Food for Thought....Do what you say!

Oh my words is it raining cats and dogs here.  The kind of soaking rain that is great for our grass, but will inevitably do a number on our septic tank....again.  Better enjoy the master bathroom today, because I forsee a good 4-8 days ahead of avoidance.  One day we'll add more drainfields....one day.

So I have to tell you about a situation that happened to me last night.  After a long day of surgery with a baby (and ridiculous comments from anesthesiologists,) I just wasn't in the mood for "situations."

My mom came to help yesterday with my kiddos.  (SO thankful for her by the way!)  And last night, at the end of a hard day, she treated us to take out.  Good takeout too!

I called to place the order over the phone and when the girl put me on hold to transfer the call, I was listening to the restaurant's pre-recorded loop of specials, advertisements, etc.  Pretty much as soon as I was put on hold there was an add saying "If you place a pick-up order online with our online ordering service, as a way to say thank-you, we will give you 4 of our delicious bakery muffins absolutely free!"

So obviously, I hung up and got online!  They have good muffins people!

I placed the order online, so excited about my 4 free muffins!  If I'd known there was online ordering, I'd probably have done that anyways...but I didn't.  So thanks to their phone information loop, I was going to score 4 muffins now too!  WOOHOO!

The hubs asked me after I'd placed the order if we'd get bread with our dinner since it was pick-up and I wasn't sure, so I called to ask.  Also, I figured if I got to choose the muffin types, I might as well ask that too.  Turned out we did get bread!  Score.  But get a load of the following conversation....

Me: "Oh, I also wanted to ask about the 4 muffins we get for ordering online.  Do I get to choose the flavors or is it prepackaged?"

Hostess: "I don't know about the muffins. Let me ask my manager."

pause...she comes back. "Ma'm, we don't offer muffins just for ordering online.  I'm not sure where you saw that online, but our store does not do that."

"Well, I didn't see it online.  I called originally to place my order with you and when you placed me on hold, I heard it on your phone loop.  It was your store's phone that offered the special."

"I'm sorry ma'm, I am not aware of that special.  We do not offer muffins for online ordering.  I'm sorry for the misunderstanding."

Ok....now let me just say here that I do have a pretty decent understanding of the English language, and if something says "If you place a pick-up order online with our online ordering service, as a way to say thank-you, we will give you 4 of our delicious bakery muffins absolutely free!"...I don't know, I guess I understand that to mean that they will give you 4 actual delicious bakery muffins free.  If it had been in Chinese or German, I'm pretty sure I would have misunderstood, but this message was actually in my native language....English.  And I'm confident that I did not misunderstand.

So I said..."Well, that's fine if you don't stand by your own advertisement, but I would recommend that you remove the offer from your store's phone loop just to avoid further confusion."

And then I let it go.  But I was ticked.  Not because I care that much about the stupid muffins.  But I'm one of those people that if I say I'm going to do something, I do it.  And I expect other people to do the same.  And I REALLY expect businesses to stand by their own advertisements.  If they forgot to take a sign off of a sale rack, their fault...I think they should honor the sale price.  If they say buy one get one free and don't have an end date printed on the coupon....well, I expect that deal to be honored.  If a special is intended for "new customers only" but that isn't stated ANYWHERE in the ad, well then...even if I am an old customer...I expect that to be extended...even if it was just their goof.

I'm not trying to put anyone out of business or anything, but I just go by the old idea of "say what you mean, and mean what you say."  Oh yeah, I've read that before somewhere else too....how about "But let your statement be, 'Yes, yes' or 'No, no'" from the Bible?!  All to say...I'm BIG on doing what you say.

When I was a freshman in college I volunteered to be in charge of the freshman Homecoming float project in the first month or so of school.  I was thrilled when 150 people signed up over a couple of days to help.  What a turn-out!  Until the time came to actually build the float and there were only TEN of us working on it.  All. Night. Long.  And that night I learned a sad but important lesson about the world.

 Most people do not do what they say they will do.

Bummer.

But that doesn't mean that I will be one of those people.

My mom was the one who went in to pick up our take-out.  I had forgotten to tell her about the muffin debauchle since we wouldn't be getting any muffins anyhow.  Apparently somewhere between the phone call and the pick-up though, a waiter there concurred with my understanding of the phone loop ad and I guess they decided we should get some muffins afterall.  So in the end, we got 4 delicious bakery muffins absolutely free because the restaurant did end up standing by what they had advertised.  But the moral of the story here for me is that...I have issues when people don't do what they say they will.

Be different people.  Be honorable.  Be trustworthy.  Be dependable.  And for crying out loud...don't say you'll do something if you know that you never will!

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.  ~Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

It's got to start somewhere.

Happy Weekend!