Rude Wendy's Manager Yanks Customer's Pigtails
Everyone who's over the age of 3 and not a lifelong vegan has surely had a confrontation with a haughty fast-food manager. Danny and his family threw down with a Wendy's honcho who tried to get all Studio 54 with them — resulting in a hastily filled-out free burger coupon and a near denial of its redemption — but it looks as though Danny gave as good as he received.
Danny's record of his trials, in the form of a truncated e-mail he wrote to an unspecified executive, possibly Wendy herself:
My family and I have been going to Wendy's quite often for a long time, even back when I was younger and we were living in Korea in the 1990s — there was a Wendy's within walking distance of our house, and I actually have fond memories of stopping by there every Wednesday night after church services. After an issue at a Wendy's today, I called the customer service line on the back of the Wendy's receipt hoping to get a person, but was disappointed to learn that it was a machine. So I am escalating the issue in the hopes that it receives some attention. I realize you are all probably busy, so I will try to make the email as brief as possible.
My name is Danny (redacted), and the Wendy's my family and I were at around 12:20pm (a little after noon) today, August 2nd, 2009, is located at:
8301 Leesburg Pike
Vienna, VA 22180Issue 1)
The manager, who seemed to be doing much himself in order to get the employees working for him trained was incredibly rude. While we ordered food, the manager seemed to be very impatient right from the start as I ordered what I wanted, ignoring a requests to make the combo I ordered a large because I wasn't answering the question he had asked ("Drink?"). He also seemed offensively impatient especially with my parents, seemingly because they could not speak fluent English, based on his noticeably different treatment of the customers behind us who could speak fluent English - this is ridiculous considering the manager himself, who was not of American origin, had barely comprehensible English as well. Actually, it's somewhat discriminatory.Right from the outset, my family and I were both incredibly upset by the poor customer service. My father was in fact so upset that he called the customer survey number on the back on the receipt on the spot and proceeded to give the location poor ratings immediately.
Issue 2)
After my father filled out the survey, we got and wrote down the code for a free burger and we decided to use it before we left, thinking, "Hey, we give him the code, he gives us the burger, we leave, how hard could it be?" We didn't even have to buy anything more like we would have to at Burger King (BK clearly states that we must buy something else to get the free survey burger, there's nothing on a Wendy's receipt to even suggest such a policy)! It turns out getting that free burger a lot harder than we thought.First off, to clarify and confirm, the only thing it says on the back of the receipt regarding the free burger is, "Guests can only redeem one free Single hamburger in 30 day period. This offer not valid with any other offer or discount. Wendy's employees and families not eligible" right below the line for writing the coupon code.
When my father handed the coupon to the same rude manager mentioned above, the manager kept on insisting that we had to buy something before we could claim the free burger. When we told him yeah, we'd bought those four burgers earlier, he said we had to buy something again. We asked him where on the receipt it said "Purchase necessary", and his "evidence" to back up his claim was the line that read, "This offer not valid with any other offer or discount." Clearly he thought my parents were idiots or something because they couldn't speak English fluently, completely not realizing that I myself spoke English like a native. My father tried to clarify, in case the manager was new or something, that the line just meant we couldn't use it with any other coupons or anything along those lines. But the manager clearly looked annoyed and refused to back off, wasting not only our time, but the time of the customers behind us as well.
At this point, I was incredibly annoyed, so I stepped in. I told him that, based on my education growing up in the US and attending prestigious schools, I was pretty sure "This offer not valid with any other offer or discount," did NOT mean, "You must buy something to get a free burger." To this, the manager quipped, "Well, you may have studied at that school, but I run this business," still refusing to back off. He kept on stating we had to buy at least a one dollar item, insisting it was, "No big deal, just one dollar." I'd say it's a bit of a ripoff to have to pay anything for something we should've gotten for free in the first place.
Only after both our time, as well as the time of the customers behind us in line - between five to ten minutes - had been wasted, did the manager reluctantly give us the burger. From what I could tell from the manager's stuck up demeanor, he did so just to make us leave. We did not get an apology, or any sort of compensation for time wasted other than the burger that should've taken us less than a minute to get in the first place.
My father had a job in the food service/retail sector when he was younger, and he clearly said this was not how employees were supposed to be educated. Is this how Wendy's trains its employees, and even worse, its managers, to treat its customers?
Neither my father and I are the types to make a big deal of things such as this, and we would have been fine if at any point in the process, the manager had simply backed off and apologized. But the manager refused to. This incident was absolutely unacceptable, and my family and we may take our fast food needs to other chains in the future. We will miss the bit of sentimental attachment from my back when we lived in Korea, but so be it.
