About To Blow Your Short Stack

I am eating at a chain diner with some friends and see that they had a poster that says, “Free short stack if you sign up for our membership.” I sign up, get my confirmation email with the coupon, and ask the waitress if I can apply it to the order I am about to make. She frowns.

Waitress: “Oh, we don’t do that.”

Me: “Um, it’s on the sign right there? Did it expire?”

Waitress: “No, we’ve never done that.”

She is not rude, simply clueless, and she offers to go ask someone else. She comes back a few minutes later with a manager.

Manager: “Sorry, yeah, you have to wait for corporate to email you an actual coupon to redeem the pancakes.”

Me: “Okay. I have the confirmation right here, though. Does it say that on the sign and I just didn’t read carefully? Sometimes that happens.”

Manager: “No, it’s policy.”

I accept this. A few weeks later, I come back with some friends and ask to redeem the coupon, figuring that I have waited long enough for it to be valid.

Waiter: “You have to use that within three days of signing up.”

I am frustrated and explain what I was previously told.

Me: “It’s not your fault, but did policy change?”

Waiter: “No, that’s always been that way. Our manager said.”

He pointed to the manager who had previously told me we had to come back later.