Posts Tagged ‘rants’
21st Street Culver’s, You’ve Disappointed Me for the Last Time (A Rant)
Folks, a couple of weeks ago, I went to the Culver’s restaurant (the 21st Street location in Racine, for those of you in Southeastern Wisconsin or Northern Illinois). Most of the time, Culver’s gets its orders correct, and most of the time when it doesn’t, it has tried to make it right.
Except…not this time.
I’d ordered fish, broccoli, and mashed potatoes for me, and burgers, plus another order of fish (also with broccoli and mashed potatoes) for my mother. The burgers were fine. No trouble whatsoever. But the fish was another story entirely, as were the “fixings.”
The broccoli was good. (Mom’s dog, little Brat, likes broccoli, and she enjoyed what I didn’t eat. Mind that I do like broccoli quite a bit, but two orders of it is just a bit much.) But the fish was all fat and almost no meat, and the mashed potatoes were crunchy. While there was some gravy on the potatoes, it didn’t help.
So, of the six pieces of fish, only two were of decent quality. One was of marginal quality. The other three were all fat, and by the time I got to my Mom’s, the restaurant had already closed so there was no point in calling them.
I was ill for a few days, so I had to wait to call them until nearly three days after I’d had this bad experience.
Now, here’s where my rant comes in. (You’ll understand why in a bit.)
If someone complains to you that the food was not right, and that the potatoes in particular were crunchy (not what you’re supposed to have with mashed potatoes), you shouldn’t be told, “You waited too long to let us know.”
But that’s what I was told.
In addition to the “you waited too long” comment, my experience and that of my mother was downgraded to “it must not have been that bad because you didn’t tell us right away,” and my asking them to please make sure other customers did not get crunchy mashed potatoes and/or fish that was all fat and no meat didn’t go anywhere. Something was wrong with the food preparation there, and I said so.
My concerns were not treated well. The manager I spoke to by phone was obviously young, but that’s no excuse. I had the feeling throughout my call that the manager thought I was a crackpot. (Or looney tunes. Or crazy. Pick your poison.) I didn’t like that. At all.
No customer deserves to be treated the way I was. It’s just not right.
Anyway, back to the phone call. I tried one more time, explaining to this same guy that I often went to this particular Culver’s because the burgers are great. I stopped there several times a month, and occasionally more than once a week. Mostly the food was good. But that doesn’t mean I should just shut up when the food is terrible, and I wasn’t about to do that.
There was no resolution to my call. The manager basically blew me off.
Then, I wrote to Culver’s using their email submission form. But I heard nothing, absolutely nothing, back from them, either. And that just made me madder.
Do these people think I have all day to sit around writing emails and calling them about bad food and poor service from the manager after a complaint? Do they honestly believe I’d just make this crap up? When I’d been a regular customer for years?
So that’s where I’m at. I do not like being condescended to, and I really don’t like my observations being thrown out the window because “it’s three days too late.”
Since this Culver’s did not do anything to make this right, my only recourse is to not go there anymore. And furthermore, I wrote this blog to let others know in this area that they might want to avoid this Culver’s, as the management staff obviously doesn’t care at all what happens to their customers.
There are two other Culver’s restaurants in Racine County that I’m aware of, and if I really need to go there (or my Mom wants her favorite burgers again), I’ll be going to one of those two and leaving the 21st Street location alone. I’ve never had bad experiences at either one of those and am at least willing to give them a chance.
But 21st Street? Nope. Never again.
The upshot here is, the 21st Street Culver’s should’ve known better than this. No matter when someone complains, it’s likely they had a real problem if they still remember it three days later. (I wish I’d have taken photos of the crunchy potatoes. I didn’t think of it at the time. I’m not sure the fish would’ve been able to be seen, but those potatoes…yikes.) Especially when someone like me, who often stops there and has for years, complains about something odd like this, they should not be condescended to, and they definitely should not be treated as if they don’t matter.
I have no idea what happened to my comments at the email submission form. But at this point, I don’t care. I’m really upset with this Culver’s location, and I do not plan to go back there ever again.
Take this as a public service, folks. If you live in this area, avoid that Culver’s. They don’t know how to treat customers. And the food will likely not be up to par.
Holidays, Schmolidays: A Rant
I read an article online about a young woman who planned a “Friendsgiving” dinner (Thanksgiving dinner, with friends), but no one showed up. Her boyfriend, thankfully, asked a lot of his friends to show up instead, and the food and drink she’d so carefully amassed and cooked was consumed.
This article was frustrating to read, in more than one way.
First off, if you have friends, treat them like gold.
In other words, do not stand them up. Do not forget to call if you’re going to be late (or can’t come at all). Do not do what happened to this poor young woman, as it’s beyond rude.
Second off, if you have even a smidgen of empathy, you need to realize that how you treat others shows how you, yourself, should be treated.
So, if you can’t be bothered to let a friend know that you aren’t able to be with them…or if a long-distance phone call is planned, and you aren’t able to make it…or if there’s some other reason that keeps you away from their presence after they’ve made so many plans, there’s something the matter with you.
And I say that knowing full well I, myself, have had to beg off plans at the last minute due to health concerns. (In fact, I wasn’t able to be at my father’s birthday celebration yesterday because I had a migraine. This cost me a chance to see my sister and niece, too.)
