Restaurant Annoyance

We went to Souper Salad last night for dinner; it’s a great buffet-style salad and soup restaurant. However, the restaurants seem to be operated very inefficiently in my opinion.

The way to explain my opinion is to walk you through the dining experience.

1. After entering the restaurant, you’re greeted by a cashier where you purchase your meal.
2. After paying, you proceed to the buffet line. The salad and “fixings” are first.
3. The next line contains the hot items: soups, potatoes, breads, etc.
4. The third and final line contains the dessert and fruit items.
5. Once you have your food, you proceed to to find a booth or table.
6. A “server” will eventually come to your table to check your receipt for what drinks were ordered. He/she will then bring you your drinks.
7. Throughout your meal, your server might come by to ask if refills are needed — if you’re lucky. They will come by and impolitely reach through the middle of your table to get dirty plates and trays.
8. At the end of your meal, you feel compelled to leave a tip since technically you had someone waiting on you.

The inefficiency lies with two facets: staffing and drinks.

Here’s a summary of how many employees are working at a given time during a mealtime “rush”: 1 cashier, 1-2 “prep” folks keeping the buffet line stocked, 4-5 servers, 1-2 dishwashers/cleaners (I would assume), 1 manager. Total of 11.

Caveat: I’ve not worked at Souper Salad, so the above counts are based solely on my patronage experience and observations.

With Souper Salad being a buffet-style restaurant, there’s absolutely no reason to have servers. Install the fountain drink dispenser on the buffet line and there’s immediate cost savings. Yes, I feel bad saying that given the current economy as that means folks would be without jobs. But from a pure business standpoint, it’s wasted money.

That would leave 6 staff members on a given shift and should be plenty to handle a shift.

</rant>

Diapers.com FAIL

Received an email from diapers.com today:

Dear Thomas,

We miss you at Diapers.com!

We’re so convinced that you’ll enjoy shopping with us again that we’re giving you $5 off your next order! Just add something to your cart and it will automatically be applied! But act soon–it expires 2/5/10!

Sincerely,
The Team at Diapers.com

Not one but two grammatical mistakes!

Hey, diapers.com.. need a proofreader? I’m anal retentive when it comes to the English language and won’t charge you an arm and a leg.

Mike Leach and Texas Tech

I have been rather vocal about my opinions on Mike Leach (link 1, link 2, link 3), but I am always one to give credit where credit is due: the man is coming off of the greatest football season in Tech’s history. Unless you’re A) not a sports fan or B) living under a rock (and you’re a sports fan), you’ve undoubtedly heard all of the commotion regarding Texas Tech, Gerald Myers, Mike Leach, and the status of Leach’s contract. I’ve remained quiet on the subject..

Until now.

Gerald Myers – you’re a complete moron. How you ever made it as high as Athletic Director is beyond me. You screwed over James Dickey back in 2001 and now you’re trying to do the same to Mike Leach. Dickey deserved firing; no argument there. But the way you did it was pathetic, shallow, and cowardly.

Texas Tech Regents — If you let Mike Leach go, you will reap the whirlwind in terms of fan support, season ticket renewals, and ticket sales. You better think twice.

Here’s my suggestion to the Regents: keep Mike Leach and fire Gerald Myers. Promote Marsha Sharp to Athletic Director as she truly deserves it.

Apple Fanboys Annoy Me

Disclaimer: I probably am a fanboy myself. Maybe not to the extremes I’m blogging about here, but I love Apple and the products it produces.

Apple fanboys annoy me. Greatly. There’s no pleasing this bunch.

Apple releases the iPhone. Within two days, there are a plethora of posts throughout the fanboy websites and blogs containing ways to make it better.

Apple releases the unibody MacBooks. Within hours those fanboy sites are complaining about their lack of firewire.

The day Apple gets behind on the fanboy-imposed product lifecycles, all hell breaks loose. Is the Mac mini being discontinued? Is AppleTV on its last breath?

My advice for the fanboys:

Get over yourself and enjoy and appreciate the Apple products you already own.

</rant>

American Idol > President?

Supposedly, over 100 million votes were placed last night for American Idol. That’s ridiculous.

Why?

That’s almost as many votes that were cast in the 2004 US presidential election. According to Wikipedia, 122,267,553 votes were cast for president.

On another note, it’s now obvious who the judges and producers want to win this year. Archuleta sang well last night for the most part. But so did Cook.

I feel the judges were very unfair in their assessments of David Cook. For example, all along the judges have stressed being original, making songs their own, and essentially “thinking outside the box”.  Apparently this doesn’t apply to the crappy winner’s song. His performance of I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For was amazing, but I would tend to agree that he should have chose a different song than The World I Know. He performed it well, but I would have rather seen something bigger and better. I loved his little dig against Archuleta though about performing something new.

David Archuleta did exactly what he has been doing all season — he sang slow, sappy ballads. He has shown absolutely no originality, improvement, or versatility. Is that not the point of having theme weeks?

David Archuleta, if crowned the winner, will falter just like all of the other male American Idol winners. David Cook will excel and follow in Chris Daughtry’s footsteps.

Maybe Idol producers will fix the show in time for season eight.

Gassy Annoyance

You may or may not know, but I’m moving back to Dallas this summer. I’ve lived in Lubbock for almost eleven years now, and a few things have come to annoy me about Lubbock. This is the first of what will probably be a series of my “Lubbock annoyances”..

