Sunday, June 29, 2008

how not to serve the customer

Tonight my friend and I went to eat at the Ale House in Hollywood. Along with dinner, we ordered a pitcher of beer. When we got the bill, I noticed that we had been charged for 2 pitchers when we had only ordered (and been served) one pitcher. No big deal, right?

Wrong!

When I pointed out the mistake to the waitress, she immediately became defensive and basically accused me of lying. After a couple minutes of arguing she even said, "I'm not trying to call you a liar or anything, but I just don't know how I could have rang one up by mistake." By about this point I was livid about being accused of lying. I calmly asked her if I could speak to a manager. She then said that she would take the pitcher off, but she just didn't see how she could have made a mistake. I repeated my desire to talk it over with the manager and she mumbled that she was going to take the pitcher off, but she's trying to figure out where the mistake was made.

Several minutes later a manager came up and asked us about it. He immediately agreed to remove the extra pitcher. I have the feeling that he came over to us to try and feel us out more than anything. What should have been a 30 second correction ended up lasting over 35 minutes. After the manager came we waited another 15 minutes for the waitress to come back and I still had to ask her again for our check. She then continued to try and confront me.

You know, I understand that people in the service business probably have people try to swindle them out of paying for drinks all the time. Heck, I was a bartender for a couple of years. But come on. In the end, we were talking about a $5 pitcher of beer. I was never upset about the over-ring of $5, but it was all about being accused of lying and essentially stealing.

When it was all said and done, we ended up paying for exactly what we ordered, we left a $2 tip (which I feel was generous), and we got a 1-800 customer service hotline number which we were encouraged to call (we will be rewarded with a voucher for a free desert for our trouble). They also received an email to their corporate office, and were featured in a couple of blog posts. And I'll never be going back there... not even for my free desert.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

You know that papaya tree I told you about?

My landlords came over to take care of it yesterday. Guess what they did with it....

They put it back where it was! It's standing back upright in the ground like nothing happened. They put a couple of stakes in the ground to give it a little support, but that's about it. It's kinda cool because I like the tree (especially when it gives me fresh papayas for breakfast), but I'm not too sure about parking in front of it anymore!

When's the next storm supposed to roll in?

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Saved by the fence

A summer thunderstorm rolled through our are this afternoon, bringing wind gusts of around 60 m.p.h. One of the papaya trees in my front yard didn't make it. My car is really grateful that there is a fence in front of it!

Bye bye babies

The lady who originally owned the bunnies that live in my yard came and took the babies. She said that she's worried that my landlord will get mad at her because the bunnies will eat all their plants. Not true at all. James said that he was going to try and trap the babies and give them to someone who wanted them for pets because he didn't want to see them killed by a car or predator.

While the lady was over here she basically told Lynlee that the bunnies were her pets and they lived in her yard until we started feeding them. Then the bunnies came to our yard and they don't go to her yard as much any more. WTF? What sane person would try to keep bunnies loose in their yard. HELLO! They aren't even spayed and I would seriously doubt it if they've ever had shots. She's had over 2 years to take control of her "pets" and she's just let them run loose.

Now she's come and taken the babies, probably just because they are cute little babies. Mind you she still hasn't even attempted to take care of the adults. She just blames us for stealing her pets.

How low can you go?

While we were out in the Himmarshee/Riverfront area this weekend, I witnessed an event that got me wondering just how low a person will go to swindle a few bucks.

On the big bar nights, all the bars will have bathroom attendants. These are women (usually Haitian Immigrants) who make a living sitting inside a bathroom all night long. They not only hand you your paper towel after you wash your hands, but they make sure all the stalls are stocked with TP, soap, paper towels, and any other necessities. Most of the women will supply a whole bunch of different supplies such as deodorant, mouthwash, body sprays, perfumes, hair spray, etc., so you can fix yourself up if you come a little undid during the night. And quite possibly, one of the most important things that these women will do is keep the restrooms in order. They clean up messes from untidy women, and keep the bathrooms from getting totally disgusting. And any woman who has had to use a bar restroom on a busy night can appreciate a service like this.

