Poor System Design
February 18th, 2008Since I’m in the blogging mood and I’ve installed point-of-sale systems in the past, I thought this was a particularly bad system for its intended purpose. The last few times I’ve eaten at a specific deli (name omitted to protect some unfortunate systems analyst) here in Chapel Hill, the cashier at the counter took my order and insisted to take the orders of all in my party, and then ask us to pay individually after the entire order is completed. Not only does this clog their line, it’s quite irritating. It seems that their system is designed to accommodate sit down restaurants where the entire party is seated, the order is taken, and afterwards the waiter splits the check so each may pay separately. I learned last time that they utilize this awkward flow to ensure that everyone’s food arrives at the same time and ironically it did not. So on today’s trip I instructed everyone in my party to tell the employee that they were dining alone and wanted to pay immediately. This worked well, but when I told what appeared to be the manager that I was eating alone, his response was “no you’re not, you’re eating with them.” A very observant guy, but I explained to him that I wanted to pay immediately and I did not care if the food arrives at different times. Hopefully this drew his attention to how irritating this flow is. After this we were completely pleased with our service and even obtained our food faster than the party before us, who submitted to the awkward order/pay process. So I conclude that this place needs a new system to accommodate their service model and could use to understand how irritating it is to visit the counter twice to complete your order.
