What did you do today, Kukla? Part 1
Jan. 25th, 2013 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kukla_tkoSo it wasn't just a day of delightfully strange surprises.
There were some horrifyingly awful surprises, too, but not my drama.
I cruised through the Wendy's drive-through on my way to Client 1. I figured that arriving full of delicious food was going to be WAY better than arriving slightly hungry and getting grumpier.
It was lunch time, so the drive-through had a few cars in it. *shrug*
I order my food, and come around the corner. The car in front of me is stopped at the pay window (not to be confused with the food window) and I settle in with some Bejeweled Blitz on my Ipad.
Suddenly, a stream of obscenities begins to flow from the car in front of me like a fire hose. The driver of the car proceeds to use the F-bomb, the MF-bomb, the "C" word, and a reference to a garden implement.
And I want to be very clear here: This was not using the profanity to punctuate her sentences, as in "I want my MF burger the way I MF want it" these were all being directed to the poor soul standing at the window, as in "YOU MF! Blah blah blah YOU HO!"
All at maximum volume and full throttle vitriol.
I'm left stunned thinking, "What the bleeding hell is this crap?!"
I try to figure out what would cause a perfectly rational human being to start screaming like this and am able to parse out that the issue in question is in relation to an extra piece of cheese.
Extra. Piece. Of. Cheese.
I am now struggling to comprehend what possible cheese emergency would cause a person to scream like this at a *cashier*. Clearly I am not privy to the universe where this is commonplace.
Still boggled, when the trash factory in front of me moves forward, I roll up to the window and that poor cashier says, "That will be (my bill), please." She's clearly a bit shaken but is *doing her job* and doing it properly. I smiled at her and handed her my card and thanked her when she took it. I was still trying to understand what the hell happened, but I wanted to be sure to be extra nice to the poor cashier.
And that is when the world turned upside down for me. All of the above I can chalk up to a completely random encounter with a person who clearly had much more drama in their life than I can even conceive of. People will snap and do weird things for no reason. It does happen. What we all have to do when it does is to breathe, reset, and treat each other with kindness and compassion.
So while I'm sitting at the window, I hear the young lady's manager *CHEWING HER OUT* over the previous incident.
WHAT WHAT WHAT!?
Now, I would like to tell you that I then shot the manager dead with my mind bullets, or that I wafted my sexy pheromones into the store to calm everyone down, or that I climbed through the window and gave money to everyone except the manager. I have powers, it is true. However, I was still reeling from the bizarre ranting of the Trash Factory, and therefore was left blinking in astonishment at the manager who continued to chew that woman out *in front of me, the customer*.
Seeing that I was still there, the manager finished with, "And tell that lady THANK YOU!"
She turned to me, clearly just barely holding it together, managed a weak smile and said, Thank you ma'am..." I said, "You're very welcome. Try to have a good day," and I drove through.
I got my order, and since I always order weird crap I double-checked it. It was correct, so I drove away. I did need to get on the road as my client was in Wentzville and I needed to hustle.
But the more I thought about the encounter, the more enraged I became. I suddenly had this large feeling growing in my chest. It is called, "That is NOT OK." So I took my opportunity to glance at my receipt. It did indeed have the phone number on it, so I dialed them up on my cell phone.
Yes.
This incident pushed me hard enough to have a phone conversation while driving. Sue me.
Guess who picks up the phone? It's that manager. In my best pleasant phone voice (and you KNOW I give good phone) I asked for the manager and she snarls, "Yeah, I'm the manager." Here's the conversation:
Me: Hi there, my name is (Kukla), and I just came through your drive through-
Her: Yes Ma'am, what can I do for you?
Me: I was in line behind the woman who was verbally abusing that poor young lady-
Her: Yes ma'am, I'm sorry about that--
Me: Excuse me, but I really want to mention that I heard the whole conversation and I am absolutely certain that the cashier did nothing to provoke that verbal attack, and when I pulled up to pay for my order I was horrified when I heard that cashier being chewed out for--
Her: Well, Ma'am, I was trying to explain to her that she has to calm down. You don't know her, she'll go off on somebody and I was just trying to calm her down.
