A.S.M.

Are you Stupid?

Take this Tim Horton Quiz and Find Out For Sure.

Question #1 Do you patronize Tim Horton’s Donuts?  Yes?  No?

If your answer is yes, then you are stupid.  Now I’m really not the one who thinks that you’re stupid.  I suspect  you just enjoy the coffee there, as I did.  The Tim Horton Management sees you as stupid.

The events behind this post started three days ago, when I went to a Tim Horton drive through.  I ordered a large coffee to refill my mug ($1.60 after tax), but I was tempted to a chicken salad wrap ($1.70 before tax).  But wait!  They have a special deal for two wraps – ($2.40 for two) and I ask for that.

“That will be $5.17.”  The speaker crackles.

“Hold on.”  My mental calculator returns an error message.  “$5.17 is about a dollar too high?”

At the window, I briefly explained the simple math that showed the $5.17 price was not correct.  Tax is 5%, not 25+%.  They rang it through the til again and the same wrong amount came up again.  “You’ll have to take it up with the manager.”  I paid and continued through.

But now I had the receipt and the reason for the mistake became obvious – (or so I thought) – The two wraps were each entered as their single price of $1.70 for a total of $3.40.  I took this into the store.

“The price is $3.39 for two.”  The Tim Horton’s store manager curtly refuted.  And she pointed up to the inside menu board.

“But I never come into the store and the sign outside reads 2 for 2.40″.

“No it doesn’t!”  She snapped back.

“Yes it does.  Shall we both go out and look at it together?” As we walked around the building, I also mentioned how the $3.39 price seemed a bit insulting to customers.  “Why would someone splurge for two wraps, when they are only saving a single penny?”

"2/ 2.40 doesn't mean you get two for $2.40"

“Where it says 2/ 2.40 doesn’t mean you get two for $2.40!”  The manager made a bizarre statement after seeing that the customer WAS actually right this time.  The lettering format was identical to the board inside and just the amount was different.

“Then pardon me, but then what does that actually mean?”

“I’ll give you the wraps for $2.40 – This time!”  Since the manager was stuck for any logical reply, she very grudgingly relented slightly.

But this was too little and too late.  I had already been bluntly told I was wrong, when I was right.  And also rudely spoken to.  At this point, a manager with any customer service skill should have offered a token courtesy card like maybe $5, along with a simple apology and a ‘thank you for bringing the sign discrepancy to our attention’.  But this is Tim Horton’s and they know that we are all stupid.

I’ll interject a joke here, because I like it and it fits.  A genius went into a pub and found that the bartender was a robot.  ‘What can I get you?’ the mechanical bartender asked. “And may I inquire as to your IQ?’

‘My IQ is rather high.’  The genius mentioned the three digit number and then was impressed when the robot carried on an intelligent conversation on topics that included; nuclear physics, the classical arts and the philosophy of Plato.  The genius finished his drink and left, but on his way out he wondered – ‘What would’ve happened if my IQ was lower?’

The genius raked his hair to put his part on the other side and turned up his collar as a mild disguise.  He went inside again and this time he told of a somewhat lower IQ.  This time the talk was of; the girls in the latest Maxim magazine, fishing and NHL Hockey.  The genius left the bar but decided to try it again.

He put his jacket on inside out, unzipped his fly and tied his shoelaces into knots. ‘My IQ is only 7.’  The genius lied and the robot replied in a very slow voice.  ‘So – will – you – be – cheering – for – the – Maple – Leafs – again – this – year?’

Ironically, the Tim Horton who co-founded the Tim Horton chain played hockey for the Toronto Maple Leafs and he wore a jersey with the number seven.  So perhaps in keeping with the originating philosophy, Tim Horton’s wants to appeal to stupid Maple Leaf fans and so they treat all people as if each IQ matches the co-founder’s jersey number.

But let’s get back to my story.  I opened my computer and I placed a complaint on the corporate web site.  Then over the next day, I took calls from three different levels of Tim Horton customer service and management.  All of these damage control people agreed with me that the store manager had handled the situation poorly.  And in the end, they had managed to ‘un-ruffle my feathers’ and the situation was, for my mind, fully resolved.  Yes, I was still out the $1.03 difference between what I paid and what I should have paid, but I really didn’t care about that anyways.

Then the next day, the last executive I had talked to, from the local Tim Horton ownership level, called me back again.  ‘We would like to give you a complementary card.’ (This should have probably been offered yesterday, and her chat with regional management over the issue likely showed her oversight.)  We then arranged where I would go to collect it.