My family would like a sincere, direct apology from Wendy's and to be compensated for the time wasted arguing with the manager and for the money wasted for such dreadful customer service.
Danny and his family need an apology, Wendy, even if it comes as a lie through those gritted, smiling teeth of yours. There are some wounds a free burger won't solve. Not many, mind you, but some.
(Photo: mbeldyk)
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Comments:
Aw, I was looking forward to an article about a manager ACTUALLY yanking someone's pigtails.
I don't see the part about yanking pigtails...
Give Wendy a call and ask this person if it is true and if their behavior can be defended:
703-893-6025
Perhaps the manager was frustrated with training his new employees? The stacking order of tomato, lettuce, onion and condiments is a very stringent process. Any failure in such said stacking order ruins the burger.
Now Five Guys...they are masters...Bacon, Tomato, Sauted Onions, Mushrooms, Lettuce, Cheese exquisitely stacked between two mouth watering burger patties without condiment spillage. Yum..
@katstermonster: Ditto. I was picturing a manager who though a kid was wearing a "wendy wig" but it was really her hair, or she was bald underneath.
Headline is misleading. Thread did not deliver.
@katstermonster: I'm opting for coffee, which isn't as healthy as yogurt. But I've yet to find highly caffeinated yogurt, so this will do.
@pecan 3.14159265: I need coffee today, but caffeine gives me the shakes for 10+ hours. I could seriously use a jolt, though.
I had two problems with this article -
"I will try to make the email as brief as possible."
Didn't try very hard. And -
"based on my education growing up in the US and attending prestigious schools"
Well aren't you special. I'm sure that when you tell fast-food, minimum wage employees how incredibly brilliant you are, that NORMALLY they just snap to attention and do whatever you wish. But might want to reconsider that in the future.
@CoarseLive: And thus make it more difficult for the grunt-level employees to do their jobs. Please don't stoop to this kind of vandalistic attempt at vigilantism.
@Radi0logy: I think at that point, the OP was getting really snarky because other methods weren't working. I don't think anything could have convinced the Wendy's manager that he was wrong, though. Sometimes you can't negotiate with stubborn people.
@Smashville: They were metaphorical pigtails meant to signify the manager giving the customers a hard time.
@Radi0logy: I think that point was made as a response to the patronizing and condescension on the manager's part; not so much an "elitism" thing.
@katstermonster: I, too, was sorely disappointed. On a Monday morning, I need a little more jolt than "manager is curt with foreigners and makes it difficult to redeem coupon. Film at 11."
This Wendy's is right down the street from where I live. I now drive to the other side of down when I really want Wendy's.
I tried going there twice. First time, I just got a simple nuggets combo from the drive-through. The fries were ice cold, and when I opened the box of nuggets, they were completely covered in salt. Every single one of them, just coated in it.
The second time, I went with three friends. Despite the fact that there were only 2-3 other people in the restaurant (& they were behind us in line), it took us more than half an hour to get our food, and the people behind us were served long before us. All of the food was cold and awful. The coffee-toffee-twisted-frosty one of us ordered wasn't even mixed, it was just a pile of vanilla slop with some toffee bits and coffee syrup poured on top. Ugh.
Next time I'm in Wendy's and there's a problem, I will loudly request that the employee "quit yanking my pigtails."
I'd have been getting pretty frustrated too if I were the OP.. but whipping out the ol' "I went to [prestigious school x]" doesn't tend to make people see things your way, it just makes them angrier.
Although, the frazzled manager probably wasn't on his way to a zen-like state anyway.
What a terrible experience you had! It hurts to see our parents treated with disrespect.
Just my opinion, of course, but Virginia is so full of extreme conservatives that you are bound to run into a bigot who doesn't like what he/she perceives to be non-Americans. When they are encountered working in a low-wage/salary place like Wendy's you get a fine display of this attitude. (Next time ask the bigot how native Americans feel about the rest of us)
As for the corporatate attitude, whoever bought Wendy's recently has probably changed good policies into rotten ones.
If I were in your shoes I would avoid Wendy's and tell all my friends not to go there. At the very least, I would try other Wendy's restaurants till I found one staffed by decent people and go there.
I would go on the every complaint site on the web and leave remarks, twitter, etc..
A successful business can only ignore bad PR so long.
We've had mostly positive Wendy's experiences, but a couple of years ago, on a vacation, we ate at an appallingly slow and filthy location. I called the comment line immediately and was assured I'd be contacted by the local manager. He sent a letter, with vouchers for a small free hamburger and a small free fries. Good at their location only. Expiring in one month.
@veg-o-matic: There usually isn’t an appropriate way to respond to puerile condescension, but meeting an idiot halfway sometimes makes progress. The manager responded poorly to civility, so why not try something harsher?
