Rantastic #1 - ABP

Hey all.

I am the new contributor that Kathleen has brought on board for lighter ( however equally vivant and vituperative ) thoughts. These thoughts (really rants) will contain many highly interesting insights into my writing style. This includes my love for things in parentheses ( they are great for sidenotes mid-sentence, especially if you decide to go off on a tangent and start talking about cheese, falling, or other non sequiturs ), as well as my overuse of commas.

Today, I would like to talk about something that has been bugging me for a while. Like many hardworking individuals, I like to eat. During the workday, sometime around Noon, for no good reason, everyone wants to eat at the same time (notice all the commas!!). Near where I work, there is a restaurant called Au Bon Pain (ABP for short). It has recently undergone not only a renovation, but a reimagination. Before, ABP had this crazy notion that people would have to line up, give there order, pay, get a receipt, and wait for the number on their receipt to be called so that they can pick up their food. I guess the good people at ABP thought this process was WAY too efficient, and the wanted people to spend a longer amount of time foraging for food at ABP. The redesign created a "market" feel, where people can go up to a variety of cramped stands to either get or be served different items.

The sandwich section of the new ABP is the most atrocious. If you wanted a sandwich, for example, you would have to go to the sandwich "area", where people seem to be making sandwiches. But do not ask them to make you a sandwich! (I did this the first time I went to ABP after the redesign and got scolded). Instead, they will direct you to the ominous sandwich request form. I shit you not - you must fill out a fracking form in order to get a sandwich. As if I don't get to fill out enough forms at work! The best part is how do you fill out a form? There is no table where you can place the form down so that the stupid 2-inch pencils they provide you with don't poke right through the form. You end up seeing a collection of people hovering near the form and pencil stand, awkwardly trying to fill out the form, while other people are pushing them aside in order to get their precious forms (in order to get a sandwich). It got so bad, that after a week, it became someone's job to stand next to the form and pencil stand to hand out forms and pencils, and collect completed forms, to then hand over the counter to the sandwich creators. It is a clusterfuck of disorganization. I can't wait until there is a cover sheet required on the ABP Forms.

The other stands are strewn about the remaining floor space in such close proximity, that you have no choice but to apologize at least once to someone everytime you go to lunch there. The soup area is a rectangular table with 8 barrels (4 on each side) of pre-fabricated and warmed up soup product. Customers swarm and hover around these barrels (which are too close together), each with a sign above it explaining what ingredients could possibly create a liquid of that color. As people circle the soup table, and finally pounce onto their desired viscous liquid barrel, they tend to knock the arms and elbows of people at other barrels in the middle of ladling some soup into their personal soup container, spilling soup everywhere. Awesome.

The salad stand is sort of in between the sandwich area, the soup area, and the beverage area. This is not a self-serve station like the soup area, nor is there a salad request form, like there is with the sandwiches. No... this time, you can ask the people over the counter to make you a salad and they will. Not surprisingly, this is the best working part of ABP. Unfortunately, it becomes popular, which means the line quickly bleeds into either the sandwich area, or the soup area, increasing the already messed up situation in those respective places.

Finally! You now have acquired your food! But - you have not paid anything for it. Since everything has been decentralized, they have no idea what you wanted to buy from all the different stands until you are done collecting all your items. Paying for the items individually at each stand is not an option (try handing in money with your sandwich request form). And the place is so open, you literally could just leave (especially given the mess of people everywhere). But as you look around, you will see a couple of lines of people dividing the sandwich and salad areas. These people are holding their food and wallet, and are clearly very hungry. Eventually these monster lines lead to cashiers. An employee has the lovely job of organizing the lined up people and directing them to a cashier. Do not ignore this guy, for he is what is standing between you and freedom. If you are lucky, he will expedite your journey and you will be eating soon.

If you have reached this sentence and have not yet understood what I think of this redesign, let me be plain. It is the worst idea I have ever seen in my entire life. Monkeys deciding to eat their own feces makes more sense than this. It is a severe regression when compared to the old design, and the person in charge should be hung by their genetalia, and put on display for all to see in order to prevent this sort of logic from permeating through society. I certainly hope you have enjoyed this rant. If anything, I hope you have at least learned how not to design the workflow of a restaurant.