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to complain or not?
Let me give an example
On Sat went out for lunch with a friend in a pub that also serves food.
When the order came I have slightly the wrong meal (a chicken fillet burger rather than a breaded chicken burger)
The person who brings the food is intolerably extrovert (the kind of woman who puts her arm on your shoulder, laughs loudly at her own jokes, calls you "love" and "sweetheart", talks 3 times louder than necessary etc)... to avoid having to talk to her any more than I had to I just said "dont worry, its fine" (also because if I sent my meal back then me and my friend couldnt eat together)
Also we ordered some onion rings, and they came about 15 mins after the meal when I had finished my burger and my friend mostly finished.
Then another waitress comes and says the usual "was everything ok?" as she takes my plate and I automatically reply "yeah, fine thanks"
Then my friend comes out and says about "well, one of the meals was wrong and the onion rings were a big late..." she was perfectly polite but I was a bit mortified really.
Then to make things worse the manageress comes back, apologises, explains what happened, calls me "darling", touches me, etc etc... The end result is that they gave us another free drink.
When I thought about it rationally, I dont think there is any reason why I should have felt embarassed to complain, or why I would automatically say "everything is fine" when it isnt.
My basic response if I get bad service is to
1 - not complain
2 - not go back if its bad enough
Even to the extent if the food is inedible... I'll still pay and just walk out and leave it untouched and not say anything. (in this example the problems werent that bad, although the onion rings were burned and I only ate one and left the rest... I didnt dare mention that to my friend at this point!)
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On the other hand, my friend basically just stated what the problem with the meal was, she was polite and friendly, didnt ask for anything as "compensation" but did accept when the manageress said she would give us both a free drink.
I can see that her behaviour was more rational and more mature... yet I still would do exactly the same thing the next time, I still find complaining embarassing and just, on some basic level, wrong and impolite (even when done in a polite way)... and what I wonder is how many people feel more like me? Or more like my friend in this situation?
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"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."
The Gospel of Thomas
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