The Written Podcast: When You Assume…

On Saturday, 1^st December, my dad decided he’d like to get out of the house and suggested going to Pizza Hut for dinner. We’ve been to Pizza Hut before and haven’t had any bad experiences. There was one time and my friends and I thought we’d get a takeaway from the Pizza Hut at Interchange Retail Part at Ipswich, and we waited so long to be served we gave up and left for somewhere else. Other than that, every other experience was good and couldn’t be faulted. It was a fluke that sometimes happens and it unfortunately was our time to be caught by the anomaly. It was notably overflowing with customers during the weekend, but admittedly, at the time, it wasn’t a nice thing to happen. To put it in bluntly, we were ignored. We waited patiently, but was never once even apologised to for keeping us waiting, and that they'd get to us once they’ve finished sorting out every other customer before us, which there was many. We just stood there.

That was when we decided to get a takeaway. Every other time has been when we wanted a table to sit at, and they’ve been incredibly helpful with serving us. My friends and family have not once been ignored or offended whenever we have gone in wanting to sit down, and the waiters and waitresses have been extremely helpful with proving us with decent service from beginning to end.

Until Saturday 1^st December 2018. My mum and dad and I turned up at Pizza Hut, and immediately, we were greeted by a kind waitress, who took us to our table, officially beginning her service. And throughout she was as we’d hoped. The food may have taken a little longer than expected to turn up, but the waitress actually went out to the kitchen to check up upon it, and came back to explain exactly what was happening and how long it’ll be, and because we were satisfied with her helpfulness, we accepted the explanation and waited patiently for the pizza to turn up, which it did do shortly afterward.

Side note, if you do find yourself visiting a Pizza Hut, make sure to have the drink, Black Cherry Cream Soda Float – it’s absolutely divine and the ice-cream perfectly compliment the soda. Just don’t do what I did and drink the last few bits fast; you might just freeze your throat which wasn’t a good few seconds but cleared almost instantaneously.

During the day, I had a big lunch. We went to a good chip shop in Ipswich where I usually get two battered sausages, a portion of onion rings and a portion of scampi. I went there with my mum as we were making a round trip visiting a couple other shops beforehand. When I went in to order I said, “I would like to make two orders, the first can I have a small portion of chips, and the second can I have two battered sausages, one portion of onion rings and one portion of scampi,” and then asked if I could pop to the shop next door because there were a couple of things I’d like to pick up before going back to pay, a suggestion she accepted and so I acted upon it. What I’ve written is exactly how I said it, but she must have interpreted my words differently to what I believed I intended them to mean, because I also got a small portion of chips with my order when I didn’t want one. I believe she took the words interconnecting my two words, “and the second” as my way of saying one portion of chips for one order, and one for the second order. That didn’t matter, however, because I offered my portion of chips to my dad when I got home, which he gratefully took and ate.

There was a point to that sudden tangent, because it influenced our order when at Pizza Hut. Due to my mum and I having a big dinner, I wasn’t really looking for anything big at Pizza Hut, so we devised a good plan. My dad ordered a pizza, which comes with a free salad bowl, and you can order a salad bowl on its own, but it costs £5.99. So, I Had the free salad bowl and so we only had to pay for one bowl, keeping our cost down by an amount, even though our drinks greatly impacted the final total of our bill, but hey, at least we saved ourselves £5.99.

The waitress either hesitated to agree with our plan or had never heard of that plan before and had to take a couple of seconds to fully process it, but she accepted it nonetheless and we were all happy.

Another side note, if you go to the salad bowl and don’t choose the croutons and tortilla chips, then we can’t go to Pizza Hut together. It would just be embarrassing, but maybe there’s a plus side because I’d just take double the portion to make up for what you don’t have.

Once we were finished with our meals, dad decided to go for the ice-cream factory, which was surprisingly working. After he had his ice-cream, before paying our bill and leaving, mum and dad decided to have a coffee, and myself ordered an apple juice – something light just to wash down our food.

But, before we could order our final drinks, completely unexpectedly, the team manager on shift on that day chucked down the bill in front of my dad. They had no idea we weren’t finished, just assumed we were. Rightfully so, my mum and dad were no happy, and actually complained about the action, stating how they were understandably offended, and felt as if they were being thrown out based upon an assumption. Having a coffee after ice-cream, a dessert, may appear to be an antonym compared to other people’s actions, who after their dessert requests the bill and leaves the restaurant. However, no one should assume anything, especially the manager. The last person who should assume something from customers, is the manager – it’s usually the first thing you’d told to during training.

When mum and dad brought up the matter, the manager stated how the waitress who was helpfully serving us throughout our time there, said we’d had our desserts and therefore were ready. She also stated how she is not the type of person who actively wants to throw someone out of anywhere, to which my dad responded with, “it’s not the type of person you are we have a problem with, it’s the type of manager you are we have a problem with,” and she couldn’t respond properly except by apologising profusely.

The manager at the time also deducted our coffee and apple juice from the final bill as a good-will gesture for making that mistake, which we were happy about, but the damage had been done, the statements were made, so we paid for our meal and left the establishment.

It certainly wasn’t a nice thing to experience, but it happened. As I stated in the first paragraph – odds are someone will be inflicted with the fluke and it happened to be us yesterday. However, it wasn’t nice and steps should have been taken to avoid anything like that happening at all. What should have happened was, either the waitress who’s been serving us during the evening or the manager coming up the table and asking if we’re done or if we would like anything else. I’m certain that’s exactly what they’ve done for everyone else beforehand, so why not do the correct thing to us, but instead assume.

Hopefully, now she’s experienced what it’s like to assume – and got it entirely wrong, she won’t do it again, so I not hoping to put you off going to the Pizza Hut at the Interchange Section at Ipswich. Hopefully, next time you or I visit, our experience would be better.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)