These women work on tips alone. The bars pay them nothing at all, they just simply allow them the privilege to sit and clean their restrooms all night. I imagine that maybe some of the bars might tip the ladies out, but I think that most of the women are left to make their own money. I'm sure they actually make pretty good money doing this, but I genuinely do feel for these people. They are people who probably work 2 or 3 jobs to make a living. Just think of it. Would you really want to do this for a living?

So last night while I was in a restroom, I saw a couple of girls trying to rip one of these women off. The girl bought a lollipop from the lady for $1. The lady stowed away the dollar and then the girl asked for her change. The lady said that the lollipop was $1, and the girl said, "I know, but I gave you a $10 bill." The argument went back and forth a couple of times before the lady opened up her stash to show that there were no $10 bills in it at all. The girl's friend finally told her that she made a mistake and it was actually a $1 bill. Then the girl started yelling at the lady that she had made a mistake, but now she wanted an apology because the lady was rude to her and gave her attitude, and yelled at her. Excuse me? I believe that not only did you try to swindle the lady, but you were the one who started yelling at her first.

Come on. How low do you have to be to try and steal from and verbally abuse one of these women? No pun intended, but these women have to put up with a lot of crap to make a few bucks.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

You should get one too

One of the best purchases I have ever made was my HEPA air filter. I originally bought it when Daniel and I first started dating so that he could come over with out having a major allergy attack. Prior to the air filter he could only stand it in my house for maybe a half hour before the allergies would make him completely miserable. He would start sneezing his brains out to to the point where he would get a bloody nose, his eyes would get red and puffy, runny nose, and the whole nine yards. Once I got the air filter, it was an immediate improvement. He still has have random sneezing fits, but that could be any number of things, mostly out of my control.

In order to extend the life of the filters, as well as keep the performance up, I regularly vacuum off the surface of the carbon filters and air intake. I can't believe how much junk comes off there! That's the point when I realized that even if I didn't have allergy attacks, I was still breathing in that stuff. And even though I don't have the major symptoms that Daniel did, I still feel like it has made an improvement. I don't wake up quite as stuffy as I used too.

They funniest part of having the air filter in the house is Milo's reaction to it. It's almost like he knows that it has something to do with him. He frequently comes up to it and sniffs it, and check it out. He will also jump up and sit on top of it. It's pretty humorous because the fan blows the air out of the top. He just sits there for a bit with a puzzled look on his face. I don't know why he likes sitting there, unless he likes a healthy breeze on his privates.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

what bunnies do best

Last night I was walking to the laundry room porch and I spied a little white bunny. I had to do a double take. It looked exactly like the little white bunny with grey ears that we have living in our yard, but could it be? It looked exactly the same, but it was miniature...

We have babies! I know this might not be an ideal situation, but they are so cute! Funny enough, there are three of them. And they are a matching set for the adults. We have 2 white ones with grey ears (one smaller than the other), and a little grey and brown to match the papa.



This was the best picture I could get. Obviously, being bunnies, they are a little skittish.

Monday, June 16, 2008

bowl o' legs

Last weekend Daniel and I went out for a special dinner to celebrate the end of his quarter at school. They put the winter and spring quarters back-to-back, so he's essentially been going to school without a break since the beginning of the year.

We decided to go to the Rustic Inn Seafood restaurant. It's a crab joint where they serve the crabs in large bowls on a table covered in newspaper. Proper attire is required (bibs), and the only real silverware were got were wooden mallets. It was great. Daniel and I got their "World famous" Golden Crab clusters cooked in garlic butter. When they came out to the table I realized that I had ordered a bowl full of legs for dinner. Half of me was a little horrified, but the other half thought it was hilarious. I got over it quickly though, and dug in.

When the restaurant says that it's rustic, they aren't kidding. This is no classy joint. They don't even bother pumping in music, because the sounds of pounding mallets would drown it out anyways. It was fun to see everybody beating the crap out of their food before they ate it. I especially got a big kick out of seeing out waiter tie a bib on Daniel.



And boy oh boy were those legs good!