Adventure at Wendy's

This morning I took Deanna to the doctor, on our way home she said she was thirsty and wanted a drink. There was a Wendy's nearby so we stopped for a drink. The following letter to Wendy's (which I will be sending off as soon as I can) is the result of the encounter. Some details have been omitted for the sake of my privacy.

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Dear Wendy's Inc., et al.:

My name is Jake ******, I live in ************* and recently attempted to visit your ************* location right off of Loop 363. I was not sure of the operating hours this store kept but my wife was thirsty and when I looked at the Wendy's the clouds parted and rays of sunshine shone down upon the building. Thus signifying by divine appointment that I was to take my wife to Wendy's for a small Sprite ® (the previous two sentences are most effective when read aloud in an authoritative voice, think Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments).

Upon arriving at the drive through window I noticed the LCD screen used for displaying my order was not on. This made me think the store was closed as it was about 9:15am CDT. However, as I drove slowly past the order station I was greeted by a sweet female voice that promptly asked my for my order. I was astonished! They are open, victory at last! I quickly checked my mirrors, no one was behind me. With a flourish I threw the car into reverse and rolled down the window simultaneously, this feat sounds greater that it actually is however; as rolling down my window involves pushing a small button clearly labeled “window” , but I digress.

I apologized to nice young girl and explained that I thought they were closed and simply drove right past without stopping. The girl took it all in stride and simply asked for my order again, for a fleeting moment I thought it strange that she did not acknowledge my statement but this is common in the service industry these days. Someone has decided that feigning deafness is the best policy when the conversation goes off script. How these people plan to do their jobs when they are trying to make me believe they are deaf and they are speaking to me over an intercom with no visual queues, such as lips to read, is a mystery to me but I guess is of no real consequence here.

I asked politely for a small Sprite ® and ... nothing. No response from the friendly lady, no “Will that be all for you sir?” Nothing, just silence. My wife and I waited for a few minutes ever few seconds asking “Hello? Are you there?” I even tried the old “We miss you.” card. Nothing, none of our heart felt pleas could bring her back to us, and with her our Sprite®. Soon a helpful young man emerged magically from behind the menu carrying a large bundle of trash. He smiled and informed us that they were closed, and through lightly suppressed laughter also informed us that we had been speaking to the computer.

Thanking him we drove off, slightly abashed, slightly bemused, but still thirsty. We were eventually forced to stop at a Macdonald's ® nearby where we were finally able to procure the long sought after Sprite ® and thus at long last quench the burning thirst of my wife.

I tell you all of this to implore you to remove the automated voice prompt from your ordering station. This probably cost millions of dollars to develop once you add in not only the cost of R&D, but also man hours to install, legal fees, the voice talent (actors charge insane rates!), computer charges to encode the voice and bandwidth to distribute the files to the stores, etc. Never once at any fast food joint have I ordered what the automated prompt has suggested, its just a freaking computer how does it know if it is good or not! I am willing to bet if I fed the special to your computer it would die! If nothing else, if you do nothing else: PLEASE TURN OFF THE DRIVE THROUGH COMPUTER WHEN YOU ARE CLOSED! Thank you.

Feeling Stupid in ************,
Jake
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