How Else Are You Gonna Bring All The Boys To The Yard?!

This is the tale of the one and only time I ever actually complained to a corporate establishment. It was summer in the early 2000s — an especially hot one, where every day felt worse than the day before.

Our local [Fast Food Restaurant famous for the ice cream machine always being “down” — you know the one] would NEVER have milkshakes available, no matter the time of day. Lunch rush? Down. Evening? Down. Early morning? Down. And of course, no resolution was ever forthcoming.

Eventually, I got to the point where ALL I wanted was a freakin’ milkshake. It’s SUMMER! It’s HOT! GIVE ME A SHAKE! So, I finally broke down and sent an email outlining my complaint to the corporate offices.

In return, I ended up getting a few vouchers for a free value meal of my choice. I mean… great, but it’s still not a shake. Whatever.

I finally decided to use one of them, and when I went through the drive-thru and presented the voucher, I was subsequently presented with the manager.

Manager: “How did you get this?!”

Me: “I complained to corporate because your ice cream machine has been ‘down’ all summer?”

Manager: “And did you ever think to just talk to me about it?!”

Me: “Well… no. What were you going to do? Make it magically not be down?”

Manager: “Ugh. It’s people like you who make this job not worth it.”

She proceeded to nearly throw my food into the car and “slam” the drive-thru window.

Why would I think the manager was also secretly an ice cream machine mechanic? If the machine was truly broken all this time, that’s terrible service. If it wasn’t, and you just didn’t want to have to clean it later… that’s STILL terrible service!