03 November 2009

the death of the service industry

from the other day, on the phone:

me: i'd like to order a pizza for carryout.
her: pickup or delivery?
me: carryout.
her (very uncertain): uhhhh.... delivery?
me: okayyyy, pickup.
her (back to normal): okay!

maybe i'm being naive, but i'm rather under the impression that a pizza phone answering job 1) isn't terribly complex, and 2) has a rather limited jargon set. there are really only four terms for describing three options for accessing the pizza: dine in, carryout, pickup, delivery. MAYBE takeout, for those used to ordering Chinese.

this isn't even a training issue! and i will cite not-a-language-barrior, as the order-taker was a white teenager from the chicago suburbs.

these are the people who will be running the country when i'm retired. egads.

3 comments:

JustJoeP said...

just try giving your date of birth as day-month-year to a health care provider, and watch as they stare, like a deer in the head-lights.

Short-attention-span theater is typical of "kids" now a days.

"egads" indeed!

pyker said...

"Delivery" would make sense if by "carryout" you meant, "I want you to carry the pizza out of your shop and to my door".

JustJoeP said...

http://justjoep.blogspot.com/2009/11/common-sense-serving.html