OK, I'll admit: sometimes I'm patient to a fault. If waiting is called for, I'm your man. I'm seldom in such a hurry that I get impatient. And sometimes I get hooked: I get curious about just how long the wait will be, and so I have to keep waiting to find out.
Case in point: last night, it was hot (gee, there's news); and so on the way home, I wanted a cold shake. So I stopped at
Steak n Shake in Grandville (link provided as a customer service advisory), and ordered a large banana shake. That's all.
Now I like Steak n Shake. Good food, great shakes. A little pricey, but not bad. But I sometimes find them a bit slow.
Well, last night, they gave slow a whole new meaning.
It took five minutes for the car ahead of me to get served. Considering that the little digital display said their total was only $9.71, that seemed a little long. But again, Steak n Shake can be slow. (To be fair, in part that's because their food is always, truly made to order.)
Then I pulled up to the window. There was no window guy there; but he showed up shortly and took my payment.
Then he left the window. And I began The Wait.
Again: I can be obsessive about waiting sometimes. And I had finally figured out the air conditioning in
the loaner car, so I was enjoying cool air for the first time in a week. I had no place else to be, so I didn't mind waiting.
At six minutes — not six minutes after I ordered, six minutes after I reached the window, or eleven minutes after I ordered — somebody put my shake and another shake on the counter near the window.
At eight minutes, I was firmly fixed in The Waiting Game. And Rule One of The Waiting Game is: you never remind them that you're waiting. That would interfere with the experiment.
At ten minutes, I began to wonder if they were being robbed or something. Still no one at the window. I also wondered if anyone would apologize for the wait. Rule Two of The Waiting Game is: you never
expect an apology; but they get bonus points if you get one.
At twelve minutes, I saw people leaving with that tear-off-the-tie-and-pull-out-the-shirt-tails behavior that's indicative of workers getting off shift, and I thought:
what business do they have getting off shift when I've been waiting twelve minutes for a freaking shake that has been on the counter for six minutes? But Rule Three of The Waiting Game is: you never lose patience. You chose to play, and this is how the game is played.
At fifteen minutes, I decided I was going to ask to speak to a manager. Rule Four of The Waiting Game is: you never complain, and you never ask to speak to the manager. You chose to play, and this is how the game is played.
But fifteen minutes for a freaking shake?
At nineteen minutes, a manager came up to the window, looked at the food queue, and said, "Oh, my God! I can't believe this!" See, many fast food joints set a performance goal based on how fast orders are fulfilled. A local
Taco Bell keeps their average wait on a white board; and every time I've checked, it's between one and two minutes. So this guy just watched his entire performance review fly out the window (the only thing that "flew" out the window last night).
Then he left the window to check it out, and to chew people out.
But he came back, quickly enough; and he apologized before I could complain. Bonus points for that; but really, did he have any choice?
But then he handed me
both shakes
and a bag of fries, and said it was all at no charge; but I handed the extra food back, and explained that all I ordered was a banana shake. So he checked, and saw that I had already paid for my shake. So he took my name, and said my next meal was on the house. And he apologized again. I told him it was OK. I told him that every staff needs a teachable moment now and then (a mistake so egregious that the manager uses it to teach a lesson, often involving a fair amount of yelling and chastising), and this was going to be a big one.
We'll see if they learned from it: when I
pick up my car today, I'll have to go right by that Steak n Shake. Anyone care to place a bet on whether they know I'm supposed to get a free meal?
You chose to play, and this is how the game is played. You wait.
But nineteen minutes for a freaking shake?
