a Journey

Service Scenario Uno:

My brother and I were at the KFC outlet near Tampines bus interchange yesterday evening, waiting patiently in line to order our family feast for our darling niece. This was a fast food outlet, which seemed to be doing very well in terms of crowd control, having a queue system and all (great queue system! I can't get over the fact that it was the best queue I've seen in months).

And then it was our turn. Halfway through my order, the girl behind the counter(as her name on the batch, D****a) interrupted my order as she turned to talked to her colleague mid-way through.

I breathed in and continued to smile. Turning back giggling, she asked: Can you repeat your order for me? Still I breathed in and smiled. And repeated my order.

She packed my takeway order without any sauces or servettes. I asked for them. She said: "Oh ya, you want the blah blah blah.." If my brother had not pinched me under the counter, I might have leapt over the counter.

Perhaps this is the norm here. But I can't accept it when the server of a KFC  who seemed like he couldn't read the menu (I ordered by verbally telling him my order, he didn't seem to be able to read the menu when I pointed out what I wanted) gave better service. But regardless of whether he could read the menu, he sure knew his responsibility well. For all the words he didn't have, he didn't substitute it with gibber. blah blah blah.

Service Scenario Dos:

Today we had dinner at Fish & Co. at Parkway. Perhaps they were seriously understaffed. But does it take an hour to put a packet of earl grey tea into a cup of hot water? Fine, maybe we shouldn't have ordered two cups of earl grey tea. Perhaps we should have stuck to a single order. Oh and we should have brought a flask of hot water too. To reduce the time it took to boil water for 2 cups of water. My bad.

Here's a tip for those of you who want the bill to come after another 30 minutes of waiting. WALK OUT. It's quite interesting to see how they suddenly notice your table when you head towards the door. So next time you want your bill pronto, just start walking. That'll get them running. ;)