Its All About Choices

So imagine this… Your sitting at your favorite restaurant… The menu is sitting closed on the table because its not like you actually need to look at it cause you get the same thing every time.  You order your meal (Say a burger and fries) and when it arrives it tastes great and you walk away feeling full and satisfied.  Not only did the meal taste great, but it left you feeling full, and probably about 1000 calories, 100 carbs, etc etc as well.  You don’t really realize how bad that burger and fries is bad for you until its 300 pounds later huh?

Now imagine the same thing all over again.  Except this time, you decide on something healthier for you.  Say the steak with a side of vegetables.  You still walk away feeling full and satisfied because not only did it taste great (assuming this place can’t screw up a steak) but you feel full and this time are walking away with much less (500 calories, 8 carbs, etc etc).

Recently I started the whole “Low Carb” diet.  I tend to eat out a lot and I don’t really anticipate any resturant carrying low carb menu anymore because lets face it… low carb was sooo 5 years ago right.  But I started stepping back when the menu was handed to me, and thinking for a couple of minutes about what to eat.  Instead of getting “the usual” or something else that wasn’t good for me… I started looking at what items would be best for me.  Needless to say when I couldn’t order that huge burger with french fries I was disappointed, but once my food came I was pleasantly surprised.  The meal left me feeling the same way I did when I would eat the burger and fries but this time I wasn’t full of all the crap that is bad for me… This time I was full of the good stuff.

I quickly came to realize that food is all about choices.  You have a set of requirements, they are pretty basic and everyone has them:

1. You want something that will taste good (who likes bad tasting food???)
2. You want to be left full at the end of the meal (no one likes being hungry)
3. You want this food in a timely manner.  (no one likes waiting or cooking forever all the time

These requirements are pretty easy to fill ya know?  The vegetables come out in the same amount of time as the fries and taste just as good.  I just found it very interesting that the healthy food accomplishes the same exact goal as the non-healthy food.  Which of course makes me think… why for all of these years have I chosen the un-healthy food?  Maybe the fact that the un-healthy food is constantly marketed to us alot more then the healthy food.  Kinda makes you think what else is being marketed to us that another better alternative is available..  but that is a blog post for another day.

My Million Dollar Idea

So I was reading an article on CNN the other day that talked about family members drowning in their car because the current was too swift to allow them to open the door.  I know they have tools to smash glass but those don’t help much for people who don’t have access to them.  I purpose we build a device that detects if the car is flooding and then automatically breaks the glass for you, releases the seat belts, and unlocks the doors…  I’m sure an electrical pulse or something could be used to break the glass right?

I know for a fact you cannot open a car door once the car is submerged until the pressure equalizes in the car (therefore the car also needs to be flooded on the inside but most likely you have passed out by now because of panic of trying to open the door and taking up too much oxygen).

By breaking the window, you could provide an escape exit as well as a quicker way to flood the vehicle and open the doors.

Again just a top of the head idea for anyone who has the know how to make it happen… I’ll only take %20 of the profits… ha!

Makes us think what we could all accomplish if we just banded together

Read this today: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/09/hawaii.volunteers.repair/index.html and it really made me think what the rest of the US and World could accomplish if we just banded together and got it done.  Just some food for thought.

Something that would have taken years, took eight days… Imagine what we could do for cancer or AIDS or poverty.

Quote of the Day

“I know things that you don’t, I’ve done things that you won’t, theres nothing like a trail of blood to find your way back home” – SixxAM

Interesting Article on Depression vs Recession

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1868969,00.html

It makes some interesting points.

Credit Card Rate-Jacking

This article was on CNN today: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/17/credit.card.rates/index.html Talk about some BS right?  The fact that everyone is running around saying:  “I’m trying to protect the consumer” and then they get a phone call from some person who makes large donations to their campaign and all of sudden the bill just sits there and sits there.  When are our representatives going to grow a pair and say “fuck this, I’m doing what is right” and I’ll bet you’ll still get elected next year because the America people remember the fact that you did the right thing… So your pockets won’t get full of money, but you’ll know you would have done the right thing.

