Trekkychick

I am dedicating this blog post to my friend John, who was unsuccessful in his recent attempt to obtain a chocolate malt shake at a fast food restaurant that shall remain unnamed, while taking his wife out for milkshakes. My friend John cannot be faulted for his lack of success, but rather it might be posited that the blame should fall on the employee who did not hear John’s seven explicit assertions of: “No, I said a CHOCOLATE MALTED SHAKE.”

Following my hysterical laughter upon hearing of John’s unfortunate experience, I found myself reflecting on incompetence in the food service industry, and I have come to the conclusion there are two kinds of incompetence: accidental incompetence, and willful incompetence.

The former, that of accidental incompetence, can best be exemplified by using the example of a novice Starbucks employee, who shall remain anonymous. (Okay, fine, it was me.) There is a minute possibility that I may have appeared incompetent my first few weeks on the job, due to a few minor faux pas. There was the time I re-used the pitcher that had previously been filled with coffee to fill it with black tea, without first rinsing said pitcher. Now, I didn’t see the problem considering I love the taste of coffee and assumed the coffee remnants left in the pitcher could only enhance the taste of the black tea; however, my supervisor thought otherwise. There was the time that I couldn’t scoop a pastry off the shelf and it crumbled on the floor; as did the second, third, and fourth pastries, until I was physically removed from the pastry premises. There were the failed attempts to add the espresso into my customer’s lattes, the successful act of spilling scalding coffee all over myself, the placing of all large bills from my cash transactions into somebody else’s cash box instead of my own; you know, the usual tiny mistakes.

Then there is willful incompetence. This is the employee who hears “Chocolate malted shake, NOT malted CRUNCH” and proceeds to pour cookie crunches into the shake while riddled with maniacal laughter. (John, the previous statement may have been embellished.) This willful incompetence could also be my coworker from Starbucks a few summers ago who, after serving a “half decaf venti sugar-free hazelnut no-foam 175 degree latte” to a customer, turned to me and whispered delightfully, “She got ALL DECAF because she was a B#$&@!!” Upon taking this customer’s order, I hadn’t been cognizant of the fact that she was a b#$%@, likely because I was so all-consumed by attempting to correctly punch in her order on the various screens on the register and was unable to look up and see the gesture that she was giving me. (I won’t tell you which fingers were used during this gesture, but I will tell you that it was not the thumbs-up.) At any rate, while I found my coworker’s actions amusing, I have to say that no matter how unpleasant a customer, if that customer is spending upwards of five bucks on a beverage, he or she should probably receive the beverage of request.

And John, you should have received your chocolate malted shake. But I’m glad you didn’t, because I’m sure I was not the only person whose day was brightened by your traumatic tale of malted misfortune.

–Troi out