Silly irritations

[Lilsia]

People who use the word "overwhelmed" for every little thing. Your spouse just died, your house is being foreclosed on, and your kid is sick, THAT is overwhelming. Planning which restaurant to eat at while on vacation is nowhere near "overwhelming".

 

[Lilsia]

My in-laws wanted to be called Mamaw and Papaw, so I feel your pain. They are not common terms where we live, nor were they used with my DH's grandparents. We have the first grandchildren and were able to avoid those terms.

My MIL, who's name is Kay, wanted to me called Mama Kay. Umm NO. There is only 1 Mama and that is me. You can be grandma whatever, but my kids are not calling you Mama.

 

[Lilsia]

Agree that one needs to check the bag every time at a fast food place but honestly, if mistakes were made in any other industry at the same rate as they are at drive-thrus, our society would a perilous place indeed. It’s really quite ridiculous how careless they are.

I have not seen any other industry that rushes their workers so much. I don't know what you do for work, but imaging doing it a rate speed that makes it impossible to take the time to make sure what you are doing is right. It is not easy and the fault lies not only with management, but with customers that don't want to wait a normal amount of time for food to be prepared. Think about it, if you ever had to wait more then 2 minutes in a drive through, you get irritated. I don't blame the workers, I blame the society that is that impatient.

 

[Heigh-Ho]

I have not seen any other industry that rushes their workers so much. I don't know what you do for work, but imaging doing it a rate speed that makes it impossible to take the time to make sure what you are doing is right. It is not easy and the fault lies not only with management, but with customers that don't want to wait a normal amount of time for food to be prepared. Think about it, if you ever had to wait more then 2 minutes in a drive through, you get irritated. I don't blame the workers, I blame the society that is that impatient.

I knew someone who worked at multiple Taco Bells over time before transitioning out of fast food. Mistakes were part of it but it wasn't tolerated as if "well this is just how it is the customers want the food fast". The locations she worked at her and her management, and eventually when she became management cared about accuracy. Employees who ended up having too many mistakes were let go. I've been to good Taco Bells (though I haven't been to a Taco Bell in a long time) and I've been to bad ones. The fact that you can figure out which locations have a higher rate of issues and mistakes is telling. The industry nowadays doesn't hold accuracy to be paramount save a few places-Chick-fil-A for instance I rarely have mistakes on that.

Cooking the food shouldn't have as much to do with accuracy. Of course when you have pre-made sandwich and need something that doesn't include what is on that pre-made sandwich you'll have to make that but at the same time if you ask for a chicken sandwich and you get a burger instead that's not related to cooking. Or if you order 2 fries and just get 1 that's also not related to cooking (you shouldn't give the food out to the customer if the order isn't complete).

I do see where you are coming from in the impatience part, true we have largely become impatient but there's a decent amount of mistakes that aren't really attributed to that.

 

[Lilsia]

I knew someone who worked at multiple Taco Bells over time before transitioning out of fast food. Mistakes were part of it but it wasn't tolerated as if "well this is just how it is the customers want the food fast". The locations she worked at her and her management, and eventually when she became management cared about accuracy. Employees who ended up having too many mistakes were let go. I've been to good Taco Bells (though I haven't been to a Taco Bell in a long time) and I've been to bad ones. The fact that you can figure out which locations have a higher rate of issues and mistakes is telling. The industry nowadays doesn't hold accuracy to be paramount save a few places-Chick-fil-A for instance I rarely have mistakes on that.

Cooking the food shouldn't have as much to do with accuracy. Of course when you have pre-made sandwich and need something that doesn't include what is on that pre-made sandwich you'll have to make that but at the same time if you ask for a chicken sandwich and you get a burger instead that's not related to cooking. Or if you order 2 fries and just get 1 that's also not related to cooking (you shouldn't give the food out to the customer if the order isn't complete).

I do see where you are coming from in the impatience part, true we have largely become impatient but there's a decent amount of mistakes that aren't really attributed to that.

Of course they care about accuracy. But you are confusing what they want with what is physically possible. All people make mistakes and sometimes you just have a bad day and can't seem to get things right. Couple that with the pressure to do things faster and faster, mistakes are inevitable. Most people actually do try to do things right. Have you never made a mistake?

 

[Lilsia]

I am adding another pet peeve. Air Fryers. They are not frying anything. They are just convection ovens.

 

[Heigh-Ho]

Of course they care about accuracy. But you are confusing what they want with what is physically possible. All people make mistakes and sometimes you just have a bad day and can't seem to get things right. Couple that with the pressure to do things faster and faster, mistakes are inevitable. Most people actually do try to do things right. Have you never made a mistake?

