Archive for February, 2010
Customer Service Jumps the Shark
Today at lunchtime, I went to a sub shop touting really great sandwiches in an old-fashioned atmosphere. (In other words, not a Subway; nicer seating than a fast food place but without menus or waiters.) Standing in line at the counter to order, I spied “cheese steak” among a sparse list of choices. Now, for the past few weeks, I’ll admit I’ve had an unhealthy, totally-not-vegitarian, artery-clogging, there-is-no-way-I’m-getting-one hankering for a cheese steak.
My resistance to this point was aided by the knowledge that the cheese steak I was really craving hasn’t been made for 20-some years. What I wanted was a Delti Chi cheese steak. (And I say that with apologies to any college friends who may read this who will now also be hopelessly craving one.)
Nothing else on the list really appealed to me, so, with naughty glee, I stepped up to the counter. The conversation went something like this.
Overly Cheerful: What will you have?
Me: The cheese steak.
Overly Cheerful: What size?
Me (looking up at the various signage and thinking, if I’m going to be bad, I’ll feel better if I just get the): Small.
Overly Cheerful: What type of bread?
Me: Um, what are the options?
Not Quite As Cheerful: There’s wheat, everything, and sesame.
Me (thinking that none of those sounds like the basis for a good cheese steak): Uh…
Overly Patient: And, we have seedless. (Note: Apparently, seedless is what normal people would call a plain white hoagie roll.)
Me: Yes, I’ll have that.
Obviously Relieved: Okay.
Me: I’d like that without green peppers.
Back to Overly Cheerful: Okay.
Me: Do you have mushrooms?
She Finds This Question Very Odd: No.
Me (thinking, who the hell makes a cheese steak without the option of mushrooms but for some bizarre reason, I am bending over backwards to be very polite because of that sorta-kinda embarrassment even the most grown-up or confident human being among us feels when forced to follow some secret process that the teenagers behind the counter expect you to be familiar with): Oh, all right, no problem.
Rattling: D’ya-want-mayo-mustard-ketchup-Italian-‘r-any-dressing? D’y’want lettuce? D’y’want tomato?
Me: No. No. No.
Incredulous: You don’t want anything else?
Me (hmm, she seems so surprised, I must have forgotten something. What did I forget!?): Um, no?
Speaking Really Slowly: Sooooo, you just want onions and steak…?
Me (smiling and laughing a bit, cause, ya know, on a cheese steak, one would assume you don’t have to ask): Well, I want cheese.
Why The Hell Are You Just Telling Me This Now?: What kind of cheese?
Me: (Well, it should be provolone, shouldn’t it? Oh my gawd, the way she is looking at me? What if I get this wrong? I have the urge to yell “Mulligatawny!” It is provolone, isn’t it?): Um, whatever you normally put on a cheese steak?
Blatant Eye-rolling: We have American, Swiss, Mozarella, Provolone…
Me: Provolone, please. (omg, did I just say please? I did. I just said please.)
She mumbled something (she was standing there in person but as incomprehensible as if she were talking to me through a drive-thru speaker) and gave me a dirty look. I took that to mean that my order was complete, and I moved forward toward the cash register, too intimidated and rattled to even consider a side dish, a beverage, or a cookie.
So. It wasn’t the worst cheese steak I’ve ever had. But it certainly wasn’t worth the hassle or the 8 bucks.
I understand that restaurants think it is swell of them to let you have things your way, but it’s not like I walked in and said, “Hullo, I’d like a sandwich.” I ordered A Cheese Steak. And, I would be willing to bet that, to 99.99% of anyone who has ever ordered one, options like swiss cheese, “everything bread,” mustard, or Italian dressing do not even cross their mind.
Burgers are made for a variety of options. Same with hot dogs. But a cheese steak is a thing. It is very thinly sliced, fried meat; it’s cheese melted to that point of a moment before a solid becomes a liquid; it’s juicy enough not to require any dressing; and it’s all greasy enough to magically morph with the inside layer of the (seedless) bread.
That’s a given, isn’t it?
Grilled Cheese Wisdom
From Hamlet’s soliloquy about what ’tis nobler to a cry for “Serenity now!” there are many many quotations and inspiring thoughts that we all recognize. Nursery rhymes, parables, fables, and ancient text to teach that it is bad to cry wolf; it is dangerous to swim immediately after eating; it is good to try, try again; and lefty-loosey-righty-tighty.
In addition to this collective knowledge, we each (I believe) have our own repertoire of quotable quotes, personal mantras, words that the original speaker may not even remember but that had great impact. For example.
