A while back, I had a gift certificate to Chili's. We'd always liked the chicken fried steak there so one Friday evening, we decided to try out the take out venue. No waiting, no noise! Just call, place an order, take it and eat in the quiet comfort of your own home.
Just swell, we thought.
Upon arriving, Shawn waited in the car while I excitedly and hungrily hopped inside the door and gave my name. I noticed a tip jar atop the take-out counter. How odd, I thought. Why a tip jar? Are you gonna bring it to my house? Are you gonna wander along side my own personal kitchen table and occasionally ask, "How is everything?"
Just goes to prove that my theory on the fact that tip jars are EVERYWHERE!!!
Here's a tip: Don't beg for money when you earn more than minimum wage.
So it turns out that the chick at the counter is having a hard time finding my order. She fumbles around, asks my name about 30 times, asks what I ordered about 27 times. After many, many minuets of fumbling, it is figured out that my order does not, in fact, exist at all. "Did you call it in?" I'm asked.
Uh, yeah.
We'll make you a new order and give you half off your bill, they tell me. I run out, tell Shawn it's going to be another 20 minuets and we all say OK. I lean against the wall and sigh heavily. The chick next to me has been waiting longer than I. She says they lost her order and eventually walks out.
Some dude comes in with a Chili's bag saying, "I didn't order this." He'd ordered a steak & shrimp and when he got home, discovered a chicken fried steak. His wife's name is Misty--also my name.
Ah ha!! The screw-up has been outed. The dude is all, "Oh it's my fault, I should've checked it before I left, blah, blah, blah....." He is apologizing to them! Repeatedly!!! What, oh what, did his mother do to him? He didn't even get a partial refund.
After a half hour of waiting, much confusion and frustration I got the entire order for free. OK, that makes it slightly better. Though, it certainly does not make me want to give a tip.
About two or three weeks later, we decide to give it another go. We called and placed our order of two chicken fried steaks and Shawn took off in the car.
Apparently, Chili's made only one steak dinner. "We'll make you another," they say.
"No," Shawn says, "you'll make me two. I'm not taking home one cold steak!"
So they made two and I suppose because of Shawn's demand that they make two steaks so he wouldn't have one cold, they offered no discount. The card is used up and I couldn't be happier about it. Next time I'm on that side of town, I may just drop by and place a note into the tip jar at the Chili's To Go counter:
TIP: Write down orders. Don't lose them.
I suppose that's really two tips, but I'm feeling generous.
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