I never said I didn't make a mistake and it's trite to go that route no offense. You were talking about an industry-wide commonplace that impatience has led to a lot of mistakes. I gave examples of which that is not related. It's not about not ever making a mistake, the poster you quoted was talking about the sheer number of mistakes seemingly allowable of the industry. We tolerate it largely because we want Burger King or McDonald's or Wendy's but poor service can still drive a location out of business and it doesn't mean it should be acceptable to have a large tolerance for mistakes. Get into a general conversation with people and you'll often find out if they go thru fast food enough they know just what locations are better than others. That's a problem. That's not a "have you never made a mistake" thing. It is physically possible to reduce mistakes. No one said anything about removing all mistakes and I even said that from what my friend said mistakes were part of it but if you made too many as an employee you were let go. I do have sympathy for workers here I do it's just laying it on the customer mostly (and partly management) isn't necessarily fair either. Sometimes the place you work at isn't jiving well with you YKWIM?

 

[Heigh-Ho]

When my dad wants to talk on the phone but won't actually call and sends a text message like "Have a nice day," which is his weird dad-speak for "I have something I want to tell you. Call me," then gets mad when I don't call because I think that all he meant was "Have a nice day."

My mom will call, leave a message and say "well just call me back whenever you can no rush" except she usually means call me back now. At least that's just her saying the opposite of what she means but "have a nice day" means call me because I have something to say is just not at all what I would think it means. I get your irritation there!

 

[Lilsia]

I never said I didn't make a mistake and it's trite to go that route no offense. You were talking about an industry-wide commonplace that impatience has led to a lot of mistakes. I gave examples of which that is not related. It's not about not ever making a mistake, the poster you quoted was talking about the sheer number of mistakes seemingly allowable of the industry. We tolerate it largely because we want Burger King or McDonald's or Wendy's but poor service can still drive a location out of business and it doesn't mean it should be acceptable to have a large tolerance for mistakes. Get into a general conversation with people and you'll often find out if they go thru fast food enough they know just what locations are better than others. That's a problem. That's not a "have you never made a mistake" thing. It is physically possible to reduce mistakes. No one said anything about removing all mistakes and I even said that from what my friend said mistakes were part of it but if you made too many as an employee you were let go. I do have sympathy for workers here I do it's just laying it on the customer mostly (and partly management) isn't necessarily fair either. Sometimes the place you work at isn't jiving well with you YKWIM?

I understand what you are saying. But we are talking about the poster who complained that there are mistakes and how "it's not that hard to get an order right". People make mistakes, no matter what the culture of the place is.

 

[Heigh-Ho]

I understand what you are saying. But we are talking about the poster who complained that there are mistakes and how "it's not that hard to get an order right". People make mistakes, no matter what the culture of the place is.

Okay I can totally agree with you there

 

[BlueStarryHat]

My niece always stops the microwave when there's time left, and then doesn't hit 'Clear,' leaving it with the time left. I don't know quite why, but it bugs me and I always hit the 'Clear' button when I find it this way with a little huffing sound just to make sure everyone knows it irritates me.

 

[ronandannette]

I have not seen any other industry that rushes their workers so much. I don't know what you do for work, but imaging doing it a rate speed that makes it impossible to take the time to make sure what you are doing is right. It is not easy and the fault lies not only with management, but with customers that don't want to wait a normal amount of time for food to be prepared. Think about it, if you ever had to wait more then 2 minutes in a drive through, you get irritated. I don't blame the workers, I blame the society that is that impatient.

Nope. I'll happily wait another 2 minutes to get what I ordered. The bolded is patently ridiculous.

 

[paradesintherain]

Nope. I'll happily wait another 2 minutes to get what I ordered. The bolded is patently ridiculous.

At McDonald’s there’s a countdown timer above the drive-thru window and management wants them gone within a set amount of time. And yeah customers do get angry at having to wait. Honestly, all humans make mistakes and there’s a lot of places for error in a drive-thru situation. Did you order correctly? Did the person hear correctly? Did the person select the right car in the double drive-thru? Did the grill make the order correctly? Did the runner bag the right items? Did the bags get out of order for the window person?

It’s certainly disappointing when you get the wrong food, but it’s a fast paced environment and people are bound to make mistakes. Check your bags.

 

[Lilsia]

I never said I didn't make a mistake and it's trite to go that route no offense. You were talking about an industry-wide commonplace that impatience has led to a lot of mistakes. I gave examples of which that is not related. It's not about not ever making a mistake, the poster you quoted was talking about the sheer number of mistakes seemingly allowable of the industry. We tolerate it largely because we want Burger King or McDonald's or Wendy's but poor service can still drive a location out of business and it doesn't mean it should be acceptable to have a large tolerance for mistakes. Get into a general conversation with people and you'll often find out if they go thru fast food enough they know just what locations are better than others. That's a problem. That's not a "have you never made a mistake" thing. It is physically possible to reduce mistakes. No one said anything about removing all mistakes and I even said that from what my friend said mistakes were part of it but if you made too many as an employee you were let go. I do have sympathy for workers here I do it's just laying it on the customer mostly (and partly management) isn't necessarily fair either. Sometimes the place you work at isn't jiving well with you YKWIM?