“Don’t let a grilled cheese sandwich get the best of you.”
I was working as a waitress in a diner. My first job. And, on this particular day, making a forced transition from handing out food to actually making it.
It was a very stressful day. Short staffed with lots of orders and me attempting to do stuff I had never done before. Now, I’m not saying I had never cooked anything, but there is a dramatic difference between slipping an egg into a cute little pan on a kitchen stove and cracking one open on a 6×4-foot piece of flat angry sizzlin’ metal. And there is a dramatic difference between slapping together a grilled cheese at home for yourself and cooking one on above-mentioned monster grill while the person who is going to pay for what you’re concocting is sitting about 3 feet away, watching your every move.
On a big hot diner grill? Cheese really melts good. And the bread tho crisp is greasy. And you try plating and slicing one of those gooey sliding things (using a knife that would stop Crocodile Dundee in his tracks) (in front of an audience) without making a big mess. Each time I tentatively placed the knife edge on the bread, before I’d even begun to cut, things started to shift, slide, ooze.
Customer waiting, other orders piling up. My big chance for advancement. I was flubbing it. I got frustrated. I got nervous. I didn’t know what to do!
And.
Suddenly.
She was right there. The waitress and cook in charge, loved by all customers, my boss, about 30 years my senior. It was Mean Mary Jean. One of the finest mentors I have ever known.
She stepped up, took the knife from my hand, and zip-zap: perfect diagonal. As she performed this miraculous demonstration, she said, with kindness and humor and modest wisdom, “Kiddo, don’t let a grilled cheese sandwich get the best of you!”
It’s not in Bartlett’s. It cannot be searched for on thinkexist.com. It will never be carved in marble on a monument. But it is profound.
- Sometimes, the solution to a problem is to just go at it with confidence.
- The answer you seek might just happen to be very, very simple.
- When you consider what is actually evil and scary in the world and when you consider people who have real challenges in life, it is pretty damn preposterous to let something as mundane as a grilled cheese sandwich frazzle your self-esteem.
- I am stronger and smarter than a sandwich.
Although that epiphany came nearly 30 years ago, it has not lost any of its power. These days, on the job, the tough tasks are a bit more complicated, the consequences affect more people, the cost of failure is a bit higher than $2.95, and a quick cut with a sharp knife is rarely the answer, but, when I face the impossible, when that horrid hairy beastie Fear hooks in a paralyzing talon, when I think “I can’t!” . . . well, in those moments, I hear her voice clearly, chuckle and all. And I marvel at the persistence of silliness. And I shake my head at my slip. And I slice that beastie like a grilled cheese sandwich.
Cheers to Mean Mary Jean (who was not so very mean at all).
Please share your favorite unique line of unconventional wisdom in the comments box.
How to Survive a Blizzard
Been off-line for a bit with no power due to the greatest amount of snow I’ve ever seen while living somewhere that shoveling it was my responsibility. I measured 21 inches on Saturday and have gotten another 5-7 between last night and today. (And it is still snowing.)
I was without power at my house for nearly 80 hours. No lights. No internet. No land-line phone. No stove. No furnace. And, for the first 48 hours or so, no way to leave the neighborhood without a much better pair of boots than those I own.
Am I glad it’s over? Hell yeah. But, it was, as these things often are, not an all-bad adventure and it was, as these things can always be, a learning experience. Here is some stuff I’ve learned.
1. Putting groceries out on the porch is a great idea because food that is ruined because it has frozen does not smell as bad as food that rots inside a refrigerator.
2. Chivas Regal snow cone? Not bad. Not bad at all.
3. In the early 70s, Panasonic made some kick-ass radios. A few posts back, I mentioned that I once had a very cool electric-blue radio shaped like a donut. Well, turns out, that very item was still in a box in the attic. I put in a battery and voi-de-la, after 30 years of non-use, it still worked. (And that is how I got to listen to Super Bowl 44.)
4. My thermostat only goes down to 45 degrees. Beyond that, who knows?
5. If you can see your own breath in your home, you need to be concerned about freezing pipes and . . . makes sense but who knew?. . . freezing toilet bowls and tanks. If turning the water off at the main and leaving immediately for Key West isn’t an option, the thing to do is leave the lowest faucet in the house running at a trickle and add a bit of anti-freeze to toilets and drains.
6. Shoveling snow is a good way to get warm. And, if it is cold enough in your house, even old, out-of-shape muscles do not ache from even the most extreme bouts of shoveling.
7. A well-timed cup of hot coffee can save a life.
8. When bad circumstances arise, people are pretty darn swell. They smile. They wave. They knock on doors. They lend a hand. They invite you in. They help each other shovel it out and laugh it off.
