Several years ago. Burger King was offering what they called international chicken sandwiches. The French version was a cordon bleu; chicken, a few slices of ham and melted Swiss cheese slices. Makes me hungry just thinking about them.
I took the chance of ordering through the drive-thru and, big surprise, they got it wrong. So wrong that I took it back.
I’m afraid I took my customer relations tips from Hunter S. Thompson. I walked into that Burger King wearing my biggest lopsided, turn your back on me and I’ll get your jugular, smile. “Good evening. I need to speak to the manager, please.” I spoke clearly and cheerfully.
A girl broke off from the gaggle of employees, rolling her hips and popping her gum at me. “Whatchu need?”
Biting back the urge to rip her a new one over the gum snapping, I said, a little louder, “I want to speak to your manager. Now.” When she opened her mouth again, I hissed “This has nothing to do with you. Don’t make this a scene.”
By then the slightly haggard looking woman came out of the back room. “Hello, how can I help you today?” Spoken like a tape recorder.
I put the wrapped sandwich on the counter. “I know that sometimes mistakes happen in an assembly line job. The drive-thru makes the problem even worse since usually mistakes aren’t returned, so no one notices a problem. I know I take my chances ordering that way. I’ve become an expert at picking tomatoes out or scraping ketchup off. But, I’m sorry, ma’am. When I order a chicken sandwich, I expect to actually get chicken in it.”
She unwrapped it so slowly. The cheese had melted the two bun halves together around the ham and the lack of chicken. I swear she stared silent for almost a minute. “I’m sorry, miss, can you hold on for just a moment? ” Her smile was more evil than mine.
“Of course.”
There was a nice bit of muffled shouting from the back for a few minutes before the manager returned with a fresh properly made sandwich, the return of my purchase price, and several vouchers for free food. She gave me a wonderful speech about how grateful she was that this had been brought to her attention and promised she would take steps to see it never happened again. In the middle of her speech, a teenage boy stormed out of the back room, called the manager a name you can’t print, then unsuccessfully tried to slam the front door behind him.
I still eat there sometimes, but I confess to avoiding the drive-thru.