12-28-10 Tuesday (Croissant Confusion)

For my Mom, yesterday was a lot of in bed time.  I went out and did the grocery shopping on my own.

Tomorrow Mom flies back to Florida.  We sorted out the photos I took while she was here.  She chose to have 80 of them printed.  Yes, 80.  We were pleasantly surprised when we walked into Walgreens and found that 4X6 prints were on sale for 9 cents a photo!  Usually it’s 29 cents!  $7.20 versus $23.20.  What a deal!

We ran a few more errands and then returned home to get her suitcases packed.

I also applied for 89 gazillion jobs today.  I took 3 or 4 or something like that assessments.  I hate assessments. 

I got to a questions about languages OTHER THAN ENGLISH that I can speak.  I don’t speak any other languages so I left it blank.  The system didn’t like that:

Ugh!  Facebook pal/Blog reader, Joellyn (Jodie) suggested:

So helpful… thanks!

Mom wanted steak for dinner so we suggested Cheddar’s.   We love their inexpensively flavorful and remarkably tender sirloin steak and knew mom would too.  We arrived, we were seated quickly.  We sat for a long time.  We had decided on our meals.  No server.  Jim got up, irately, and asked for a manager.  He waited.  A server popped over to the table so Jim gave up waiting for the manager and returned to the table.  The server seemed annoyed.  Throughout the meal she was too soft spoken as if it were a chore to help us and she was keeping calm.  Anyway, we gave our order and the manager showed up apologizing for the wait.  He said the server had been keying in a very large order.  I wondered why she was given another table so soon then?  The manager promised better service.  I explained that this has happened at that very same restaurant previously.  (click here to see that post)

As we awaited our meals my glass was empty for 2 1/2 minutes (why yes, I timed it).  That seems like a lot considering I should have been offered a refill when it was down to a 1/4 full.   The manager came with 3 warm croissants on a dish saying that steaks take a while to prepare and that this would hold us or something like that.  He offers appetizer plates, we accept and request more drinks.  A different server comes over with drinks and plates (we were nearly done with the croissants since it took so long to get plates). 

The meals come out, one of my side dishes was wrong but no big deal.  Broccoli instead of broccoli casserole.  She came back with the correct side rather quickly.  The check came and I spotted the charge for $1.79 for the croissants that we never ordered.  We look for the manager, finally get his attention and motion him over.  We showed him and he apologized that he’d take care of it.  He takes the bill and for another endless amount of time we sit, we wait.  I understand having to bill it out but maybe he should have removed it (comp it) immediately so as not to forget.  While we wait I wonder what’s taking so long?  Is it a dual key thing?  The president of the company and the manager have to sync up to remove an item?  The server came with the correct bill, handed it to us and stood there waiting for payment.  That made me uncomfortable.  On one hand I was happy she was speeding up the process so we wouldn’t have to wait for her to collect the check and bring change.  On the other hand it was uncomfortable. 

We’ve been to this place several times and love the food.  The service?  Oy. 

Right now: Wednesday – I’ve copy and pasted this blog entry to Cheddar’s corporate as a comment on their website.  I’ll keep ya posted.  In other news, Mom missed her flight.  I’ll type that story in for tomorrow’s (todays) blog.