The Inversion Formula for Shitty Service

Familiarity apparently does breed contempt.

What is the deal with going into a lunch place for lunch and then having to just about tackle the waitron to get some damned service?

There are a few restaurants that folks in my office regularly hit up for lunch. Yesterday we went to 99 Bottles, a pub that actually has some pretty good food and excellent burgers. And a place that I've been to at least four times in the last month. Sure, it helps that I have a merchant discount card that drops 20% off the tab but that is almost always translated into a much better tip.

Anyway, P and I went there for lunch, sat down, got menus pretty quickly and then waited and waited and waited for the server girl to get to us. Yes, she had a couple of other tables and she was keeping up with them. But it became apparent that she was ignoring us, walking right by us when we were obviously ready to get some damned food going. After she passed our table for the 6th time without even a hint of stopping to help us, I called out to her with a polite, "Excuse me." She ignored that and kept right on walking to the bar for some drinks. No stopping and turning around to let us know she'd be right with us. No nothing.

So I said to P and loudly enough for other people to hear, "Fuck this, I don't have time to wait around for shitty service," or something to that effect. And we got up and walked out. Of course, I was hoping that she'd ask us what the problem was so that I could let her know that she's a fucking ignorant waitress who does a shitty job and just lost any hope of ever having me as a good customer again.

Instead, we went to the Palomar, where it was a freaking sauna but the food was excellent. It was a much better lunch though it cost easily twice as much as the lunch at 99 costs.

And now, the next time we go in there, if this irritating woman waits on us again I'm going to let her know that she forfeited any hope of a tip this time around because of what she pulled on us yesterday. If she does a reasonably decent job then I'll resume tipping her on the next go around but she gets zero next time, not even a penny (though that's more insulting than nothing sometimes).

Actually, I found an email address on their site and dropped a note to it explaining what had happened. I don't want people to lose their jobs but I do think, if I were running the place, that I'd want to know when my customers were getting terrible service from my staff.

We'll see if they write back.

[Update: I just a really very nice letter from the contact at 99 Bottles thanking me for taking the time to let him know what had happened and that too often there's no way to know what happened. I appreciate his position and that's why I wrote him, not to get a free lunch out of the deal although I was not especially surprised by the offer of a lunch on them. Too often no one lets a company know where they fail to deliver good service or good food or something and while I'm sure he wasn't over joyed at getting the email, it will hopefully go to making the restuarant a better place to eat. And in my own small way, I helped to effect a positive change.]

Tangentally, I got a gift card from PetSmart the other day because of the bullshit we went through with them. They even doubled the original offer so its now actually a pretty nice offering.

Two More Things
P has her second interview in a few hours and I'm hopeful that she'll be starting up this new job soon. It'll be good for her to get some structure back into her days.

And she picked up something I've wanted for a while now because its cool. Its a barrel for a washing machine and I'm sure most people out there are like "What's the big deal with that?" It can be used as a portable fire pit complete with lighting and a grill could very easily be laid across the top of it and we could cook over it without any trouble. I think we'll be picking up some wood this evening and trying it out soon. But the first couple of burns will not be involving food, they'll just be to make sure that all the paint's been burned off.

I can't wait to try it out once we get it set up properly with some heat shield underneath it or it will scorch the concrete patio.