June 03, 2005

Modern Efficiency.

Well, Boy got his wires and clips off his dentures this morning, so after that was done I dropped him off with Grandma and Grandpa and headed toward work. Being that I was feeling a bit on the peckish side (not having had the Most Important Meal of the Day), I decided to swing by the Gilded Parabolas and get myself one of their delicious "breakfast" "burrito" combos.

As I stood there waiting at the counter, there was an A/C repair guy in front of me waiting to get his order, and he was holding an empty coffee cup. This particular branch of the Kroc empire has set itself up so that each customer is given a cup and allowed to serve himself the beverage of his choice, in order to give the illusion of faster service.

IN ANY EVENT, our repairman had apparently tried to serve himself some coffee, and found that the spiffy self-serve dispenser carafe had run dry. He had come back and told the bedraggled woman at the cashier stand that the coffee thingamabob was empty, and could he have a cup of coffee, please?

With the sort of rote behavior to be expected of a highly-trained staff member of a professional purveyor of fine victuals, she turned around and grabbed the familar pot-bellied glass jug from under the coffeemaker, swung around, and began pouring its contents into the top of the empty coffee dispenser over on the side counter. The repair guy just sort of stood there in a dejected sort of way, expecting (as had I) that since the motion required to retrieve the glass jug and turn to the dispenser had brought the precious coffee juice to within mere inches of his cup, that it would have been just as simple to go ahead and give him his swig first, BEFORE filling up the dispenser. Or, alternately, that the last remaining coffee bits in the glass jug could have been saved out--just enough to fill his cup.

Nope.

It all gurgled down in there, with an added tap-tap just to make sure the last drop got into the officially designated coffee-holding device.

I heard him quietly say under his breath, "Hm. I reckon I'll have to go get it out of that."

Yep, reckon so. Probably faster that way.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at June 3, 2005 11:14 AM
Comments

When we were in Gulf Shores, we stopped at Hardee's twice. There was a young woman working the counter who was fairly obviously just a touch below average IQ.

That's not meanness. I think they might be in a program to help her live independently. And I hope she makes it.

So do her co-workers.

Posted by: Janis at June 3, 2005 12:40 PM