CHOOSE RANT

Title:   Burger Time Day:    July 19th, 1999 Author:  Ruiner				I was sitting, trying to decide a topic for this upcoming (actually it was slightly late if you keep to my recent schedule) rant, but nothing would come. Things were rather complacent in my life. Sure I'm moving and that's a big step, but there's no meat there. At least not yet there isn't. Nothing in my life was particularly cool enough to write about, and nothing had irritated me enough to spew venom about it. That is, until me and some of the guys went to get some lunch the other day. /Insert dreadful music here / So we go to Wendy's to get some burgers. Few enough people read this for me to worry about mincing names. And I'll firmly admit that I love Wendy's burgers. If I have to get something I want to eat along the lines of burgers, I go fast food to either Wendy's or Burger King. The other burgers just don't compare to my taste buds. Of course, nothing beats cooking out on the gas grill, but I'm talking the fast food industry here. In particular I've always liked the special burgers that ol' Dave Thomas cooks up, like the Dave's Deluxe, the Cheddar Lover's burger, and the Smokey Bacon Cheeseburger. In particular I like it when they do grilled onions. "I'm sorry, we don't carry that anymore." I was confused at first. They had just reinstituted that burger on the menu a few weeks ago. In fact, I had one less than a week before. I understand that it's a special item and that these things come and go, but the point was: it was right there on the menu. Now believe it or not I'm not a really confrontational guy. I don't like to cause problems in other people's worlds. But I had to ask why they didn't have it anymore. Again: "We don't carry that anymore." So I say, 'But it's on your menu.' And then the truly friendly (sarcasm implied for the ranting-impaired) woman beside her chimes in: "It's not on our menu anymore." As if I'm making it up. Yeah I wanted my burger, but please let's be reasonable. She made it sound like I strolled in and ordered a bucket of chicken. And I was getting irate. "It's right there on your menu." And I pointed up at the burger in question. And it took every ounce of strength and resolve I had to not ask her if she could flipping read. So what does she do? I'll tell ya in a minute. As an aside, I don't mean a great amount of disrespect for the workers in the fast food industry. I know it's a crap job and sometimes ya gotta do what's neccesary to get the bills paid. They get out there and work and they deal with the unforgiving public, many of which are blessedly ignorant of what's involved in this job. I couldn't do it. Hell I love the fast food industry in many respects because unfortunately that's how I get fed most times. Without them I'd have to learn to cook. But I too worked in customer service for a while. And I learned the cardinal rules, such as: The customer may not always be right, but you'd better damn sure make them feel like they're important. Because they are. And so, what did this joyful woman do to alleviate my problem? She promptly turned, went up to the sign, took it down and removed the offending label from it. No apologies. No 'I'm sorry sir, can we please get you something else on the menu?' Nothing of the sort. Instead it was more of a moral triumph against the nefarious Customer Man Who Wants Something We Don't Want To Make. I was offended and flabbergasted. I couldn't even laugh when the biatch broke part of the sign she was struggling to change. It was just too much for my system to handle. I turned back to the guys, who both had that look of hunger in their eyes, but didn't seem to share the anger running rampant through my veins. We had been there in line for a while compared to most fast food places, and burgers were what we wanted. Had I driven, I'd have told the guys we didn't need to eat there. But it wasn't my place, and yes I had lost the battle. So putting on my angry face, I ordered a different burger and acted like a good little boy. But I knew then that I had the subject of my next rant. And a rant indeed. So I'm trying to figure out how to pursue this. When it boils down to it, it's simply a case of bad customer service. I claim no stupid false advertising stuff. And realistically, if they don't have the right stuff, they might have had problems making the sauteed onions that I so love. And how would they charge it on the system if they didn't have an idiot button set up for the item? My argument is on the manner in which it was handled. I should have taken it to the manager, but my luck that woman probably was the manager on duty. I perused the website and I'm still considering doing the consumer complaint thing, taking it to a higher level. But why? What does it matter I suppose? Will I boycott Wendy's? Probably not, I like the burgers too much. Ending this in some twisted humor, there was a contest on the Wendy's website where if you win, Dave Thomas cooks burgers for you and your family or something lame like that. And you get money and a trip to watch the filming of his silly-ass commercials that paint him to be an utter simpleton. I mean, please, the guy has ties to Duke University. He may not have attended, but the Fuqua School of Business is all about him. How much money has this man made? He ain't no idiot. But anyways, maybe I should enter. You get to write something saying why you are the biggest burger lover in the world. I'd do it just to get dave there and say "Make me all those specialty burgers that your biach-ass discontinued. Yep, get out those sauteed onions and that melted cheddar cheese. That barbeque-ranch chicken sandwich from 1998. All that stuff that's much better than your standard fare. Okay, well you can leave out that Carolina Classic cos' it sucks, not that you'll ever remove it from our menus in North Carolina. But yeah, get to cookin' !" Brian's: Where we do it your way, unless it's a weekend or you tick me off, or you look kind of funny. And August. If it's August, you don't get crap, you hear me? B.Mooney