When I went to the pre-arranged store (not the same location where the problem originated), I first had to stand in line for five minutes before I could even ask for the manager, who didn’t know anything about it, and so had to call the head office.  Finally, she issued the courtesy card – OF FIVE MEASLY DOLLARS!

I phoned the woman who offered it back and bluntly told her that the $5 was an insult.  That tiny amount would have been ideal at the location when the incident started, but after having a half hour of my time wasted in an assortment of phone calls, and then another fifteen minutes blown picking up the insulting card, $10, $15, or even dare I say $20 would’ve been appropriate.  And the skin flint amount showed where the TRUE problem had really originated.  A Tim Horton franchise owner is penny-gripping cheap and they impress a cost-cutting philosophy, even at the expense of  customer service.

Then I finished my verbal and written rant with another input to Tim Horton’s web site, where I promised to give my insulting $5 card to the smelliest and most offensive wino or crack addict that I could find, so that Tim Horton’s in-store customers and staff could enjoy the fruits of the owner’s skin flint nature.

Maybe the location manager was surly because even the $1.05 price difference exceeded the amount that she was authorized to rebate.  Only the 5-store owner’s personal flunky had a big enough public-relations spending crowbar to pry a five-dollar bill from a tight-fisted owner’s fat wallet.

But I entitled this post with ‘Try the Tim Horton Stupid Quiz’ and an insulting five dollars demonstrates the management/owner foolishness, but it really doesn’t cover the major stupid factor.  That daftness was in my story but maybe you didn’t pick up on it.  Just how stupid is a discount of ONE PENNY? The five dollar card was insulting to me but every Tim Horton customer should feel their intelligence has been insulted by the condescending price of menu items in multiples.

There is just one skinny penny difference between two single items and the package deal of two.  Is this one lone cent sufficient to convince a moderately intelligent person to get the extra?  Or is the sleazy Tim Horton management just banking on a belief that most people are too stupid, or lazy, to do the mental math and figure out what they are saving.  And to top it off, the stupid customers won’t always actually get that penny, because the procedure at the till is to ring in two singles, and then to punch an extra button to apply the whopping .01 of a dollar discount.  Is a busy cashier most likely to miss that final step?

Cha-Ching Cha-Ching! More pennies into the owner’s concertina wire protected, cast-iron piggy-bank.

“What can I do to protest?”

I’m glad you asked (even though it was me asking for you).  I suggest that when you drive through at a Tim Horton, you should order your drink and ask for the special ‘two’ deal of whatever food item you want.  But when you arrive at the window, you correct your order.  “After ordering I noticed that the second in the deal is only 1 tiny cent difference from the full price.  That 1 penny is not enough to entice me to buy, so I’ll cancel my request for it.”  – But the item is already prepared and now they have to throw it in the garbage.  And when/if the stack of wasted food cost piles up in the trash, maybe Tim Horton owners and managers will slowly realize that they are only ones who are TRULY ignorant!

Do road designers even have driver licenses?

I know that many people are  just crappy drivers but this is compounded by some roads that are piss poorly disigned.  I often say that city planners must have ‘done some lines, before drawing the lines’.   For example, a cement median wide enough to build a two-car garage on, stretches for a half a kilometer between the traffic going in opposite directions – then the left hand turn lane is only long enough for five cars!  Okay, maybe the green arrow light cycle is only long enough for five poky cars but left hopeful cars can even get into the lane until long after the arrow is gone – then the left turning people back up the straight going.  Hello!  Why didn’t you use more of the redundant median space to facilitate the heavy flow of left-turning vehicles?

Does a contributor to the mayor’s campaign fund own a curbing company?  Is the policy for hiring city planners ‘nepotism first and qualifications later’?  (The city might consider installing a drug testing program, but the city planning staff may to stoned to manage pissing into bottles).

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Random drug testing might be the answer to solve many problems.  However, the drug testing should start at the political level.  Have the politicians piss into the bottles first.  Maybe then the problems will be cured without having to drug test anyone else.

You NEVER know if they are being nice!

I picked up a fare at a mall and I had to turn onto a very busy one-way street.

“We might be here awhile.” I said to my passenger, as the traffic was all backed up at a red light.

But when the light turned green, a pickup truck hung back, leaving a wide open spot.

“Awesome!” I said. “Finding a courteous driver in this money town is rare.”

I waved ‘thank you’ to the thoughtful motorist, as I zipped my taxi into the lane in front of him.

