Does this bug anyone else?

[Midlodemocrat]

I went to Wendy's drive-thru to get an iced tea and a baked potato. I pull up am greeted with the normal pleasantries; Welcome to Wendy's, how may I help you?

Me: I would like a large unsweet iced tea, please

Speaker: Anything else?

Me: (silently - yeah, dumbass, if you would let me fucking finish) Yes, I would like a baked potato.

Speaker: So a large sweet tea is it?

Me: No.

Silence.

Me: Large Unsweet tea and a baked potato.

Speaker: That'll be however much it was.

Why don't they let you finish ordering before they jump in with the 'Anything else'? It's so inefficient because you have to repeat yourself a dozen times. When I have a car full of kids, we don't do fast food. They'd starve before Johnny Moran got the order correct.

[graywarrior]

1. Because they hate their job and they probably hate you.

[Midlodemocrat]

2. Probably.

I hate them, too. :rofl: All except the lovely woman from Pakistan who ALWAYS gets my tea correct. Her, I love.

[graywarrior]

4. I hate all customer service people.

But at the same time, I feel sorry for them.

[Midlodemocrat]

5. I don't.

This Wendy's is pretty good about hiring the high school kids which is nice. And, it's the policy of this store, obviously, because everytime I go, it's the same thing. Just let me finish the order, fer cryin' out loud.

I don't notice it at any other fast food place and I admit I do go to a lot of them because I drink a ton of iced tea.

Oh, and you're not a freak. :hug: :rofl:

[graywarrior]

6. Thank you!

But am I normal?

[Midlodemocrat]

7. Well, one thing for sure.

I wish my grey hair looked as good as yours. I have two enormous brown streaks down both sides of my head that refuse to grey. So, haircolor, cutting, highlights are how I spend a lot of my time. :eyes:

[graywarrior]

8. Well, after watching Oprah yesterday, I was tempted to color it red.

[LeftyFingerPop]

3. How dare a young person who tries to better themself by.....

working at a crapola minimum wage job ruin our day by not saying the exactly right thing.

[SammyWinstonJack]

34. ...

:thumbsup:

[S n o w b a l l]

42. ....

:applause:

[Midlodemocrat]

43. Wow. What a shock.

:eyes:

[S n o w b a l l]

46. Why, because I happen to agree with him?

Bitching about a kid at the drive through who is just trying to do their job is pretty petty.

When you said you'd like an iced tea, please....that sounds like you were through ordering.

Sorry, I just have a problem with people who find such stupid things to bitch about. You have kids...I'd think you'd be a little more compassionate then calling someone a dumbass (even if it was just under your breath) to some poor kid who has the incentive to work at a minimum wage job....the gall of them taking up one more second of your precious time.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

9. You're just mad because they don't sell boxed wine.

:P

[Midlodemocrat]

10. Hey, I could go to North Carolina and hit the Brew Thru.

:rofl:

:hi: handsome! Good to see you!

[Starbucks Anarchist]

11. You, too!

:hi:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

12. i think (and i am totally theorizing here) that with NO nonverbal cues, its hard for them to gage

when you are done talking. so they are interjecting questions to figure out whether you are done or not.

thats my best guess

[Midlodemocrat]

14. I just find it irritating because it's such a time waster.

I mean, don't people usually order their entire order at once? Like I'll have a Whopper and a large coke?

At this Wendy's, you barely get one thing out before the person behind the mic is saying 'anything else'?

It drives me batty, but the owner is very kind to the community, so I like to support them. Plus, their iced tea is the bomb.

[Chan790]

44. from a food service worker:

No...some people order something, then look to see what else they want. I had a customer once take 6 minutes to order two coffees and a muffin. I feel your pain, but we're not the cause of it, stupid people are.

[Midlodemocrat]

45. 6 minutes? Seriously?

I figure the only good part about 'fast food' is the 'fast' part. You know, you order, you pay, you go.

I can't imagine taking that long to order. I know what I want when I pull in. I usually pick the restaurant based on what I feel like having.

[Chan790]

47. As my manager says:

"It's not fast food, it's Starbucks."

6 minutes is nothing. I have people come to the counter, order their beverages, go browse pastries for 3 minutes, come back to order food and leave again to look at beans or retail and expect I'm going to hold their register transaction tying up my till for 10 minutes or more while I have a line.

[Gormy Cuss]

13. Unsweetened ice team? Would that be the box wine team or the bunco team?

:+

Your Wendy's experience sounds like the staff are trying to meet a corporate efficiency standard.

