A few days ago I went with my wife to visit her mother. The two of them got into a lengthy discussion and I decided to go for a walk. It was my feeding time and I was hungry. I wish I could say that I was perfectly prepared and had brought my own snack, and thus I would be able to eat something I had purchased at a grocery store instead of spending money on fast food. But, alas, no. As I walked, I came to a fast-food establishment. (I won’t say which one.)
I entered the premises and was given plenty of opportunity to leave. There was a distinct but hard-to-define bad vibe about the place. For one thing, service was very slow. It seemed as if most of the people in line ahead of me, and there were only 3 or 4 of them, were completely unfamilar with fast food and perhaps even with restaurants … and that might have been true of some of the people working there too. I noticed that an older man, dressed in a shirt and tie instead of the company uniform, seemed to be the manager on duty and was doing all he could to move things along. I assume he was the owner of the franchise. After a few minutes (more opportunity for me to leave), he took charge of an unmanned cash register and asked for my order.
I had seen that there was a special: $5 for 6 small pieces of chicken (“boneless wings”, which are actually small chicken “tenders”, which are really just pieces of chicken breast), with a side dish, a biscuit and a drink. The special also had an upgrade option: for an additional $1 it was 9 pieces of chicken, with the side, biscuit, and drink. I ordered the special and was charged $6, plus tax. Neither I, nor the manager-cashier, had said anything about the upgrade to 9 pieces. This made me wonder if I would get just the special (6 pieces), which I had ordered, … or the upgraded special (9 pieces) that I had paid for.
So I waited. And waited. I was now sure that I had correctly interpreted the bad vibe of the place that I had noticed when I first entered. I could have asked for a refund and left, it took so long. Eventually, my order was ready and was served in the usual paper basket on the usual plastic tray. I counted the pieces.
Q: Can you guess how many chicken pieces were in the basket?
A: Exactly 6.
Just as I thought might happen, I had paid for 9 but I had received 6.
I immediately spoke up and told the manager what had happened. He immediately appologized and put 3 more pieces in my basket. He acted so quickly that I got the impression that maybe he knew what had happened before I called it to his attention. That made me wonder if he had done it intentionally.
It seems to me that the fact that it was the manager, and probably the owner, who was at the cash register made it more likely that it wasn’t an honest mistake that he quickly rectified, more likely that he cheated me on purpose. My reasoning is because an employee can’t easily derive any benefit from ringing up an extra dollar on the cash register. Once the machine has recorded the amount, that money has to be in the cash drawer and the employee is responsible for it. Furthermore, I paid with a credit card. A dishonest employee would prefer cash. (A garden-variety thieving employee might shortchange a customer who paid with cash, for example, but can’t do much with a credit-card transaction.)
The owner, however, does benefit from charging a extra dollar on a credit card. Every additional dollar is additional profit — especially if it’s a dollar that is obtained by charging $6 for $5 worth of food. Was the owner some kind of sharper? Had he noticed that a lot of customers hand over a credit card and just let him charge anything without taking any notice of the amount charged? Did he look at me and think there was a good chance that I was one of these oblivious and unobservant credit-card users? (Well, to be honest, sometimes I am.) These are good questions — and I think the answer is “yes”.
Lesson learned.
