Adventures in Customer Service - Vol. 3

A few of us decided to go out to lunch today. Applebees is always a safe choice. Cheap, good food, decent service. We had no reason to expect what we were in for, or rather what I was in for.

Our waitress brought us our drinks, two diets and a regular Coke (and someone else's Mountain Dew). Doug got his Coke without incident but as she unloaded the beverages from her tray, disaster struck. First, she put my diet on the table but as she was handing Angie her pop, it slipped out of her hand and spilled in my lap. When she tried to catch it, the mystery Dew rolled off her tray knocking into my diet sending both of them into my lap as well. I was now drenched with three full glasses of pop (and an ice cube in my shoe).

We soaked up as much of it as we could with about a hundred napkins and remarkably, my pants (Old Navy khakis) sustained minimal stains. The liquid rolled off them pretty well but I was still pretty wet. All in all, not exactly the way I wanted to spend my lunch hour, but it really could have been worse.

The waitress was horrified at her mistake. I really felt bad for her. It could have happened to anyone. You could tell she was embarrassed when she told us, "if you guys just wanted to leave I'd totally understand." I was a bit uncomfortable, really sticky, but it wasn't so bad that we had to leave. Something tells me she probably wanted us to leave out of shame but we decided to stick it out. I ordered the Oriental Chicken Roll Up (as usual).

The family on the next table over witnessed the entire thing and about 20 minutes after it happened, the 5 or 6-year old leaned over to me and said, "Don't spill any more drinks!" Thanks, kid! That made me feel much better.

The manager came over and apologized for the spill and told us that "something" would be taken off our bill. When we all got our checks, they were all full price. I grabbed the manager as he walked by and told him that wouldn't do. He brought them back with $3 off all of our meals. Wow. I felt better. Doug and Angie were just happy to have anything off since they both managed to escape the soda-typhoon without a drop on them anyway. So as they left, I stopped the manager again and told him I didn't expect to be charged anything since I was now going to have to run home and shower and change. He had no choice but to agree and he took everything off the bill.

And who says there is no such thing as a free lunch?