Serves Them Right

-by Jack Falvey

Readers Digest, February 1993 issue.

                        Where I live are two similar buildings that I visit regularly. Both are free-standing, single story structures with ample parking and drive through facilities. Each has a canvas banner tied across the front. One says, “Try Our Chicken Fajitas”; the other, “Try Our ATM,” or automated teller machine. In many ways they are in similar businesses. The wonder is that they take such different approaches to the same customers.

            Dick Morrison, owner of the local McDonald’s, discovered that more than 50% of his business   came at his drive-through window. So he ripped out the side of his building and added a second window just for the cash part of the transaction. The existing window was used for order pickups. He then attached two-way radios to his employees so they could work as a team to better serve his driving customers. The object was to serve more customers faster, and thus build volume and profits.

            At the other business, a local branch bank, a larghe number of customer used the drive-through window. It did double duty. Hooked up to the window was a vacuum-tube system that connected with an-other drive-through unit on a small island opposite. This way, two customers could be served at once. However, the bank figured that switching the customer island to as automated teller machine would cut cost and increased profits. So the vacuum-tube unit was torn out and replace with an ATM. An hour was also cut off the drive-through window schedule.

            Soon there were long lines at the drive-through window, and customers were complaining. Ever the salesman, the bank manager replied that ATMs are the next great wonder of the world, and that everyone should give the machine the machine.

            At McDonald’s, Dick Morrison has an office in his building. He is seldom in it. He says his customers won’t take the trouble to go back to see him, so he works outside a lot, cleaning up trash and pruning the roses. Everyone in town knows that the guy in the cardigan sweater and baseball cap is Dick and that he owns the place.

            Inside McDonald’s, even though there are many more customers than in the bank, there are no red-rope mazes. No one says, “Who’s next?” all you here is, “Can I help you over here?” Behind the counter is a level of activity an army gun crew would admire. Sometimes three people will fill just one order. They look over ones shoulder at the computer screens and run to get what’s missing. All the managers help when things become busy. Often, during lunch hour, Morrison cooks the fries to free one more counterperson and speed up his operation

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            At the bank, the manager has an office on the corner of the building. It has two glass walls, so the drive in-line often wraps right around it. Everyone can see him in there, either on the phone or doing paper work. Since his back is to the windows, he never makes eye contact to those in line.

            Sometimes people line outside park their cars, hoping to get through quicker on the inside. But the teller line inside seldom seems to have more than two windows open. There maybe three or four extra workers doing things in the back, but they are usually too busy to help the people standing in line. And to all those bank people sitting at their desk only ten feet away, the customer seems to be always invisible.

             Do people talk about the fast service at McDonald’s?  Always, for they always go there. Do people talk about the slow service at the bank? All the time. And they do everything they can to keep them from going there. They cash checks at the supermarket or the gas station. They send deposits by mail.

            Knowing what customer needs and want is basic to any business. The people at McDonald’s have mastered this lesson. Many experienced bank managers have not. And they are paying the price. The  folks in my town aren’t surprised that McDonald’s has been thriving, while the area’s bank have not.

The Unsung heroes…

            For a moment, rage slips away from my head, hatred seems to vanish along with my insipid dreams and a thought just pop up inside my quarter pounder that had push me to putdown my pitchfork and wipe these grin from my efing face. I’d been pestering them relentlessly since day1 of my blogging days, and I just felt that it’s time to let hatred and animosity be dissolved and wash away in this sea of forgotten praises. To give my respect to some of my bosses who silently strives to be a better human, if not a manager. Yet still, kudos to them!

            Seriously, does anyone here know that they are not paid equally on holidays? That they don’t have any double pay on holidays, or any Over-Time payment for their extended time of work? Common, let’s not be so Rachel dela Cruz and be a hypocrite at heart! Though they eat a lot, that’s all that can take back for working long fucking hours with no payment, I mean, is this the real essence of charity? If you could only hear how our kuya scold them in their meeting, how they work mindless our just to make ate and kuya happy. OT without payment, not even Over Thank you, but Over Tawad.

            I’m no ass kisser or a dick sucker like those insipid phoneys at store, all I know is that, its time I give my praise to my bosses who steadfastly absorb all the brutal verbal assault not only from us but also from those higher niggards. But please, I beseech you my friends to spare me from your mockery for sansan and ethel would be the least of all that I will give my praises to. You see, like an ancient ninjas, they have stealthy mastered the art of looking down on us, they have stoop on us so low that they treat us like no humans, but a mere peasant, if not a robot that must forcedly work because we are highly paid, but then again, I’m not here to nag on those fucking two, but to give credit to our unsung heroes…our managers.

            All we know about them is they eat a lot, pesterize our shifts, nag on our uniforms, but isn’t that their job, or maybe not? But are all of them like sansan who love to spin round-and-roun the whole store to ruin our hopes and dreams, Hell no! Had you been ever been pesterized or documented by jayjune? Hell, no one here I think, has ever been drag to hell by jayjune due to our late, cash over short or simply by our utter mindless acts to not follow our standards? I give my credit to him not because he’s my friend or due to the fact that he’s my “kumpare” but because of this, whenever that he’s our mic, I can say arrogantly that we always had a smooth shift, he trust us so much to let us handle our job, and it’s a fucking nice thing.

            For an instance, think about mam cel, though she loves to fire fiery words of corrections, it was never a personal matter. Though some asshole acuse her of having “favouritism, she never had, were all treated in the same way as others, though at times you might see her treating others in a higher resperct, its only due to this. Their doing their jobs at heart, and if you want to feel it too, maybe stop nagging on things you care none and start working.

            I still remember a former manager, s’ Ricky, he was my mentor, a good teacher who moulded me to what I am now, he taught me on vast field of things that I’m using on my job now, I was never trained properly only by him and by the MRC book, and I’m no William or Enteng, but I have my ways to fix things as much as I can.

            Think of M’ hazel, she’s happy and gay, and that’s how are shifts whenever she’s around, I can’t even think of a single documentation that I received from her. Was it because she’s my friend and batch mate in our work, maybe yes and maybe not, yet still I like working whens she’s the MIC.

How about M’ Pre and M’ Clarriz? If you’re a thunder cats, then you might have noticed the changes in them, and a change with progress is a good thing! If only you’ve met them 5yrs ago, you might have said that they are the daughters of hell. But as I said, they have change a lot, and give my deepest respect to them now! Kudos to the both of them.

And how about M’ Gay? All I can say is that she never pesterized me since day 1, its a little bias here. I haven’t even mentioned, S’ lon, M’ jeime, S’ Eugene who I have a big respect too, though they are assigned in other stores now.

At the end of the day, some of us might still hate them, others might still try too shoot them from behind, yet still smile in front of them, but that’s how life is, we’re all just phoneys at heart! As I end this post, some of you might have soften a little towards them and give now their due respects. If we just try to stop hating them and try to think of this, we won’t be scold or documented if we haven’t done anything wrong, am I not right? In a horse race, the winning horse didn’t win because he wanted too, but because of the pain from the whipping of its jockey who wants him to win, so if you feel like the pain is intolerable, they just want you to win badly for they believe in you so much. Don’t be like those former crews who hate our store so much yet it’s our store that brought in their tables for many days…fucking assholes! I remember S’ j-em once said, work is work, if your being scolded it’s due to the kind of your work, nothing personal. Our managers are still workers, were all workers here… we share all the pain inside this, they just don’t show you, believe me, you cannot stand how they are being humiliated in their meeting…we are all casualties here.