You "tolerate" the mistakes because you don't want to wait. This is the #1 reason why there are so many mistakes. Speed over accuracy. Trust me when I tell you that no food service worker WANTS to make a mistake, because that ends up being more work for them. But mistakes are much more likely to happen when you are rushed and start slapping food together. Special orders are a bit PITA because you have to go off of your auto pilot and actually stop and concentrate on the order. I think you are confusing my explanation why there are so many issues with me defending it. I am saying that it is very, very hard to be as fast as they expect and be accurate, especially with special orders. Any job you do, if you try to rush it to ridiculous levels, there will be things missed and mistakes happen. Have none of you had a boss want something done in a time frame that it is not physically possible to do? That is what fast food workers deal with every single day. And get crap for it. And as you say, the places that are consistently wrong have a management problem. Like the saying goes, if it is 1 or 2 players, then it's the player. If it's the whole team, then it's the coach.

 

[Lilsia]

Nope. I'll happily wait another 2 minutes to get what I ordered. The bolded is patently ridiculous.

You might be happy to, that does not mean that everyone else is. How many of you that are making these statements are actually working in the food industry right now? Ok then.

 

[mjkacmom]

My MIL, who's name is Kay, wanted to me called Mama Kay. Umm NO. There is only 1 Mama and that is me. You can be grandma whatever, but my kids are not calling you Mama.

My kids called my mom mama, I was fine with it (my oldest started calling her that on her own, started out grandma). She was a second mother to them, I am mom.

 

[Heigh-Ho]

You "tolerate" the mistakes because you don't want to wait. This is the #1 reason why there are so many mistakes. Speed over accuracy. Trust me when I tell you that no food service worker WANTS to make a mistake, because that ends up being more work for them. But mistakes are much more likely to happen when you are rushed and start slapping food together. Special orders are a bit PITA because you have to go off of your auto pilot and actually stop and concentrate on the order. I think you are confusing my explanation why there are so many issues with me defending it. I am saying that it is very, very hard to be as fast as they expect and be accurate, especially with special orders. Any job you do, if you try to rush it to ridiculous levels, there will be things missed and mistakes happen. Have none of you had a boss want something done in a time frame that it is not physically possible to do? That is what fast food workers deal with every single day. And get crap for it. And as you say, the places that are consistently wrong have a management problem. Like the saying goes, if it is 1 or 2 players, then it's the player. If it's the whole team, then it's the coach.

You're kidding right? I don't tolerate the mistakes because I don't want to wait. I'll wait as long as needed if my ordered is correct. It's much more disruptive, time consuming and a waste of gas (if the food is delivered, if we've gotten home without checking, etc) for an order to be wrong. Going back into to get the order correct typically takes more time than having the order right to begin with. I don't want to sacrifice accuracy to get my burger out to me 2 mins quicker. Most people are going to agree with that and because it's more disruptive they just go on home and say forget it I'm not going to hassle with it which only creates that circle.

Tolerating mistakes was because we want our Burger King, we want our McDonald's, Wendy's and more (which I said that already). We don't tolerate mistakes because we actually want mistakes. There's a Burger King by my house, they aren't the best, they often fudge when it comes to inventory like coffee (if it's late enough in the morning they just won't make it despite knowing they can), they'll put sausage instead of bacon on a breakfast sandwich, sometimes they'll miss a fry, and so on and when you look at the receipt no it's isn't us ordering wrong. Their google rating is 3.2 with 402 reviews. But on the other hand management often lets customers keep their coupons to be used at a later date.

People make mistakes of course, and sometimes people make consistent mistakes, sometimes without a discussion that employee will continue to make mistakes either they don't realize it or it's just seen as accepted. I've read in this thread about retail. Some of the places had some stricter policies regarding mistakes. You don't think those people had rushes? Had to do multiple things at once? In fast food you'll often have rushes, but in retail depending on the time of year it could be hours and hours worth of continuous people to help, to ring up. I've worked retail in my past, during Black Friday, during the Christmas rush, during back to school and more. That didn't mean I could just let security/ink tags go unnoticed or that somehow my cash register could be off more and I didn't actually want those things to happen. Ringing people up for over 5 hours straight, yes I know how it feels.

There's shared blame to go around, it's not all the customers, it's not all employees, it's not all management.

You might be happy to, that does not mean that everyone else is. How many of you that are making these statements are actually working in the food industry right now? Ok then.

I gave you the experience of my friend that worked at Taco Bell for years, at multiple locations. So Ok then. My friend would look at you and tell you what you're saying IS part of the problem. She has one of the most sympathetic viewpoints out there, she also has an understanding that customers aren't the scapegoat here, they can be rude, they can be antsy sure. However, she's seen employees who don't consider getting things right the first time to be part of their job, she's seen employees who care very much about getting things right the first time, she's seen how a supportive manager who recognizes mistakes occur but also doesn't want so many mistakes, especially from the same employees (if that is happening), she's also seen managers who are so carefree and when she would be on a shift she would feel awful trying to field the customers who actually came back in for mistakes because she knew the manager wasn't really interested in helping. There's a lot more that can be said but someone can have sympathy for those within a field and yet be able to see cons to it. It's okay to have both

But I think we've hashed this out enough, so let's call a truce and enjoy our day and get back to those silly irritations instead of more serious conversations!! I know I will

 

[Cogswel_Cogs]

Oh and don't get me started.
It's The Prom
not Prom!