You Had ONE Job!
Hi. It’s been a spell. If I were you, and I was paying for this newsletter, I’d be PISSED right now.
Since it’s free, well, then, talk to the 🤚.
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Pre-pandemic, there was a growing consensus among economists that the U.S. and other economies were shifting inexorably toward service economies. That is, we are buying less stuff and spending more on experiences and services: travel, entertainment, healthcare, Bolivian hot oil and jasmine massages (don’t judge), those sorts of things.
But then Covid hit and we couldn’t go anywhere - restaurants, hair salons, Bolivian massage parlors, Bolivia - so we ordered actual things online and had them delivered.
Now that we have everything we need or want, and Covid is on the wane, we’re back to buying experiences and services. Airlines are booked solid, hotel prices are through the roof, New York City restaurants are getting $35 for a side salad, and concert tours are back in full swing.
Based on a few recent experiences, this does not portend good things for the future of our economy. Allow me to expand:
1.) I recently had a one-night trip, with an overnight stay at a hotel. I returned from a meeting and hadn’t had dinner and the hotel restaurant was closed, so I ordered Chipotle from DoorDash for delivery to my room. It was a simple order: burrito bowl with veggie-based protein and brown rice, side of chips & salsa, mineral water. Total cost with tax, tip and delivery fee: $27 for what I am guessing is about $3.00 worth of food. But what-ev. I was hungry, tired and lazy, so pay up.
Thirty minutes later, the order arrived at my room. I thanked the DoorDasher, opened the bag and sat down to my feast of… a chicken bowl with white rice, no chips and a bottle of regular water. That was almost $30 for a $3.00 meal that was basically NOTHING like my order. If this were a basketball game, Chipotle would have been shooting 0-27, with the other team still in the locker room.
Is it possible that the DoorDasher swiped my chips? Sure, but the fact that the rest of the order was barely in the same solar system as my order leads me to believe that this is a Chipotle thing. It appears the junior varsity intramural team was working that night. And this was not my first or second experience with a less-than-perfectly executed Chipotle order.
No wonder Chipotle stock is at an all-time high and has a market capitalization equivalent to Luxembourg’s GDP. Chipotle (at least for me) has adopted a service philosophy that goes something like this: “You can order whatever the fuck you want, but we’ll make whatever the fuck we want, and you’ll buy it!” It’s just a matter of time before Chipotle starts substituting earthworms for chicken, and discarded, shredded compact discs for lettuce. “It is cheaper, people will eat anything if it comes with guacamole and the shareholders f-ing love it!”
2.) Fast forward to the next morning. I’m really hungry after my late dinner of… lettuce and white rice, so I go down for breakfast. I was staying at a Hilton, as I’ve been a loyal Hilton guy since Conrad was still making the beds himself. I have some sort of lifetime Gold status, which as far as I can tell entitles me to running water in the bathroom and one of those shoe shine cloths (upon request.) Beyond that, it’s unclear what I get.
Anyway, I walked into the restaurant and was presented with standard fare:
a $12.00 “Continental” buffet, meaning a choice of Cheerios, Rice Crispies or toast and maybe a banana or…
…a $17.00 hot buffet, with sad pancakes, sad bacon, sad eggs and a sad waffle.
As a dedicated cold cereal guy, I chose the Continental option (also, coincidentally, the brand of tires on my car which, with a touch of hot sauce, would have been preferable to last night’s Chipotle dinner.)
For some reason, in recent years, hotels seemed to have replaced normal, human-sized cereal bowls with Hobbit-sized ones that hold about 20 Cheerios and an eye dropper of milk. Think ashtray. This is no doubt to discourage gluttons like me from gorging on more than five-cents worth of Cheerios at one time. (Meanwhile, Marge and Melvin from Missouri just helped themselves to their fifth plate of sad bacon topped with… bacon.)
Me being a resourceful type, I poured myself THREE microbowls of Cheerios and then looked for milk. Skim, 2-percent, whole, oat, soy, almond, goat, rattlesnake. Didn’t care.
Nothing.
Went to the coffee bar. Lots of little half-and-half singles. No milk.
I asked one of two staffers where the milk was. He had no idea and asked his colleague, who appeared to be the manager. That guy looked around, saw no milk anywhere, told me to hold on and disappeared.
Clearly, he owns a milking cow at his house in the next county because what else could account for the 10 minute and counting absence to secure four ounces of such an exotic liquid?
I gave up and went back to my room for a quick power breakfast of Crest straight from the tube, washed down with some of that special “Gold Status” tap water that came with my room.
I checked out, got in my car and proceeded to thank whatever god you worship that I live in the northeast U.S. where there is a Dunkin Donuts every 200 yards.
3.) Speaking of cars. And service. And servicing cars: We own a 12-year-old Hyundai. It’s EK’s and even though I have offered multiple times to hunt for a replacement, she’s having none of it. She likes it, she’s used to it, and she’s dreaming of a fabulous vacation in some exotic Hilton hotel that has endless, flowing fountains of milk, so we’re saving up for that.
We recently received a recall notice from Hyundai for two items: something with the tire inflator that came with the car in lieu of an actual spare, and something involving the need for an application of undercoating. Both would be done at no charge, which is good because I would rather eat at Chipotle or a Hilton breakfast buffet than pay for service at a dealer.
The tire inflator didn’t really concern me, since I bought a spare tire and rim a few years ago. But, I obediently called our local dealer and made the appointment for both. We dropped the car off one morning and the guy tells us they will call for us to pick it up.
A few hours later, the phone rang: “All set!”
We drove back to the dealer and the guy informed me that they couldn’t do the undercoat thing because they ran out of undercoat and that he would give me a call when it’s back in stock.
Remember those “Tom & Jerry” cartoons when Jerry (mouse) would totally get one over on Tom (cat) and Tom’s face would get red and then his head would explode into a thermonuclear mushroom cloud?
Yeah, kind of like that. I thought “Have you ever considered working at Chipotle or Hilton? Because with your customer service skills, you could be running either company in no time!” To be continued…
I realize that this specific post, and a good chunk of this newsletter as a whole is me being a grumpy old man, so I’ll conclude on an upbeat note with a tale of top-notch (truly) customer service, courtesy of Costco pharmacy.
I recently had to pick up two prescriptions. The woman behind the Costco pharmacy counter says to me “Are you ok with the cost, because one is $285 and the other is $80?”
I said if that is what they cost, then so be it.
She said: “Hold on” and disappeared to the back room. (At this point I experienced a bit of Hilton Continental Buffet PTSD and started to sweat.)
She came back three minutes later (whew!) and said, “I resubmitted using different codes and now they are $215 and $5.00.”
I have no idea what voodoo she performed back there, but I wanted to hug her. (Note: It’s frowned upon.) And I had three immediate thoughts:
1.) This was unsolicited. I didn’t protest the price or ask her to double check it. She just did, of her own initiative because she is well-trained, well-informed and clearly cares about her and Costco’s customers. Thank you Costco for hiring people like her.
2.) Our healthcare system is an absolute goat rodeo. Is there any other developed country where the price of a necessary prescription drug can vary based on who is working the pharmacy counter that day???
3.) I might just take her on that vacation with EK and me so she can negotiate the breakfast buffet for me. She’s a pro.
And if we truly are heading for a mostly serviced-based economy, we need a lot more like her and radical retraining for my friends at Chipotle, Hilton and Hyundai.