9. When bad circumstances arise, people are pretty damn stupid—like the lady who wouldn’t get out of the street, despite there being a good 10 feet of shoveled space right in front of her and despite the very icy conditions that make it impossible to completely, reliably control a vehicle and despite my very polite, genuinely concerned, and sincerely friendly pre-flight waving and honking before attempting my one and only slip-swerving, white-knuckled, come-on-baby shot to get up hill 1 of 3 to reach Home. Had I not managed to slide by within inches of her motionless, stubborn, hand-on-hip stare, I could have gladly used her fat ass for traction.
10. You can make an almost passable cup of tea with hot tap water.
11. Forget stocking up on T.P. and bread. Stock up on unread books!
12. If you place a lot of candles on cookie sheets lined with tin foil and fashion also a tin foil back drop of sorts, you can generate a bit of heat, do a crossword puzzle without squinting, and throw enough light that a neighbor will call to see if you somehow got your power back on.
13. Mini marts and Rite-Aids do not sell tonic water.
14. If you get dressed in the dark it is impossible to tell if your socks match.
15. You can survive without heat. You can survive without lights. You can survive on a strange variety of foodstuffs. You can survive without internet, facebook, and email. But you cannot survive without family and friends.
Thanks to those who noticed the absence. Thanks to those who tolerated the babbling when I did make contact. Thanks to all who offered help, concern, understanding, and cheer. The cockles of my heart never even caught a chill.
What did you learn in the blizzard of 2010?
Life Preservers 
Where I’d Like to Put the Snow
City sidewalks. Busy sidewalks. Dressed in holiday style.
It’s a pretty song. But, living in the city, 60 days past the playing of Christmas songs, after record-breaking snowfall, the sidewalks are not a pretty sight.
While I’m in a residential neighborhood, my ZIP code is city. And, when you pay city taxes, the sidewalks that run along the street in front of your house are your responsibility. And when your house is at a sort of intersection, the sidewalks that are your responsibility are pretty long. And when you live in the city but have to commute for more than an hour (when the roads are clear), it isn’t exactly convenient to shovel during the daylight hours. And when you get, over the course of less than a month, more than 3 feet of snow, keeping everything clear can be a challenge.
But, you do what you can. And the snow plow guys do what they can. And the City does what it can.
Let me be clear. I have had no complaints with the City to this point. While mostly everyone was complaining about their response to all this snow, I, on an occasion or two, defended them. We are all only human after all, and way-above-average snowfall followed by days and days of way-below-average temperatures, is no human’s fault.
This morning, before heading out to shovel another 4-5 inches, I sat down with a cup of coffee to watch the local news and find out how much more is expected. Because, yes, more snow is expected.
And what do I hear? The City wants everyone to know that any un-shoveled sidewalks will incur a fine.
Really?
Really?
This from the same people that did not touch my street for days and days after the initial onslaught. The same people that have left us with barely a single lane to drive on for weeks since. The same people who sign the paychecks of the snow plow drivers who dump mountains of snow on top of the mounds of snow on top of my sidewalks.
Let me note that, even if my sidewalks were clear, no citizen could even get to them without resurrecting Sir Edmund Hillary to help them reach the summit of the piles of frozen sludge the City has left sitting at either end.
Oh, this is a group of wunderkinds with some real snowballs.
And what do the “journalists” have to say about this? Those reporting this dire warning to the City’s slackers saw fit to back-up the ridiculous by giving us a man-on-the-street interview with a concerned citizen who said, “Oh, I think the threat of fines is a good thing. I mean, I’m going to The Pops tonight and I’m wearing heels and it’s very difficult to get around.”
So. Let me get this straight. The point you’re making is that I need to have clean sidewalks so that some dipshit can venture out in this weather without putting boots on?
Maybe they should have interviewed my 91-year-old neighbor, who’s husband is in the hospital and who’s only son just visited the emergency room (twice) in the past week, who is now fretting because she thinks she could be arrested for not shoveling her sidewalk. (Now, she really doesn’t have to worry. The neighbors pitch in to keep her shoveling done. And the neighbors would pitch-fork in with torches, tar, and feathers if anyone tried to harass her. But still. She heard it on the news, and she, being much sweeter than I, and therefore unlikely to even think about telling the City to kiss her ass, is fretting.)
I say, you want to scold me, you inept collection of idiots? You want to fine me, you absurd bunch of brain-dead dingleberries? Go right ahead. Fine me.
Good luck getting to my mailbox.
Share this:
February 27, 2010 at 6:08 am 1 comment