cheese, they laugh it off. but they came close to the real issue--bad reactions in your body happen when you ingest cheese. and i hope that their manager's tongue-lashing gave them the kick they needed to figure out that 1)you don't laugh at a customer where he can hear you, and 2)some people have reasons of their own to want it their way, regardless of what the "normal" way is.

[benkenobigal.livejournal.com]

Good for you, man!! Screwing it up three times is just ridiculous and laughing about it is repellant. I have digestive issues since I lost my gall bladder, so though it's not as bad as yours, I know of what you speak!!

[kat-box.livejournal.com]

Ditto from me. I'm lactose intolerant so eating cheese results in much time spent in the bathroom so ya, messing up the order THREE times is ridiculous. What? You think I LIKE spending 20 minutes at a time sitting you know where??? :S

[figmo.livejournal.com]

I've had the reverse problem with the Wendy's on Bascom Avenue. They kept giving me cheeseburgers without the cheese.

Next time we both feel a need to eat burgers perhaps we should get together. You give your order, I'll give mine, and when we both swap our screwed-up orders we'll have the right thing.

[jeffreyab.livejournal.com]

I feel for you to screw up once is understandable but three times and to mock you for it is pretty bad. I hope they all get fired or worse consigned to clean up duty for life.

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

I typically smile broadly and say, "Excuse me, what's your name again? Oh, thank you, have a really nice day . . . "

And if I'm really ticked but don't feel the need to complain to Corporate, I add " . . . you just failed a mystery shop."

Yep.

[griffen.livejournal.com]

My ex is diabetic. He orders regular food and diet soda. More than once we've seen the server start to fill up two regular Cokes instead of making his diet. When we see this happening, we always start up a fairly loud conversation about how we sued [some other restaurant] and won when he went into insulin shock from a person bringing him a non-diet soda. (The lawsuit is nonexistent, never really happened, but it serves as an object lesson to the server.) The server always freezes, stops, and dumps the drink and gets a new (diet) one... except once.

This server, who had to be corrected by their manager (it was a Wendy's also), said defensively, "Well, they didn't order diet food, why do they need diet soda?" He got fired on the spot.

For another description of bad customer service, see my latest public LJ entry.

Re: Yep.

[kengr]

I really think restaurants *especially* fast food ones need to drum into the help the simple fact that getting an order wrong, even on "silly" or "trivial" stuff can put someone in the hospital.

Yeah, some folks get overly picky about their orders. But others *have* to be that picky. And that means that you have to assume *all* of the orders have to be right.

Yeah, the pay is sucky for putting in that much attention. But that's life.