Pet Peeve: Drive Thru Timers!

I would like to address all the corporate fast-food restaurant chains who have bought into the concept of drive-thru timers. Drive-thru timers are unfair to the employees of the restaurant who live in fear of the repercussions of having an average drive-thru time of 2:11 (two minutes and eleven seconds). The Timer reports an end-of-shift average to the local manager and sends a network message to the corporate office to tattle on the average for each shift. Drive-thru timers are unfair to the customers. Almost every experience I have with a drive-thru goes like this: At the speaker: "I'll be with you in a minute". At the speaker: "Can I take your order?" At the speaker: "That will be $9.00 at the second window" At the window: "$9.00 please." Then they thrust out my drink and my change at the same time, then my bagged food, before I've thrown the change in the console and put the bills in my wallet. I can't put the straw in the cup without being rushed to get moving. I can't even turn away from the window to set my drink in the cupholder before my bagged food is being shoved out at me. This happens every single time - I've tried making myself more efficient to handle the fastball pitch: I've cleared out my cupholder ahead of time. I've got my wallet open in my lap to make paying and putting away my bills more convenient. I've even considered putting a change-cup in the door holder so I don't have to waste all that precious time turning towards the console to pitch in my loose coins. There's just no pleasing these people - they want you to simply slow down to 15MPH, pay in exact change and have the back window open so they can throw your food in. Now, in order to shorten their average time for the shift, sometimes the manager will circle through the drive-thru and order just a drink, and then circle around again and order another drink, so a couple of :20 (twenty second) drive-thru times will average out their shift time to just under 2:11. So, they are cheating the system anyway. The purpose of having me wait at the speaker is so they don't get backed up, that makes sense. But it still proves that the system is beatable, and just having the system in place is robbing the customer of a pleasant experience. Also, because of the timer, the staff is focused more on the drive-thru speed than the dine-in speed, so my choice is to either get my food fast and rudely, or slower and complacently. I SAY BAN THE DRIVE THRU TIMER! OUTLAW IT! P.S. How long does it take to cook a chicken breast? Certainly longer than 2:11... wouldn't you wonder at a chicken sandwich that was cooked, made into a sandwich, wrapped, bagged, and served to you in under 2:11? That's my rant for today.

I went to Sears

So I went to Sears to buy a new battery pack for my Craftsman 19.2V cordless drill. Mind you, I just got off work, so I'm in jeans, steel-toed boots, and a tool pouch on my hip. A single battery was $40, or two for $66.30. So I bought two. Then I saw that they have the little cordless 5 1/2" circular saw that matches my set so I picked up one of those and a new blade for it. I get to the register and the cashier looks at me and says: "Does he have a charger?" I really was laughing - on the inside - so I repeated back to him "Does HE have a charger?" I think I might have shaken him up a little bit... 'nuf said.

Had to share...

What happened???

I've written this blog post twice. It didn't publish the first time. I went online and downloaded a code scanner for my smartphone, then I went to www.e-nigma.com to read more about the QR barcodes and they had a utility to create your own QR code. I made one that points here. I see all kinds of possibilities for this technology... If anyone has any experiences (good or bad) with scanning these codes that are found almost everywhere nowadays, please let me know. Anyway... I'm still here in Pennsylvania. The weather finally broke and it's a beautiful sunny day outside. So I shaved my legs and put on a dress. I'm just going to hang out and enjoy the lovely day. Maybe I'll paint. Have a great weekend. MsAmber

In Harrisburg Pennsylvania

What an interesting place. I need to show you what I've been driving lately: A big Skytrak forklift. It's baaaad! For 2 1/2 weeks I've been unloading trucks. I've gotten pretty good at that forklift.

I've driven around to get the hang of this place. It's a little confusing, but I'm close to Hershey, PA; the chocolate factory and amusement park. I have some very distant memories of the place. I always remembered being a little kid and being at Hershey Park. I remember getting a plastic candy bar that I filled with water from a water fountain and squirted out. I was fascinated by the little squirty fake candy bar. I know I have been to Hershey Park and my sister was there with me because we had to hold hands. I just have no idea when it was. I just have a distinct memory of the waterfountain, the sunny day, the pea-rock embedded walkway, and the plastic Hershey candy bar. I'm going to try to dream and remember more details about it tonight. Maybe I can pull some more details from the memory.
Maybe I'll call my sister and ask her about it tomorrow and see if the memory jives, she has a phenomenal memory and she was old enough probably to put in into context.

Anyway...
I'm starting a new project here and I should be in this area through the Summer. I'm looking forward to it. There are several caves I want to explore. Indian Echo cavern for one.
I'm going to see about getting family to visit me here, we'll do the touristy thing and have a good time, but when I'm by myself: I'm going to take the cavern tours. That's my favorite thing in the entire world. I imagine myself as an old-time explorer and that I'm the first person ever to see the dark deep crevices that are older than anything you can imagine.

Well, I'm watching a movie. I better pay attention to it - there's a fight scene and I'm missing it.

Peace Out.
MsAmber