Anyone else wanna negotiate?
So the Bear was supposed to be gone for two weeks, and coming home this past Friday. But it worked out for him to come home for a couple of days at the start of last week instead. Knowing he'd be coming home late Sunday morning via the ferry, I arranged to have our friends watch Tweetie for a few hours so we could have some time together before I got back into the work week, and he headed out of town again. It worked out for our friends to take her in the evening, so we decided to go out for a bite. And running through the options of places to go, we opted to go to Cactus Club, for old time's sake. The Bear used to take me to one of the original Cactus Club locations in North Van when we were still dating, and though the franchise has gone through a couple of makeovers since, there's still that connection.
So, we dropped off T and headed downtown. We put in our orders, including some wings with blue cheese sauce, one of the Bear's night out staples, for starters. A little while later, a different server brought the wings, but without the sauce. Our server had been caught up in a bit of a billing backlog. The Bear, being particular about such things, mentioned the missing sauce, and the other server said she'd look into it.
And so we waited. And waited. We never saw the other server again, but eventually flagged down our own. Knowing this was more an issue of staffing than our own server's efforts, the Bear asked to speak to the manager. Our server dutifully asked about the problem, and he filled her in. She came back a moment later with the sauce, and said the manager was on his way. Of course, by this time, the wings were cold, as were the finger bowls. When the manager came by a few minutes later, the Bear filled him in. And true to the Bear's negotiating record, the manager comp'd us the wings, plus a fresh pound with fresh sauce, and dessert. Which left me feeling room in the budget for another virgin margarita. And the rest of the evening went wonderfully, except that with all the extra wings, it was hard to finish my meal.
So, we dropped off T and headed downtown. We put in our orders, including some wings with blue cheese sauce, one of the Bear's night out staples, for starters. A little while later, a different server brought the wings, but without the sauce. Our server had been caught up in a bit of a billing backlog. The Bear, being particular about such things, mentioned the missing sauce, and the other server said she'd look into it.
And so we waited. And waited. We never saw the other server again, but eventually flagged down our own. Knowing this was more an issue of staffing than our own server's efforts, the Bear asked to speak to the manager. Our server dutifully asked about the problem, and he filled her in. She came back a moment later with the sauce, and said the manager was on his way. Of course, by this time, the wings were cold, as were the finger bowls. When the manager came by a few minutes later, the Bear filled him in. And true to the Bear's negotiating record, the manager comp'd us the wings, plus a fresh pound with fresh sauce, and dessert. Which left me feeling room in the budget for another virgin margarita. And the rest of the evening went wonderfully, except that with all the extra wings, it was hard to finish my meal.
posted by Coastal at
9:14 p.m.
1 Comments:
Which just goes to show you that you get better results through polite negotiation than through rude, crude, yelling, temper tantrums. In all of my years serving tables, I wished more people would learn that lesson.
Kudos to the Bear.
By
Mrs. Cowan, at 5:42 p.m.
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