‘HONK, HONK, HONK, HONK’ The driver behind voices his extreme displeasure with his horn. It seems he wasn’t being nice. He was just slow and my taking advantage just rubbed his turtle pace into his face.

“Apparently those courteous drivers are still close to extinction.” I joked with my passenger.

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As a taxi driver, I spend my whole day observing other motorists. Often their middle fingers. It is no wonder that the accident rates are so high. Many people are driving around with a borderline case of road rage. Take this one case for example. I pulled into the pickup truck’s lane but I never slowed him up any more than he was already moving. So why did he honk so vehemently? I personally know why, but I’ll go into that in another post.

…Maybe you should crawl around and see if you can find it!

In the taxi industry, there are some for whom money is the only thing. I imagine it is the same in many other walks of life too. These people may not quite sell their mothers for a small profit, but their integrity is something they wouldn’t miss anyways, so that is for sale cheap.

I’m reminded of a joke…

You Can Have an Incredible Ability

I went into an old-school outhouse with an urgent need, only to find it was already occupied. But as this was a two-seat outhouse, I dropped my pants and occupied the second hole on the bench. The other man was just finishing up anyways.

As he pulled up his trousers, a nickle fell from his pocket and the coin dropped into the hole. The man sadly looked at the five-cent piece that had landed squarely in the sh*t. He took out his wallet and extracted a hundred dollar bill. Then to my shock, he threw the large denomination bill into the hole.

“That’s throwing good money after bad!” I said.

“I’m not climbing down for just a nickle.”

Yes, there is a moral to this story. LOL But if I have to tell you what it is, then your knowing likely wouldn’t benefit you anyways.  And Pritham?  Well, he’ll likely sneak over for that nickle because he would fish a dime out of a urinal with his bare fingers.

Do you believe the media hype about H1N1?

I talk to many different people, from all strata of society and the discussions regarding the H1N1 flu highlights one thing – NOBODY believes the mass media.  That’s what you get when the media is just a tentacle of big business and a hand puppet of the government.  Is the H1N1 a credible threat to public health?  Or is it really just a money making scam the vaccine producing cartel is running?  One can’t believe what the government has to say either because the political parties are just items in big business inventory.

Big business is committing heinous crimes against humanity BUT their media propaganda arm keeps only the one viewpoint in the public’s duped eyes.  “Yes, big business is inexorably making our environment unfit to sustain human life BUT It has to do that to reduce the cost of producing crap that doesn’t doesn’t last – er – and keep people employed and making enough money to continue being stupid consumers.

People are lining up for this precious new H1N1 vaccine.  Why?  Because they don’t trust either media, government or big business.  Because if this H1N1 is actually a virulent strain manufactured BY the big corporate pharacuticals to kill off those who are not properly propagandized, then people would rather be duped live sheep, than independant dead people.

When driving a taxi in a money town, you see the difference between those and actual communities.  By a money town, I mean where there has been explosive growth due to economic activity and where those who have moved in vastly outnumber those people who were born there.  I don’t blame the new-comers for all the problems because the long-time residents play their part in the money stupidity too.

My time is worth more than yours is! – This money town attitude presents itself in bank lines, busy restaurants, parking lots and in traffic.  I’ve personally watched as many near collisions at the entrance to coffee drive-through line-up, as I have at intersections.  My time is worth more than yours, so I have to get my vehicle in front of yours.  On the streets my time is also worth much more than yours is: therefore I can’t let you merge into my traffic lane in front of me.  I see this attitude all day long and it isn’t just aimed at taxicabs.  Actually, it isn’t effective against a taxi because I’ll get into the gap between your front bumper and the car in front of you – whether the space is big enough or not.

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It takes more than Money

If you need help, go to the bikers: only go to the police if you want to buy drugs. The street drug and property crimes in a money town are porportionally larger than in established cities.  The pay checks the workers get are larger than they are used to where they used to live.  That leaves more money for attractive items to show off in vehicles and plenty for recreational drugs.  However, the pay scale for the police officers is the same as the national averages.  So for policemen to benefit from being in the money town, where things are also more expensive, they need to supplement their inclomes with graft money and shakedowns.   “I had a small bag of weed and $300 in my possession when the police frisked me for no reason.  They took the drugs and the money but didn’t charge me.  Had they arrested me, they would’ve had to turn in the booty for evidence.”  (That was not me speaking: I don’t do drugs and seldom have that much cash.)