Practicalmadness

I am working on a paper on irony in Postmodernism while experiencing an early '90s kick. As such, I am listening to Alanis Morissette.

Today in the War To Serve Coffee Dammit:

A customer's order of "two small iced coffees with caramel and whipped cream" was led astray by the fact that the girl who took her order is (a) new to her job and (b) an idiot. (No, really, an idiot. I know it sounds far-fetched, but you haven't heard her talking on the telephone.)

So the job of Service Recovery (affectionately referred to as "servicing the customer" by, uh, me) fell to the Supervisor on Duty, who despite much experience in the coffee-slinging arena is new to the wonderful world of management. Before becoming a supervisor for Starbucks this individual has worked for such companies as Unisys and IBM, and is only now learning that consumers (that is to say, of coffee) do not like to be interrogated as to whether or not they are lying.

The appropriate response:

ME (dropping what I'm doing to nobly save the Supervisor from himself): "--justtalkedtothegirlwhotookyourorder -- (breathes) -- and she didn't have any record of your order. I think she just sent it down wrong, or something -- she's still training and didn't ask us for help...I think you want two caramel lattes, right? Coffee, milk and caramel with whipped cream on top? Right? I'll have those right out."

CUSTOMER: "You should be a manager."

Meanwhile, a guy scheduled to come in tomorrow morning to undergo his initiation as a New Partner called to say he was turning down the job. Good for you, buddy. I'll give you a call when I'm turning down the next job I get.