This type of stuff happening in this economy is bull shit espeically since we pass the bail out package.. which by the way isn’t being used the way that we were all told. (IE government no longer buying trouble mortgages).  We are bailing out companies who knew they were doing bad shit, and kept doing it.  Pretty much “if you don’t say us and give us your hard earned money, we will just spiral down and the economy will be worse… Ohh we knew what we were doing was wrong, but fuck that, we are soo important to this ‘America’ that you don’t have a choice”.

What ever happened to honesty and having to answer for your actions?  If your pockets are deep enough, you can just buy what you want, or if your influence is deep enough you can just do whatever you want because they can’t afford to go after you.  It is ridiculous… simply outrageous that this Bill has been sitting in the Senate for so long… I a America consumer demand that something be done, stop taking payouts from the Financial industry and start getting something done… If it wasn’t for the lack of over-site and payouts you took to begin with we wouldn’t be in this situation.

AMERICA – From World Super Power to Third-World county over night thanks to the apathy for American Consumer.  Oh but lets not forget, we can still go all over the world telling people how to fix their damn problems cause you know our way has worked so damn well so far.

Anger

Angry men are blind and foolish, for reason at such a time takes flight and, in her absence, wrath plunders all the riches of the intellect, while the judgment remains the prisoner of its own pride. – Pietro Aretino

The Redeeming Dominos

So as I’m sure you can all see, my previous post on Dominos left nothing to be desired.  I’m happy to report that after emailing their CEO I was quickly contacted regarding the problem.  Not only did 1 person contact me, but someone from the customer service center, the area supervisor, and the store manager contacted me.

I cannot tell you how many times they apologized and informed me that this was not the norm.  They informed me they were sending the associate (Tim) to additional customer service training and gave me a number to call should I have trouble in the future with customer service.  They also said they would send over some gift certificates not only for me, but for my guests at the party who were impacted as well.

I think that was very nice of them.  I was happy to see that they quickly responded to my concerns and offered to correct the problem.  Not only did they offer me gift cards (which I’m not all that concerned about) but they put the associate through further training which I believe is more important then just giving me a free pizza.  If they didn’t correct the problem with the associate then the next time I called I could very much end up with the same problem.  Free stuff is a nice addon, but if they had only given free stuff I would have been even more likely to never order from them again because I would feel like I could get the same experience again.

Finally giving me the number to call helps ensure that should I have a problem in the future, I don’t need to worry about emailing anyone, but I can call, leave a message if I need to, and know that someone will get back to me soon about the problem.

Will I be ordering from dominos again soon?  Probably not, but will I order from them in the future?  Probably so thanks to the quick response, and effort to resolve the problem.

Quote

Some people see things as they are and say why.
I dream things that never were and say why not?

George Bernard Shaw

Dominos Pizza Worst Customer Service Of the Year Award

Let me start out by saying I generally like Domino’s Pizza and have never had a problem with them in the past, and we typically order from them at least 1 time a week.

On Friday my wife and I received a flier on our door about a deal Dominos Pizza was having where you can get any pizza any toppings for $8.99.  We also received an automated phone call from Domino’s stating the same thing.  So my wife and I decided to have some people over and enjoy some pizza and the game.

On Sunday we had some people over and it came Time to order some pizza.  I took everyone’s order and then called my local Dominos (Manassas Junction Store Number 4380) and spoke with Brad.  He was very nice and I placed the following order: 1 largest pizza they had thin crust extra pepperoni pizza, 1 regular crust largest pizza they had half bacon and half just cheese, 1 largest pizza they had deluxe no mushrooms extra green peppers, 1 two liter coke and 1 order of cheese sticks.  Brad informs us it will take about 45 minutes to arrive and with it being the Holiday weekend this doesn’t surprise me.

The pizza arrived within the time limit, however the delivery driver only handed me two pizza boxes.  I inquired about the third pizza to which he apologized and said he must not have picked up the box.  I inform him I would not sign the receipt (since I paid by visa) until my third pizza arrived and asked if he would like to take the entire order back to the store and he said no he’ll just run back and get the pizza.  About 3 minutes later he knocked on the door to inform me that they (Brad I assume) did not ring up my middle pizza (the bacon and cheese) and that since they messed up on the order, the pizza would be free.  He asked that I please sign the receipt and informed me that when he returns to his vehicle he will call the store and ensure they begin making my pizza so that when he returns to the store he can pick the pizza up and get it back to me as soon as possible.