[Midlodemocrat]

16. Ice team? What are you talking about.

:P

You're probably right. It just bugs me. I had to keep repeating myself and I really was in a hurry because I had to pee.

[SOteric]

15. If they were smart, well-mannered,

experienced and self-confident, they'd no doubt work for your local rocket scientist or an apprentice brain surgeon or something.

Actually, I used to think this phenomenon rude, now I just think that they've reached the upper limit of their attention spans. Thirteen seconds in to the conversation they're done with you.

[Midlodemocrat]

18. True. The owner is good to the community, which is why I frequent

there and after seeing all of the training TM had to go through for her extremely part time job at Rita's Water Ice, the corporate trainers must all be doing hallucinogens.

She had to take a six hour online test about flavors. Things have really changed since I was a kid. Back then, if you showed up in clean clothes, they made you the manager.

[malta blue]

17. next time...

instead of ordering anything at the beginning, just say "That will be it"

I wonder what s/he would do.... :rofl:

[Midlodemocrat]

19. No, thanks. I don't want anything. Nothing at all. Just browsing.

:rofl:

That would be so frickin' funny. :rofl:

I'll get TM to do it. She's always up for something like that and half the kids who work there are friends.

[malta blue]

20. OMG - imagine the vanload of TM and her friends

doing it....

:rofl:

I pity the fool...

[flvegan]

21. Your mistake: "please" before you were completely done ordering.

I think "please" is a trigger word to them that they only hear at the very end of an order. 8 hours a day of that conditioning would probably make the "anything else" an automatic response.

You overpolite potato hugging hippie.

[Midlodemocrat]

22. I never thought of that.

Next time, I just say "give me a large unsweet iced tea you motherfuckin' idiot" and see what happens.

:rofl:

And, the potato was delicious!!! Salt, pepper and chives. :woohoo:

[flvegan]

24. They'll still think that's the end of the order.

It's all about the "and".

:P

[Midlodemocrat]

25. That's the problem, I never get to the 'and'

:cry:

I think I might be drive through impaired.

[last_texas_dem]

23. Ordering in drive-throughs just tends to be awkward in general

They may do what they do because of people like me. I tend to say an item and then wait until I hear some sort of response from them before ordering something else because I'm trying to make sure that they've gotten down the first thing that I said. But I'm sure they're sometimes sitting there on the other end going, "Why isn't this dude saying anything?"

[Midlodemocrat]

26. LOL. You could have a point.

[marzipanni]

27. Midlo, you've got to watch this!

My husband was on the computer so I was looking at DU on the Wii and reading your post out loud to my 13-yr.-old son. He jumped up and said, "Remember this?", and found this funny Youtube video about ordering at a drive-thru-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez8S5BqaNlw

[Midlodemocrat]

28. OMG. That was hysterical.

:rofl:

[deucemagnet]

29. No "and then"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYwDV-7uDyc

[Midlodemocrat]

30. I just saw that. marzipanni posted the same link.

Very, very funny. :rofl:

[deucemagnet]

31. Damn! Beat me to it by 19 minutes!

I must be getting slow in my old age. :crazy:

[theredpen]

32. Drive-through operators are judged on brutal metrics

They are times from the moment a car is detected to the moment the sale is rung up. If they don't meet average time thresholds, they can lose their crappy jobs, which they obviously desperately need or they'd do something else.

[Midlodemocrat]

33. Understandable, but this process of interrupting and not allowing me to complete

my order slows things WAY down. They have to repeat themselves, I have to repeat myself, you get the idea.

[theredpen]

35. Good point, but we're not talking about experts in logistics here.

[Dangerously Amused]

36. It doesn't bother me. But if it did,

...I would cut to the chase by politely saying something like: "I want two things. I want an unsweetened iced tea, and a baked potato(e). Got it?"

[datasuspect]

37. no

one way to respect the humanity of others is by trying to be patient with them. realizing that i am not the center of the universe enables me to make allowances for the existence of people that some might consider "untermenschen" by virtue of their employment, resources, or net worth.

[Midlodemocrat]

39. Yeah, cause that's totally what I said.

:eyes:

[datasuspect]

40. no one said you said that

it's not all about you.

i merely stated my opinion.

[Parche]

38. WHY DIDNT YOU ORDER BOXED WINE INSTEAD?

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

:hi:
:hug:

[Midlodemocrat]

41. Does Wendy's serve that?

:rofl:

:hi:

:hug:

:loveya: