Apparently, pretty hard.
Erik's Deli is a tasty place to eat IF they make your salad correctly!
For many years I’ve been eating at Erik’s Delicafé, a chain in the Northern/Central California area. The quality is good, the prices not outrageous, and the service is generally fast, friendly, and efficient.
Except in the Morgan Hill shop near where I work. Why, oh, why Erik’s can’t you make my salad correctly?
The only item I ever order is a Chinese chicken salad. I ask for NO mandarin oranges. I ask for NO Oriental dressing but instead I’d like TWO Italian dressings. As far as substitutions/wacky ordering goes, this variation is not that out there.
However, more often than not in Morgan Hill, I do not get the salad I ordered.
Like today. Ordered my salad. Drove back to work. Not what I ordered. Ai Yi Yi.
[Note: You may be wondering at this point why I didn’t peek in the bag before I drove away? Good question! Because I had been boycotting Erik’s because of the Chinese Chicken Conflict and I FORGOT that Erik’s usually screws up. And because I also was thinking about this idiot insurance guy at work that was ripping us off and I was looking forward to ripping into him…]
Which is why I was in one of those moods that I decided ‘enough is enough.’ I got back in my car and headed over to Erik’s for the second time.
On the way I thought of something I once heard on the Dr. Laura Showa long time ago, when I occasionally listened to the show, before I decided Dr. Laura was too bossy, condescending, ego-centric, judgmental, and a know-it-all homophobic. Is she still that way?
Anyway, a woman on the phone had been complaining about something trivial—like “my husband buys me pink roses on Valentine’s Day—NOT RED. I’m so furious at his thoughtlessness!”
Dr. Laura’s response to this woman was something like, “Doll Face (it was a snarky-ish term of endearment), you gotta learn to pick your fights and decide which mountain you’re going to die on.”
Dr. Laura’s meaning: You can’t fight every fight. And the fights that you choose to fight, you better be darn well sure it’s important because you could lose/die/whatever.
Hmmm, I thought. Was the salad making competency at Erik’s that egregious an offense? YESSS! (That’s Frankie* talking.)
When I got back to Erik’s there was a line of hungry patrons backed up to the door. I cut in line to the front. DON’T YOU JUST HATE WHEN THAT HAPPENS?!!
I apologized to the guy at the front. He kinda shrugged. Everyone else looked for a taser gun.
As I handed my salad back to the same woman (at the cash register) who took my order, I said, “You screwed up my order and I had to drive all the way back over here.”
She looked mortified. She replaced the incorrect salad dressing with two of the correct ones. I thanked her but in a huffy tone said, “The only reason I drove back here is because it happens all the time!” The I bolted to the door before I was beaten by a ravenous mob.
On the way back I thought about what the Erik’s problem was.
I don’t think it’s an IQ problem. The people who work there seem plenty smart enough. It’s a quality control/assembly line production problem. That’s management’s fault.
When you place your order at Erik’s, the cashier writes it on a small slip of paper. She calls out the order to the other employees who are running around making stuff. She takes your money. You sit down and wait.
Another employee hands you your bag. I believe it is THIS EMPLOYEE who should retrieve the original order (the white piece of paper)—READ IT—and determine that in fact what is written on the paper is the same as what’s in the bag.
This requires that the cashier knows how to write correctly and the other employees know how to read. If they don’t, that’s a MANAGEMENT PROBLEM of hiring someone whose skills don’t fit the job.
If the employees have not been trained to do quality control (verify the original order) then that is also a MANAGEMENT PROBLEM.
If the employee has been trained (to verify the order) but it’s too busy and he/she can’t take the time to verify, then that’s a MANAGEMENT PROBLEM. (Bad planning/scheduling of employees.)
If the employee has the time but doesn’t have to motivation to double-check the order, then that is a MANAGEMENT PROBLEM, too.
Why isn’t this employee motivated and what can management do about it? I’ll bet you anything that the management/executive/corporate staff of Erik’s has not read Tony Hseih’s revolutionary business book, Delivering Happiness—about his success at Zappos. (See my blog dated 7/03/10). How many times have employees screwed up orders at Zappos? I’m sure the number is close to zero.
The bottom line:
Will I go back to Erik’s? Probably—even though I was a bit of a jerk. (A bit?) But now I will personally have to check my bag to verify my own order. Oh well…
Lastly, when I got back to the office and dug into my salad, which now had the correct salad dressing on it, I found—hidden under a pile of romaine—a half-dozen mandarin oranges.
DON’T YOU JUST HATE WHEN THAT HAPPENS?!
* Who’s Frankie? Read The Frankie Chronicles: Tales of a Tumultuous Tummy: Blogs dated 2/03, 2/04, & 2/16/10.