I was ill, so I texted my sister and made my apologies. That was all I could do. (My father doesn’t text, and doesn’t understand it. I knew my sister would tell him, and she did. I’ll try to make it up to him later, if I can.)
So, if I can do it through a migraine, what is everyone else’s excuse?
This poor woman was expecting at least ten friends to show up (by how many place settings she had sitting out), and none showed. Not one person had the decency to call or text her, either.
That’s just plain wrong.
The only good excuse for not being able to let someone know what happened to you if time was planned (online and/or off) to be with you is a quick trip to the hospital, unconscious. (I might reluctantly accept a work emergency, too, depending. Might.)
Third off, why must people be so obnoxious?
Life is really hard right now. We have the pandemic, which goes on and on and on. We have the holidays, which are tough, especially for people grieving a new loss (or even an older one where the loss was huge and heartfelt).
(In fact, I wrote a blog post called “Please Remember Those Who Grieve During the Holidays” years ago, because I felt it needed to be said. But as always, I digress…)
And people who’ve lost loved ones who mattered deeply and desperately to them deserve to know that other people care. That other people are thinking about them. That other people do understand their losses, at least insofar as they have themselves gone through various losses.
So, if you have good friends, cherish them. Do not take them for granted. Do not stand them up on Friendsgiving. Do not treat them like they don’t exist, or don’t matter.
Pay attention. Stay in their lives. And think beyond your own concerns about others, because that’s truly what life is all about.
How You Treat Cashiers Says A Lot About You…(A Rant)
I decided to write this, to explain what I saw, as an exercise in narrative framing…and I hope it will make sense to all of you.
Folks, I was out shopping a few days ago, laying in supplies for myself and my Mom due to the incoming snowstorm. And I witnessed a terrible man lighting into a cashier for no reason at all…so I thought I might talk about this, and why it showed so much of this man’s negative personality.
First, it was busy in the store. The shelves were bare in some places. It was cold outside, we were anticipating snow in the next six to eight hours, and most folks with any planning sense at all were in the store. Which means the cashiers were overworked, harried, and tired.
How do I know this? I’m a former cashier. I also have some common sense. And I know that if you’ve been dealing with a lot of people with big orders for hours, you are tired, you are stressed, and you haven’t had any down time to even grouse to fellow cashiers about how cold the weather is, how worried you are that your car won’t start, or that you won’t make it home until the storm is well underway.
But you can’t help but think this. You do what you can to shove it away, and give the best customer service you can. You tell yourself that no one can control the weather, and that it’s not your fault all these people are cranky (oft-times, crankier than you are), and you do your best to be ultra-polite and get them out of the store as fast as you can.
Anyway, I was in line, paying for a large amount of groceries (especially by my standards), and heard a man behind me yelling at a cashier in the next lane over. (I turned to get a description. He was fortyish, with graying-brown hair, rather short, with a combative expression.) He’d just asked her if anyone had called in sick; she said no, and had turned her light off as she was about to go home. (I know this because the manager had just been over telling her to go home a minute or so prior.) He apparently took great exception to this, and started yelling at her about her “unprofessional behavior,” “bad attitude,” and suchlike. All he did was rant at this poor young woman, who did nothing wrong, and then insisted that a manager be called. All delaying her in going home, and souring her experience of working hard and well during a difficult day.
This guy had no reason at all to do this. She had tried to de-escalate the situation after he started yelling, asking if there was anything she could do. He said he wanted a manager, and he kept yelling and making an ass out of himself.
Look. I know it’s frustrating when the weather is bad, and you’re worried about driving, and you have kids (he had two, I think), and maybe you couldn’t find everything you needed. But yelling at a cashier who did nothing wrong says more about you than it does about her.
And none of it — none — is flattering.
As I am a former cashier, I decided to stick around and talk with the folks at the service desk to give them a better idea of what had happened. I didn’t have to do this. But I didn’t want them thinking this young woman had done anything wrong. (She was probably under twenty.)
I wanted to give that angry man a piece of my mind. But by the time I got out of my line, he was already with the manager. Then he stormed out, his kids in tow…there was no point to engaging with him, not under those circumstances.
Had he not been the final person in this cashier’s line, and had I been behind him, I might’ve asked him why he was getting all upset over nothing. (Then again, I might’ve just waited and then told the cashier she did nothing wrong, and that I was sorry she had to put up with asinine people like that.)
But he was. And he behaved very badly, so badly that he gave his two kids a lesson in bullying. Not to mention rudeness, completely misunderstanding the situation, and a show of just how obnoxious this particular individual can be on any given day.
I did what I could to repair the situation for the cashier. (She’d already gone home by then, or at least was counting her drawer somewhere I couldn’t see her.) But I don’t know how many other patrons would do that.
So I am here to ask you: If you are in a bad mood, please do not take it out on an innocent person like a cashier. Do not make a spectacle of yourself in public, and give bad examples for your kids (or other people’s kids).
And if you have a legitimate beef, be calm. Be courteous. Be respectful. Treat others the way you would want to be treated.
That’s the only way to be an adult. And don’t you want to be one? Especially if you have two kids looking up to you, trying to learn decent behavior from you?
Finally, I will tell you this: Any guy who behaves like this to a blameless cashier is not one I want to spend any time with whatsoever. Period.
Barb Caffrey's Blog 