I'll pay you to read my mind!

[muckefuck]

As some of you may know (from its tedious recurrence in this journal), one of my pet peeves with the local food service personnel is their failure to learn my preferences despite my repeat business. I would think this rather an unreasonable expectation given how little I pay and how little they make were it not for the number of past employees who mastered this. Dobrina has probably served me more sandwiches at this point than Andrés, but he quickly learned never to put tomatoes on my food and she still hasn't. Raquel serves me food at least once a week and, every time, she asks me the exact same battery of questions. (Today she asked me for the umpteenth time if I wanted fries and I almost blurted out "NUNCA!") Gerardo served me the same sandwich three times in two weeks and knew by the third time that I didn't want any iceberg or cheese on it.

The point of this post isn't to lionise some employees and denigrate others. Lunch today got me thinking of how much I appreciate such service and--inevitable given the universal commoditisation of desire in this modern world--what kind of a premium I would be willing to pay for it. Would I accept a markup of, say, 2%-5% the price of a sandwich in order never again to have say "No tomatoes!" In a heartbeat. But how could you accomplish this?

I thought back to a post that_dang_otter wrote about trying to hitch a ride and how much easier this would've been if local truckers could only access information about him remotely. The technology--wireless internet, GPS, social networking sites--is all already in place. It's simply a matter of getting it to work together and to convince people it's worth doing--even if it might mean paying a fee.

Same for my tomato problem. All that's needed is some means of recognising me as an individual (swipe card, auto-detection of my cell phone, etc.), some means of correlating this with stored data, and some means of displaying this data for the food service workers. In theory, I spend ten seconds once in my lifetime inputting "No raw tomatoes" and it's part of my order forever.

I suppose a cynical response to this would be that it would dehumanise the entire experience even further. I can't take that seriously. How does my being forced to mumble "No tomatoes!" enrich the exchange in any way? In fact, I find it dehumanising because it means I'm being treated as just another interchangeable customer instead of being recognised as a individual client with distinct preferences, even after hundreds of interactions.

Comments

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

In both examples, it's the woman who forgets and the man who remembers. Is this consistent in your experience?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

No, there have also been men at those stations who can't be arsed to remember my preferences either. For a while there, the correlation seemed to be that it was the Hispanics (Andrés, Apolinario, Niqui, Gerardo, etc.) who remembered me and the others who didn't, but then I found out that Raquel is Hispanic, too. I never speak Spanish with her, but then, I didn't used to with Gerardo, and that didn't seem to affect my level of service.

[foodpoisoningsf.livejournal.com]

Try speaking Spanish. They'll remember you. I expect they have enough on their minds without having to remember your fucking tomatoe phobia.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Brilliant idea! Dobrina (who's Bulgarian) and her Ethiopian (or possibly Eritrean) assistant will totally remember me as "That Guy Who Can't Speak Any Fucking English"!

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Phobia or otherwise (perhaps I was traumatised by a raw tomato deep in adolescence?), I really do have an autonomic physical reaction when I bite into a hunk of raw tomato; even just the smell of a cut fresh tomato is enough to cause me to start retching. It's not an allergy, because I don't go into shock or form hives, but it must be some sort of sensitivity. Tomatoes are nightshades, after all, and some people reacted more strongly to compounds in them than others.

Where I think a system such as I suggest would really come in handy is for people with serious food allergies. My poor friend welcomerain is probably sick to death of trying to explain again and again "Peanuts are no problem but if you give me real nuts I WILL DIE". A foolproof system for preventing that would likely be worth an awful lot to others in the same boat.

[his-regard.livejournal.com]

"There's a tomato chasing Jimmy... Caught him... Ate him allll up. Poor Jimmy."

Service experiences

[ursine1.livejournal.com]

I am a regular (once a week) customer at an all-you-can-eat restaurant that features a lot of meat choices (El Rodizio Grill). The staff knows me and chats with me when I enter. They will prompt for my usual beverage choice and I only have to indicate my agreement. The meat cutter knows my preferences and will look over the choices and find the most suitable cuts as we chat.

Likewise there are several bartenders that all I need to do is make eye-contact and my drink is served in seconds.

I follow the catalán custom of not tipping unless there is exceptional service. I was a regular for many years in SF and tipped as well, but didn't get the same level of service I do here, and I am an extranjero. Other Europeans have told me that service in the US is in general excellent and that in España it is better than their home country.

Chuck

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Around here, it really seems to vary individually. When I go to Big Chicks, David greets me and asks, "Hardcore?" [a brand of cider] when I get to the bar. But even though I chatted more with Jason and tipped him just as generously, I never got the same level of service. Same with restaurants. I impressed the pants off my sister-in-law by having the maître d' recognise me at Marigold last time we went--a place I'd been to all of twice before--but it turns out he just has a really terrific memory. Friends of mine have told stories about having him come over to chat and remembering not only their names and such but what they ordered last time they were in.

Big Chicks

[ursine1.livejournal.com]

Is that on 5024 N Sheridan Road? Sounds like I would have gone to their "sister" restaurant Tweet, or is that Twink?

I heard that you were a big tipper. :-)

The maître d' at El Rodizio is vasco and likes to practice his English with me.

Chuck

[his-regard.livejournal.com]

So far, customer-retention cards have moved from "track your purchases for our sake" to "track your purchases for a reward" to "store money in a database." I can see "remember my preferences" being the next step, as that's a pretty minor thing from a database perspective.

On the flip side, vehicles will never get to the point of promiscuously advertising routing information until we have complete computer-controlled motorways. When that happens, hitchhikers will likely be in even more dire straits than they are now. If a person doesn't have to pay attention to the road at all, why start just for the sake of finding random passengers? (Also, asking hitchers to pay for travel seems to be missing the point.)