For some idiotic reason, Lubbock gas stations carry 86 octane as their low grade even though most (all?) modern vehicles require a minimum of 87 octane. The lone holdout to that has been 7-11/Fina stations; they carried 87 octane and charged a few cents more per gallon than other stations.

This past weekend I discovered 7-11/Fina changed to 86 octane – but it still charging a few cents more. While I’m sure that one octane difference wouldn’t cause too big of a problem, the fact that the stations carry 86 octane is annoying.

</rant>

Bluetooth Schmutooth

There’s no mistake that I’m a self-proclaimed gadgeteer. A popular trend these days are the bluetooth headsets that allow you to have a conversation on your mobile phone wirelessly. For the most part, these headsets are a great idea.

For the most part.

I am a proponent for banning mobile phone calls while driving if not using a hands-free adapter. Mobile phones are quickly becoming the number one distraction while driving, and these bluetooth headsets can help combat that.

However, if you’re shopping at Target, take the damn headset off. You look like a fool walking around with this stupid little piece of plastic hanging over your ear. No one is important enough to necessitate wearing a headset in a store – with the exception of the Secret Service naturally. If you get a call, take your lazy ass hand out of your pocket and hold your phone up to your ear.

Which leads me to my next rant..

If you’re in a store checkout line, get off the damn phone. The checkout employee is due the respect of not overhearing your unimportant conversation. The employee is there to serve you; have the decency of allowing them to do that properly. The same goes for drive-thrus, restaurants, and any other similar situation.

Whew.. I feel better now.

67% of Americans Are Unhappy

A rant according to Jay Leno.

The other day I was reading Newsweek magazine and came across some poll data I found rather hard to believe. It must be true given the source, right?The Newsweek poll alleges that 67 percent of Americans are unhappy with the direction the country is headed and 69 percent of the country is unhappy with the performance of the president. In essence two-thirds of the citizenry just ain’t happy and want a change.

So being the knuckle dragger I am, I started thinking, “What we are so unhappy about?”

Is it that we have electricity and running water 24 hours a day,7 days a week? Is our unhappiness the result of having air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter? Could it be that 95.4 percent of these unhappy folks have a job? Maybe it is the ability to walk into a grocery store at any time and see more food in moments than Darfur has seen in the last year?

Maybe it is the ability to drive from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean without having to present identification papers as we move through each state? Or possibly the hundreds of clean and safe motels we would find along the way that can provide temporary shelter? I guess having thousands of restaurants with varying cuisine from around the world is just not good enough. Or could it be that when we wreck our car, emergency workers show up and provide services to help all and even send a helicopter to take you to the hospital.

Perhaps you are one of the 70 percent of Americans who own a home. You may be upset with knowing that in the unfortunate case of a fire, a group of trained firefighters will appear in moments and use top notch equipment to extinguish the flames thus saving you, your family and your belongings. Or if, while at home watching one of your many flat screen TVs, a burglar or prowler intrudes , an officer equipped with a gun and a bullet-proof vest will come to defend you and your family against attack or loss. This all in the backdrop of a neighborhood free of bombs or militias raping and pillaging the residents. Neighborhoods where 90 percent of teenagers own cell phones and computers.

How about the complete religious, social and political freedoms we enjoy that are the envy of everyone in the world? Maybe that is what has 67 percent of you folks unhappy.

Fact is, we are the largest group of ungrateful, spoiled brats the world has ever seen. No wonder the world loves the U.S. yet has a great disdain for its citizens. They see us for what we are. The most blessed people in the world who do nothing but complain about what we don’t have , and what we hate about the country instead of thanking the good Lord we live here.

I know, I know. What about the president who took us into war and has no plan to get us out? The president who has a measly 31 percent approval rating? Is this the same president who guided the nation in the dark days after 9/11? The president that cut taxes to bring an economy out of recession? Could this be the same guy who has been called every name in the book for succeeding in keeping all the spoiled ungrateful brats safe from terrorist attacks?

The commander in chief of an all-volunteer army that is out there defending you and me? Did you hear how bad the President is on the news or talk show? Did this news affect you so much, make you so unhappy you couldn’t take a look around for yourself and see all the good things and be glad?

Think about it.. are you upset at the President because he actually caused you personal pain OR is it because the “Media” told you he was failing to kiss your sorry ungrateful behind every day.

Make no mistake about it. The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have volunteered to serve, and in many cases may have died for your freedom. There is currently no draft in this country. They didn’t have to go.

They are able to refuse to go and end up with either a ”general” discharge, an “other than honorable” discharge or, worst case scenario, a “dishonorable” discharge after a few days in the brig.

So why then the flat-out discontentment in the minds of 69 percent of Americans? Say what you want but I blame it on the media. If it bleeds it leads and they specialize in bad news. Everybody will watch a car crash with blood and guts. How many will watch kids selling lemonade at the corner? The media knows this and media outlets are for-profit corporations. They offer what sells , and when criticized, try to defend their actions by “justifying” them in one way or another. Just ask why they tried to allow a murderer like O.J. Simpson to write a book about how he didn’t kill his wife, but if he did he would have done it this way.. Insane!

Stop buying the negativism you are fed everyday by the media. Shut off the TV, burn Newsweek, and use the New York Times for the bottom of your bird cage. Then start being grateful for all we have as a country. There is exponentially more good than bad.

We are among the most blessed peoples on Earth and should thank God several times a day, or at least be thankful and appreciative.”

With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?