I'm a cheery, glass-half-full kind of person, unlike Albert. It all balances up. For instance, here's Albert's latest whingeing email:
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I've been knee deep in a home renovation project for a couple of weeks, and this morning I'm in the meatball place to buy a plumbing fixture.
It started promisingly in the restaurant. There's free wifi!
But it's broken. I try connecting with a pod, a pad, and a phone - all are locked out, even though they worked here last week.
Still, there's free refills of tea and coffee!
But all four machines are out of order, with a queue of customers lined up behind the repair guy.
It's getting too noisy in the restaurant anyway. Flocks of mothers and toddlers like starlings.
Later at the main store checkout, there's a promotion on, and they deduct the price of my $20 breakfast from the stuff I've bought!
But then I still have to stand around in the Merchandise Pick-up area, where they have a dole-office type of queuing system, and even the same social security robot voice on the PA.
There's a TV screen on the wall, to show the changing Job Status of everyone's order. That's encouraging.
But I wait 15 minutes before my order number even makes it on to the bottom of the screen.
Eventually the display says my order is ready for collection, but the poor meatball guy is dealing with a queue of impatient customers. There's no way I'm going to join the end of yet another queue, so I walk into the warehouse and lift the item I want. I wave my receipt at the security camera on the way out. Self service to the max. I've used a similar technique before. In newsagents and chemists, if you have the right money but there's nobody to serve you, put the cash on the counter and walk out. Transaction complete. The only drawback is that you don't get a receipt.
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Thanks to Albert's story, I know where to go if ever I want the sensation of a crèche, a dole office and a novelty shop all at the same time.
I say!
ReplyDeleteI always get wafted to the front of the queue at the Asian shops near the market. All the assistants stop what they are doing mid-flow to help me. I don't really know what the other people waiting to be served think.
I expect that Hotboy is old enough to know what a "dole-office type of queuing system" is like, but not me.
"Hey Jummy! There's a queue!"
MM III
Rodders. When were you last on the dole? You take a ticket and the robot voice calls out the numbers. Even Hotters would find it stultifying.
ReplyDeleteThat is what Albert gets for going into that terrible establishment in the first place.
ReplyDeleteIt is a ghastly maze that is difficult to escape from. Better to support local shops.
Nanners I think he's coming round to your view, but he needed a set of taps available nowhere else. The meal was the best part.
ReplyDeleteAlbert? As someone who lives on bread and soup, I can't understand any of this. Why were you in this place and why did you stay there? And how come the toddlers are like starlings when there's no black folk allowed in yon desert where you live? Are you doing something to them when they are asleep? Hotboy
ReplyDeleteI say!
ReplyDeleteSo, you combined the meal-out with buying taps?
Well done!
I think Doviko may have slipped me a Mickey Finn. It's 12 days to go until payday, and I expect he's looking for a sub.
MM III