I bought a piece of lemon loaf at a coffee shop and after eating a couple bites and realizing something was wrong I flipped it over on the plate and found it was covered with fuzzy green mold.
I bought a loaf of bread from a local bakery and when I reached the halfway point of the loaf I discovered a giant fly cooked into one of the slices.
I picked up some chicken curry for takeout one night. For the next three days I was incapacitated with food poisoning.
Tried out a popular pizza place and was virtually ignored by the staff for the entire meal. A couple days later, I discovered the restaurant had overcharged my credit card, and I had to go back twice more to get the overcharged money back.
Bought pasta from a lunch shop, found long black hairs in it.
I should note that I'm not a dick of a customer. People would tell you that I'm a very calm, patient person. In situations such as these I never yelled at anyone, made a scene, or made crazy demands. I always try to act polite and friendly, and when situations like these come up I only ask for the issue to be resolved as reasonably as possible. Most times I've been met with indignation, rudeness, denial, or indifference. I don't really understand why. What ever happened to customer service? Or apologizing for a mistake? Or being attentive when preparing and serving food?
But I haven't even got to the worst part. Two months ago I bought a large latte from a coffee shop I've visited hundreds of times that's around the corner from my house. I brought the drink home, was sharing it with a family member when we suddenly realized the cup made a rattling noise when you tipped it from side to side. Confused? I was. We brought it to the sink and slowly poured out the rest of the coffee and discovered the following inside: 4 needles, 2 push pins, a thumbtack, 2 screws, and a plastic ring. ...!...
Don't believe me? I understand, I wouldn't believe it either, so here are the pictures.
Now it's one thing to find a hair in your pasta, it's another thing entirely to find a toolbox in your coffee. How does one let that happen? I immediately went back to the coffee shop to find out.
Turns out a bunch of pins and tacks for the coffee shop bulletin board was kept inside ... an espresso shot glass ... on a shelf ... with other espresso shot glasses. What a clever place to store your knick-knacks! And my drink was mistakenly prepared using said glass. It turns out that the barista had taken the transparent glass off the shelf, filled it with espresso, poured those contents into a paper cup, and added steamed milk, without ever noticing that it was filled with numerous sharp metal objects. Gwuh?
The employees were as shocked as I was, and apologized profusely. I was offered a drink of my choice, but strangely I had lost my appetite for coffee. On the bright side, I noticed the metal objects before swallowing a needle or choking to death. Yaaay!
I've come to the conclusion that either (A) Canadian businesses have lost all sense of professionalism or attentiveness ... or (B) I have the shittiest luck imaginable. Maybe this is God's way of telling me to cook at home more often, because I'm slowly eliminating all my choices outside.
Anyway, I've ranted enough. What do you think, people of the Internets? Has the food industry gone to shit? Have any horror stories of your own? Feel free to comment. If you need me I'll be over here panning my food for screws and nails.
4 comments:
Shane, I thought I told you to avoid consumables related to Italy and consumables related to (or that are themselves) loaves!
Additionally, this was my captcha image. http://i.imgur.com/4rFxr.jpg
Personally, I think the decline of customer service has gone down more or less proportionately with the decline of customer behaviour (in general I mean - if it were directly correlated with each person's own behaviour, we'd be laughing).
That said, although I will not deny that service in Ottawa is not exactly stellar, I'd have to say that you do seem to have really bad luck on the food front. Either that or I'm just supremely unobservant, and who knows what I've ingested.
But this one? Wow. Just wow. And it blows my mind that all they offered you as compensation for something that, had you been paying less attention (albeit a lot less. The things did rattle out a warning, after all), could have seriously injured you was another drink. I'm not saying they should have offered you enough money to leave you independently wealthy for the rest of your life, but one drink? Really? That's all? Wow. The whole thing is just... wow.
WCS: I know you've given me fair warning on several occasions, but how am I to resist the many delicious types of loaves being sold at every street corner. The answer is, I can't.
Kingshearte: I agree that there's something to be said about poor customer behaviour. I've seen people treating employees terribly on many occasions. One time I saw a guy ordering coffee reduce the woman serving him to tears because she wasn't fast enough preparing his drink.
But more than people being rude to one another, I find the biggest issue is a general sloppiness when serving customers. People don't seem to pay attention to what they're doing, or don't care enough to. I don't think it's a lot to ask to check twice before serving spoiled or contaminated food.
All in all, this situation has taught me to be extra cautious and to eat slowly. :S
Uhm free coffee for the rest of your unnatural life? Sounds lucky to me.
Post a Comment