A man was walking in a city when he spotted a restaurant with a big sign in the window that said, “Order anything you want. If we don’t have it, we’ll pay you $500.”
Thinking it would be an easy way to make $500, the man walks in, sits down, and tells the waiter he wants an elephant-ear sandwich.
The waiter goes back to the restaurant manager’s office and says, “Looks like we’re going to have to pay out that $500. Some guy just ordered an elephant-ear sandwich.”
The manager says, “But we just got a bunch of elephant ears in this morning!”
The waiter says, “Yeah, but we’ve run out of those big buns.”
[Insert laugh track here.]
There’s a reason I decided to tell that joke. After her play, I joined Carolyn and some of her friends who had also watched the play and we went to a restaurant called Extraordinary Desserts.
And the desserts were good. But…
Imagine that you are an employee of a specialty restaurant that charges sky-high prices ($4.00 for a scoop of ice cream, for instance.) And imagine that a customer had ordered a soy latte, but you have run out of the big cups that a soy latte is supposed to come in. What do you do?
A. Put the soy latte in a to-go cup and apologize to the customer, explaining that you’ve run out of the real cups.
B. Apologize to the customer immediately, explaining that you’ve run out of the big cups, and that you will serve it as soon as you can get a cup back and wash it.
C. Apologize to the customer immediately, explaining that you’ve run out of the big cups, and refund the money.
D. Serve everyone else at the table without explaining the absence of the soy latte. When the missing drink is brought to your attention, go to check on it and then avoid the table for the rest of the night. When other employees are informed about the missing latte, have them do the same. Have one of them ask to see the receipt, implying that the customers are lying about having ordered it. Continue to stall until everyone at the table has finished eating, and another employee starts to clear away the dishes. Do not explain anything until one of the customers finally takes the receipt up to the cash register to demand a refund, at which point you give the excuse that you ran out of the big cups.
If you answered D, congratulations! You are fully qualified for a job at Extraordinary Desserts in San Diego.
People who were brought up by my dad will not be surprised in the least that, even though it was not her drink, Carolyn took the receipt up and forced them to refund her friend’s money.