Me: I come through this window on a regular basis, and I have been waited on by this cashier before, and I can assure you that she is *always* very professional and courteous.
Her: Well, that's why I was talking to her about it.
Me: I would like to be very clear on this point. I heard a customer verbally abuse your cashier, for no reason. I heard that customer call her names and treat her terribly. I pull up to hear you chewing her out afterward!
Her: Well--
Me: No, please let me have my say. I am a customer and there is no reason and no excuse for chewing out a subordinate in front of a customer. If she did something wrong, which she clearly didn't, you should pull her aside to yell at her, away from the customers.
Her: I wasn't yelling at her.
Me: Yes, you were. What's more, the appropriate response to that previous customer was for a member of management to STEP UP and handle the complaint of the angry customer and allowing that poor cashier to step aside for a moment to regain her composure, NOT leaving her to be verbally abused and THEN admonished for not being cheerful enough for the other customers!
Her: Ma'am, I wanted to make sure she did her job so that the other customers wouldn't be offended.
Me: The only thing that offended me was your behavior. What you did was NOT OK.
Her: Well, what can I do for you?
Me: I want you to relay a message for me. I want you to tell that cashier that she did a spectacular job dealing with that nasty incident, and that I heard what that other customer said to her and that it was totally inappropriate. I want you to tell her how much I appreciate her courtesy and friendliness every time that I come through there, and that I look forward to seeing her in the future when I come through here.
I may have been out of line, but I really couldn't live with myself if I had stayed silent. I'm also tempted to "Call Corporate" on that manager, but I think perhaps that I don't want a bunch of crap to come down the pipe to those poor employees. However, this does suddenly explain some of the random fails I have experienced at that Wendy's, particularly if THAT was the store manager and not just a random manager-on-duty.
The moral of this story is clear:
Be kind to everyone you meet. Each of them is fighting a great battle of their own.
There were some horrifyingly awful surprises, too, but not my drama.
I cruised through the Wendy's drive-through on my way to Client 1. I figured that arriving full of delicious food was going to be WAY better than arriving slightly hungry and getting grumpier.
It was lunch time, so the drive-through had a few cars in it. *shrug*
I order my food, and come around the corner. The car in front of me is stopped at the pay window (not to be confused with the food window) and I settle in with some Bejeweled Blitz on my Ipad.
Suddenly, a stream of obscenities begins to flow from the car in front of me like a fire hose. The driver of the car proceeds to use the F-bomb, the MF-bomb, the "C" word, and a reference to a garden implement.
And I want to be very clear here: This was not using the profanity to punctuate her sentences, as in "I want my MF burger the way I MF want it" these were all being directed to the poor soul standing at the window, as in "YOU MF! Blah blah blah YOU HO!"
All at maximum volume and full throttle vitriol.
I'm left stunned thinking, "What the bleeding hell is this crap?!"
I try to figure out what would cause a perfectly rational human being to start screaming like this and am able to parse out that the issue in question is in relation to an extra piece of cheese.
Extra. Piece. Of. Cheese.
I am now struggling to comprehend what possible cheese emergency would cause a person to scream like this at a *cashier*. Clearly I am not privy to the universe where this is commonplace.
Still boggled, when the trash factory in front of me moves forward, I roll up to the window and that poor cashier says, "That will be (my bill), please." She's clearly a bit shaken but is *doing her job* and doing it properly. I smiled at her and handed her my card and thanked her when she took it. I was still trying to understand what the hell happened, but I wanted to be sure to be extra nice to the poor cashier.
And that is when the world turned upside down for me. All of the above I can chalk up to a completely random encounter with a person who clearly had much more drama in their life than I can even conceive of. People will snap and do weird things for no reason. It does happen. What we all have to do when it does is to breathe, reset, and treat each other with kindness and compassion.