20 minutes later I receive a phone call from the Dominos Store who informed me that the manager will not authorize the pizza to be free because it wasn’t on the ticket to begin with so I didn’t pay for it with my order and therefore I’ll have to pay for it.  I wasn’t too concerned about it, as I just wanted my pizza for my party and had guests waiting so I said that was fine.  The person on the phone (whos name I didn’t get ) informed me it would be another 45 minutes before my Pizza arrived.  They wanted to simply place me back into the queue like it was a new fresh order.  At this time I became upset and asked to speak with a manager.  From my point of view, this could have been told to the driver when he was at my house and he could have informed me or at least told me I needed to call the store.  Instead I get a phone call 20 minutes after the driver leaves informing me of this.  If I would have been informed when the driver left I would have sent the entire order back.

So the assistant manager (Tim) gets on the phone and refused to give out his last name because he didn’t feel comfortable giving out his last time.  I repeated my story of what happened and asked him to please speak with Brad and confirm him missing the middle pizza in my order to which he informed me that Brad was out making deliveries and would not be back for 20 minutes and therefore he couldn’t help me.  He repeated that the pizza was not on my original order and therefore I would not receive it for free.  I informed him that the driver did tell me it would be for free which he responded with “The driver is not authorized to give you a free pizza or make any promises.”  I told him that was fine and I just wanted my pizza quicker then 45 minutes because they had already messed up my order.  He then said there were “6 other deliveries in front of me and he could do nothing to help me”.  This made me very upset.  I informed him I was receiving terrible customer service that I believed was unacceptable and asked who the Store Manager was and if I could speak with him.  He informed me the Store Manager was Joel Shepard and he would not be in the store until Tuesday and therefore I could not speak with him.  I then asked him that if they messed up my order why would they not do anything to help resolve the problem by at least getting me my pizza ahead of the other 6 orders and he said “I’m sorry but there is nothing I can do”.  I then asked for his store number for his location to which he informed me he did not have one.  (Please note the store number above was taken from the Domino’s Website). I then ended the phone call with the fact that my wife and I enjoy their pizza and after this we would no longer be ordered from Domino’s.

Unfortunately my wife and some of my Guests headed out to a restaurant to eat dinner since their meal never arrived.  I really believe this is one of the worst customer service experiences I have ever had.  To simply be told there is nothing I can do about it is unacceptable when the mistakes lies with the store.  If it had been my fault, I would have accepted that fact and waited another 45 minutes.  To make matters worse, the driver promised me something that wasn’t delivered on, and I had to wait an additional 20 minutes before the store called me to tell me what the driver promised wasn’t going to happen. Worse of all the Assistant Manager Tim didn’t really seem to care about my problem at all, he had a voice of apathy like he just wanted to get me off the phone.

Needless to say my wife and I will not be ordering from Dominos in the future.

UPDATE

December 02, 2008

So yesterday I took this post and emailed it to the CEO of the Dominos as well as other members listed on the stock market financial executive list from Google Finance.  Here is the reponse I got:

Dear Mr. Clark,

Thank you for taking the time to contact us and inform us of the very unacceptable experience you received while ordering pizza for your guests from the Manassas location.  Our CEO, David Brandon, has received your email and asked me to let you know that he apologizes for this situation and is personnally very embarrassed about the horrible service you received.

To keep you informed, I have reported this incident to the franchise owner of the store, Dave Wood, and asked that he contact you directly to resolve this matter.  I would also like to talk with you about this situation and would appreciate you providing me your contact number or, please give me a call at our World Resource Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan at <Phone Number Removed>.

Again, we apologize for the terrible service you received and hope we can resolve this matter to keep you as a loyal customer.

Pretty nice huh?  I’ll keep everyone posted on how it goes.  Maybe there is some reedeming qualities in Dominos afterall.