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!)

_

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?

I used to feel the same way you did until my money became more precious to me (=blame it on the economy).

Yes, people make mistakes. Doesn't mean you need to be nasty or crude to the server. But you're paying for a product and if you're brought the wrong one, it's your duty to inform them unless, of course, you're happy with the error.

It's also a reasonable expectation to eat your meal with others in your party, so sometimes we have to sacrifice getting what we requested. In that case, you should at least have the choice of replacing the meal for what you requested, a credit or some sort of compensation (the free drinks, in your case). There should have been a full credit for the onion rings.

It's always your call and depends upon the situation, but it's your money. You shouldn't have to be embarassed to get what you pay for.

I've got a pretty strong food disservice-before-complaint threshold. As long as they bring me the right species of cooked animal and don't bring me a Cosmopolitan when I order a Maker's and Diet... I'm good. I'm easy to please as far as restaurants go. Don't have X beer? Too bad, I'll take whatever you've got. Example: I find mayonnaise to be disgusting, as such, I always ask for it to be omitted from my meals. Sure enough... 50% come back with the nasty white stuff. I do my best to shovel it off with a utensil and eat it anyway. I'm chill like that. I don't really enjoy food the way others do, though.

I'd have immediately mentioned the burger mishap and missing onion rings while the sandwiches were being dropped off. So long as you're being polite, why expect anything less than what you've paid for?

I only complain when I think it will make a difference. Some people complain, just to complain with no consideration of the end result.

In this case, it could have made a difference. And it did, altough it might have provided a better solution had the complaint have been made sooner.

It depends. If I get what I ordered and it's prepared reasonably, then I won't complain. If something is missing or wrong, or the food is obviously cooked wrong where it's raw or burnt, then I will complain.

I tend to complain if I don't get what I want. I've been told I can be rude. Whatever. Serious servers want to fulfill your orders perfectly.

DIET???

I tend to be a difficult vegetarian, but i dont blame anyone for my requests. A lot of places don't have choices that I like or the salads always have chicken or bacon. I order without a lot of times. I have also ordered the meat on the side and take it home to the cats as a treat. (They rarely get people food.) If the salad comes with carcass, it's usually easy to remove so I suck it up. Chicken is easy to remove, bacon crumbles, not so much. I don't like sending it back as I feel like I was too demanding for straying from the original menu item. However, I'm haunted by one time when a piece of steak was left in a wrap that I accidentally ate. I was so sick after I ate that. Now I'm more persistent. I wouldn't have to do this if there were more vegetarian options that aren't deep fried or smothered in cheese. This of course is a complaint of the Midwest more so than the Pacific Northwest.

While seated in an enclosed patio, a trapped bird poohed in my friend's beer. That was so funny...she was compensated with a pooh-free beer after that. We were regulars, so we just laughed with our server and she took care of us. Knowing our server made things a lot easier.

I'm the type of person, who if the waitress or cook makes a mistake, will just politely inform them of their error. It takes a pretty large threshold for me to bitch or become unpleasant.

"I ordered this steak Medium....it's a little undercooked. Would you mind putting it back on for a little longer?" (Last time I got steak at TGI Fridays :P)

etc.

Or Coke Light.

http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/a.../CokeLight.jpg

when they say "was everything ok?" if you don't tell them what was wrong, they will continue to make the same mistakes. they ask for a reason, you should tell them what was wrong. you don't have to be a dick about it, you can just state facts. they can't fix what's wrong unless they know there is a problem.

WAAYYYY too much time on your hands... :)

to begin with: i have terrible standards when it comes to food due to having to eat whatever they serve in the mess hall or going hungry for that meal.

there is however once in a blue moon when the planets align in the galaxy so perfectly that some excuse of a cook decides to basically scrape the leftover bits of whatever he was just preparing onto a plate with crusted flakes of who-knows-what. at that point i tell the waiter to come over to me and in a casual tone (not necessarily polite, but how i would talk to one of my friends) and ask "hey man, would you eat this?" at which point they say "good point" and hook me up then follow up by thanking me for not flipping my shit

I guess it depends. If I think the place is worth my effort, I'll give my feedback. If the service is terrible, I'll leave a $0.02 tip. If the food was bad, I won't eat it, and tell the waitstaff if he/she asks.

Best Veg quote I've seen in awhile, thanks for that.

SF, I point out the problems. I don't consider it a complaint.
Like others, I work hard for my money. If I don't want a chicken sammich
and I ordered a burger, I'm going to chat with my dinner partner while
they eat and either steal fries off their plate and wait for my burger
or just ask them to take it off my bill and grab something later (since I'd
be irritated at that point and not likely to enjoy the food portion of my
meal). If I didn't mind a chicken sammich and it was more expensive,
I'd probably point out that I ordered the burger, not the chicken.
If the onion rings arrived late, I'd either munch on them as my
meal or let the server know that I'd ordered them to go with my burger,
which had not arrived, so I'm not interested in them any longer.
Servers aren't necessarily the one to have made the mistake in the first
place, so I often give them the benefit of the doubt and I don't get pissy
or "complain", I just bring it to their attention.
And often end up with things off my bill or free drinks, etc.
That's not my point, but it makes me feel better to say "this is not okay."

Yall must be unlucky. I can't remember ever being served anything inedible.

haha, have you seen this?

also reminds me of this....could only find it with spanish subs oddly, but it has the scenes I'm reminded of...

Plan9, thats not Coke Light

that says "Cooka Coola Laight"

i went to a restaurant last night and when the food came out it wasnt as hot as it should have been. I didnt complain because it would have been another 10-20 mins before i got my food again and i was starving!

usually i would have asked them to get it re-done if i had the time and if there wasnt little men playing karate in my stomach.

Exactamundo. I mean, if it isn't right... you usually don't know until 20 minutes later when the siren in your pants goes off.