So while I'm sitting at the window, I hear the young lady's manager *CHEWING HER OUT* over the previous incident.
WHAT WHAT WHAT!?
Now, I would like to tell you that I then shot the manager dead with my mind bullets, or that I wafted my sexy pheromones into the store to calm everyone down, or that I climbed through the window and gave money to everyone except the manager. I have powers, it is true. However, I was still reeling from the bizarre ranting of the Trash Factory, and therefore was left blinking in astonishment at the manager who continued to chew that woman out *in front of me, the customer*.
Seeing that I was still there, the manager finished with, "And tell that lady THANK YOU!"
She turned to me, clearly just barely holding it together, managed a weak smile and said, Thank you ma'am..." I said, "You're very welcome. Try to have a good day," and I drove through.
I got my order, and since I always order weird crap I double-checked it. It was correct, so I drove away. I did need to get on the road as my client was in Wentzville and I needed to hustle.
But the more I thought about the encounter, the more enraged I became. I suddenly had this large feeling growing in my chest. It is called, "That is NOT OK." So I took my opportunity to glance at my receipt. It did indeed have the phone number on it, so I dialed them up on my cell phone.
Yes.
This incident pushed me hard enough to have a phone conversation while driving. Sue me.
Guess who picks up the phone? It's that manager. In my best pleasant phone voice (and you KNOW I give good phone) I asked for the manager and she snarls, "Yeah, I'm the manager." Here's the conversation:
Me: Hi there, my name is (Kukla), and I just came through your drive through-
Her: Yes Ma'am, what can I do for you?
Me: I was in line behind the woman who was verbally abusing that poor young lady-
Her: Yes ma'am, I'm sorry about that--
Me: Excuse me, but I really want to mention that I heard the whole conversation and I am absolutely certain that the cashier did nothing to provoke that verbal attack, and when I pulled up to pay for my order I was horrified when I heard that cashier being chewed out for--
Her: Well, Ma'am, I was trying to explain to her that she has to calm down. You don't know her, she'll go off on somebody and I was just trying to calm her down.
Me: I come through this window on a regular basis, and I have been waited on by this cashier before, and I can assure you that she is *always* very professional and courteous.
Her: Well, that's why I was talking to her about it.
Me: I would like to be very clear on this point. I heard a customer verbally abuse your cashier, for no reason. I heard that customer call her names and treat her terribly. I pull up to hear you chewing her out afterward!
Her: Well--
Me: No, please let me have my say. I am a customer and there is no reason and no excuse for chewing out a subordinate in front of a customer. If she did something wrong, which she clearly didn't, you should pull her aside to yell at her, away from the customers.
Her: I wasn't yelling at her.
Me: Yes, you were. What's more, the appropriate response to that previous customer was for a member of management to STEP UP and handle the complaint of the angry customer and allowing that poor cashier to step aside for a moment to regain her composure, NOT leaving her to be verbally abused and THEN admonished for not being cheerful enough for the other customers!
Her: Ma'am, I wanted to make sure she did her job so that the other customers wouldn't be offended.
Me: The only thing that offended me was your behavior. What you did was NOT OK.
Her: Well, what can I do for you?
Me: I want you to relay a message for me. I want you to tell that cashier that she did a spectacular job dealing with that nasty incident, and that I heard what that other customer said to her and that it was totally inappropriate. I want you to tell her how much I appreciate her courtesy and friendliness every time that I come through there, and that I look forward to seeing her in the future when I come through here.
I may have been out of line, but I really couldn't live with myself if I had stayed silent. I'm also tempted to "Call Corporate" on that manager, but I think perhaps that I don't want a bunch of crap to come down the pipe to those poor employees. However, this does suddenly explain some of the random fails I have experienced at that Wendy's, particularly if THAT was the store manager and not just a random manager-on-duty.
The moral of this story is clear:
Be kind to everyone you meet. Each of them is fighting a great battle of their own.