@Radi0logy: I'm always amazed at how long complaint letters are. I rarely read the whole thing and feel like most execs probably do the same thing. I notice a lot of people tend to provide WAY to many details.
@savdavid:
That'd almost be true, except it was Vienna VA. See, VA is basically northern and southern VA. Northern VA is kind of like a mini NYC. Very liberal, comprised of people making good money, mostly college graduates. The people that aren't the money makers are usually barely english speaking immigrants. Very few redneck types up there. Of course, bigots exist everywhere though, and probably always will, despite the PC efforts of our government.
What does it say about a restaurant when its own manager can't even do basic "service with a smile"? How is it that he's put in charge of training teenagers in retail service?
Fire the manager's ass. He clearly thinks that sales are more important than satisfaction. Methinks he's much better off begging Mike Rowe for a job, than making himself and everyone around him miserable running a fast-food place.
@savdavid: Wow. So who are the bigots in your world view? The conservatives in northern VA, the low-income employees at fast food restaurants, or the Native Americans?
Rock on, dude!
@katstermonster: Same here.
Dear Consumers Union,
I am writing today to let you know of an experience I had recently with one of you properties that has caused an action of misadvertising insuch with it's hence headline promising information regarding the pulling of one person's folicular protrusions.
While I'm not expecting compensation, some sort of compensation for my time and energy expended on this endeavor should be sent forthwith.
Please send your account information so that I might make of this compensation and joyous day.
Seriously though, thought we were going to hear about a manager manhandling someone. This guy was just a jerk.
1. Welcome to America - [Insert random fast-food establishment here] employees don't give a shit about you or your business.
2. A good way to voice your displeasure is by informing the manager that you won't be coming back and standing by your words.
3. Your time should be worth more than what you spent arguing with a fast-food manager over some mediocre burger - coupon or not.
4. When someone tells me what college they went to in order to impress me that immediately signals my special douchebag alarm.
@menty666: I'm sure they'll take it very seriously.
(And yeah, I figured there'd be literal hair-pulling too.)
I'd like to know how they expect to be "compensated for the time wasted arguing with the manager and for the money wasted for such dreadful customer service."
A refund and an apology is probably all they're going to get.
@veg-o-matic:
You went to |*Prestigious School*|? I guess I'll have to speak slowly and explain this twice for you.
@HogwartsAlum: This statement instantly eliminated any sympathy I had for this "customer". Having that expectation alone convinces me her attitude is totally off-base.
@adamczar: I figure that people assume the more info the better... they might be right in court, but not convincing Wendy's to send you a card for a free burger and frosty.
I laugh when I see these kinds of questions in a complaint letter:
"Is this how Wendy's trains its employees, and even worse, its managers, to treat its customers?"
Regarding: "ignoring a requests to make the combo I ordered a large because I wasn't answering the question he had asked ("Drink?")..."
I don't know about Wendy's, but when I worked at BK in high school you had to enter things in a specific order, i.e. combo, drink type, upsizing, then modifications to toppings. You couldn't start taking off/adding toppings or upsize an order before you pushed in what soda they wanted.
I often had customers come along who insisted on listing out their order in their preferred sequence despite my explaning that I needed to punch in what they wanted to drink before I could enter other items. In that scenario, you're left with equally annoying options (for both parties:) punch in Coke and try to remember their soda, risking giving them the wrong soda or having them freak out because their reciept doesn't say Orange or whatever, or keep gently reminding the customer that the system needs their drink order before you can punch anything else in.
So yeah, the manager was a grade-A douchebag, and the customer doesn't deserve to be treated like that, but if you're ever wondering why the cashier is insisting on taking your order in a specific sequence, it probably isn't to be a fascist. The computer is probably not letting them enter things any other way, and the average fast food employee is pretty shell shocked from people freaking out about messed up orders that they want to do things by the numbers to avoid mixups.
@Darrone: The Wendy's on Turney Road in Garfield Ohio has the best service of any fast food chain I've been in. 15-30 second service. Friendly. Patient. The manager goes around to each table with mints asking how everything was. His underling all appear to be very happy, and better yet they all appear to be very competent and polite. Its a throw back to how service should be, and how I remember it in the 80s.
I too was looking forward to pulling pig tails! Bastards!
My wife went to a prestigious school, had parents that weren't exactly American, and they still manage to speak English.
Not saying the manager wasn't rude, but your suppositions in this letter don't help your case. They make you seem like a pompous ass to me really.
And why do you know the burger king free hamburger redemtion policy? Do you have a chip on your shoulder and call every customer complaint line that's on the back of receipts that you remember all their terms and conditions?
The fast food manager will be the last dictator on earth.