Readers will be relieved to discover that SC is not sick or dead after all -- although losing an enormous post over the weekend to the vagaries of the Web was not a help. In any event, your host is at work this morning, as he is often prone to do when having to build a demonstration project from scratch in a week for display at a trade show ([it ain't just you, pal -- your coworkers]).
Since your host drives to work instead of taking a train when time is critical, he decided to drop by the local Winchell's to get some donuts for breakfast. He then proceeded to experience an interesting variant of Mark Liberman's order size problem (addressed in these pages by Languagehat months earlier, one might add). In this case, however, the issue was not over the names, but over the actual quantities desired. The conversation was so remarkable for its pragmatic failures that I have no choice but to reproduce it in full:
SC: I'd like two donuts, please, to go.
Winchell's Employee (WE): Two dozen?
SC: Two donuts.
WE: Not two dozen?
SC: No, just two donuts.
WE (gets small bag): Which ones?
SC (pointing): One of these, and a jelly donut.
WE: A bavarian cream, and? (Gets first donut)
SC: And a jelly donut.
WE (Gets second donut): And?
SC: Just two donuts, thanks.
WE: And coffee, right?
SC: I didn't ask for coffee.
WE: You don't want coffee?
SC: No coffee.
WE: Seriously, no coffee?
SC: The donuts will be all, thanks.
WE: Alright, $1.60...really, no coffee?
SC (briefly fantasizing about jumping over the counter and screaming, "I don't drink anything hotter than iced tea!", which is almost true): No. (Pays and then leaves)
Naturally, your host spent the rest of the drive into the office trying to come up with an explanation for the failures in communication, other than the excessive zealousness of the employee in trying to make a sale. The best he can come up with so far is that perhaps early-morning donut sales are typically to people bringing in orders for their whole office. It's a decent presupposition, but one that should have easily been canceled by an actual utterance, and it doesn't account for the hang-up about coffee. Had SC read Language Log before setting out for work today, perhaps he would have said, "I'll have a cinque nove uno virgola quattro sette sei or I won't have coffee at all".
I think there is evidence that the employee may have been trained in "...excessive zealousness of the employee in trying to make a sale."
I remember when KFC was Kentucky Fried Chicken one could ask for "Two pieces" and the response would be "Would you like a drink with that 'two pieces'?" If one stared by asking for "Two pieces and a coke" the response would be "Would you like a vegetable with that two pieces and a coke?" This would go on until one had asked for everything in the shop which was limited to perhaps a dozen items. I experimented in Phoenix, Salt Lake and Reno and all employees responded the same.
Posted by: Al | November 30, 2004 at 12:20 PM
That's what I had to do when I was working at Arby's. We had to ask if they wanted something else, or if they wanted to order a larger size of something. We were only supposed to do that once, though; if I had asked a customer if they wanted everything in the store, I would have gotten yelled at. (Not that I didn't get yelled at all the time anyway.)
Posted by: Rachel | November 30, 2004 at 01:36 PM
Oh, yeah, and I would have gotten yelled at if I had pestered a customer by asking repeatedly if they wanted something when they had already said no. So the rule was "don't ask them if they want more than one extra thing, and don't ask them more than once."
I often got yelled at for violations of rules that I had never actually heard spoken...
Posted by: Rachel | November 30, 2004 at 01:43 PM
Rachel, getting out of that Arby's job was the best decision you'll make this year.
Posted by: Semantic Compositions | November 30, 2004 at 02:27 PM
Just try going into a Starbuck's and asking for a small coffee. I doubt they'll know what you're talking about.
Posted by: Mike | December 01, 2004 at 11:59 AM
The funniest one I had was ordering a drink at the movies and being asked "Would you like a drink with that?".
Posted by: Jon | December 01, 2004 at 08:00 PM
My guess is that the donut shop guy just got done serving a customer who, right after DSG finished totalling his order, immediately came back with "OH! And I need another dozen!".
[totals it up]
OH! And I need a coffee.
[totals it up]
WAIT! Make that TWO coffees.
... you get the picture. I suspect he may have been a little gunshy from a slew of fickle order-givers that day :-)
Posted by: Harvey | December 02, 2004 at 04:25 PM