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If you’ve been reading my blogs, you know I’ve had some recent trouble with Sonic and Taco Bell.

A few days ago I came across a story about a company that seems to be doing everything right these days. If you’ve ever seen a Pixar movie, you know they strive for the highest level of excellence in everything they do. To date, they have not put out a movie that has flopped in the eyes of critics or viewers, and the lowest rating one of their movies has received on Rotten Tomatoes is 75%.

However, this story goes much deeper than animation or a movie screen. The article I read really touched my heart. If you have time, please read the entire article from the OC Register. You can view the article on their website by clicking HERE, or you can read the story below:

HUNTINGTON BEACH – Colby Curtin, a 10-year-old with a rare form of cancer, was staying alive for one thing – a movie.

From the minute Colby saw the previews to the Disney-Pixar movie Up, she was desperate to see it. Colby had been diagnosed with vascular cancer about three years ago, said her mother, Lisa Curtin, and at the beginning of this month it became apparent that she would die soon and was too ill to be moved to a theater to see the film.

After a family friend made frantic calls to Pixar to help grant Colby her dying wish, Pixar came to the rescue.

The company flew an employee with a DVD of Up, which is only in theaters, to the Curtins’ Huntington Beach home on June 10 for a private viewing of the movie.

The animated movie begins with scenes showing the evolution of a relationship between a husband and wife. After losing his wife in old age, the now grumpy man deals with his loss by attaching thousands of balloons to his house, flying into the sky, and going on an adventure with a little boy.

Colby died about seven hours after seeing the film.

With her daughter’s vigil planned for Friday, Lisa Curtin reflected about how grateful she is that Pixar – and “Up” – were a part of her only child’s last day.

“When I watched it, I had really no idea about the content of the theme of the movie,” said Curtin, 46. “I just know that word ‘Up’ and all of the balloons and I swear to you, for me it meant that (Colby) was going to go up. Up to heaven.”

Pixar officials declined to comment on the story or name the employees involved.

THE PREVIEWS

Colby was diagnosed with vascular cancer on Dec. 23, 2005 after doctors found a tumor in her liver. At the time of her death, her stomach was about 94 inches around, swollen with fluids the cancer wouldn’t let her body properly digest. The rest of her body probably weighed about 45 pounds, family friend Carole Lynch said.

Colby had gone to Newport Elementary School and was known for making others laugh, family friend Terrell Orum-Moore said. Colby loved to dance, sing, swim and seemed to have a more mature understanding of the world than other children her age, Orum-Moore said.

On April 28, Colby went to see the Dream Works 3-D movie “Monsters Vs. Aliens” but was impressed by the previews to “Up.”

“It was from then on, she said, ‘I have to see that movie. It is so cool,’” Lynch said.

Colby was a movie fan, Lisa Curtin said, and she latched onto Pixar’s movies because she loved animals.

Two days later Colby’s health began to worsen. On June 4 her mother asked a hospice company to bring a wheelchair for Colby so she could visit a theater to see “Up.” However, the weekend went by and the wheelchair was not delivered, Lisa Curtin said.

By June 9, Colby could no longer be transported to a theater and her family feared she would die without having seen the movie.

At that point, Orum-Moore, who desperately wanted Colby to get her last wish, began to cold-call Pixar and Disney to see if someone could help.

Pixar has an automated telephone answering system, Orum-Moore said, and unless she had a name of a specific person she wanted to speak to, she could not get through. Orum-Moore guessed a name and the computer system transferred her to someone who could help, she said.

Pixar officials listened to Colby’s story and agreed to send someone to Colby’s house the next day with a DVD of “Up,” Orum-Moore recalled.

She immediately called Lisa Curtin, who told Colby.

“Do you think you can hang on?” Colby’s mother said.

“I’m ready (to die), but I’m going to wait for the movie,” the girl replied.

THE MOVIE

At about 12:30 p.m. the Pixar employee came to the Curtins’ home with the DVD.

He had a bag of stuffed animals of characters in the movie and a movie poster. He shared some quirky background details of the movie and the group settled in to watch Up.

Colby couldn’t see the screen because the pain kept her eyes closed so her mother gave her a play-by-play of the film.

At the end of the film, the mother asked if her daughter enjoyed the movie and Colby nodded yes, Lisa Curtin said.

The employee left after the movie, taking the DVD with him, Lynch said.

“He couldn’t have been nicer,” said Lynch who watched the movie with the family. “His eyes were just welled up.”

After the movie, Colby’s dad, Michael Curtin, who is divorced from Lisa Curtin, came to visit.

Colby died with her mom and dad nearby at 9:20 p.m.

Among the Up memorabilia the employee gave Colby was an “adventure book” – a scrap book the main character’s wife used to chronicle her journeys.

“I’ll have to fill those adventures in for her,” Lisa Curtin said.

For those of you who follow this blog, I have some exciting news: Sonic finally responded to my call. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, click here to read the original story about my horrible experience at Sonic.

The response I received wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be. You can see the actual postcard above. If you can’t read it, here’s what it says:

Thank You. A SuperSONIC Experience. Thank you for your recent contact with SONIC, America’s Drive-In. We sincerely appreciate your feedback and look forward to making every effort possible to make your next visit a pleasurable one.

Please accept this postcard for a free sandwich of your choice on your next visit to SONIC. Simply mention that you have a “SuperSONIC Experience” postcard when you place your order and present this postcard when your meal is delivered. Thanks again for visiting SONIC, America’s Drive-In.

There’s several observations that immediately came to mind when I saw this. First, this was not personal at all. It’s obviously a generic card that send out to anyone who calls their feedback number. Second, this came straight from their corporate headquarters in Atlanta, not the actual restaurant that messed up. Third, a free sandwich doesn’t reimburse me for the banana split I paid for and never received. If I’m not mistaken, the banana splits are more expensive than most of their sandwiches.

Although it may surprise you, I don’t have a complaint with the postcard. The card was sent out by the corporate office hoping to make partial amends for what happened. According to the girl I spoke to, the actual restaurant was/is supposed to contact me about the actual problem that happened and set things straight. It seems like the corporate office was trying to go a little further to make things right, assuming the actual restaurant would fix things first. Unfortunately, I still haven’t heard from the restaurant. Kudos to Sonic’s corporate office for doing this. As for the actual restaurant…that’s sad.

The big idea behind the whole issue was to see how Sonic would respond. Would they do it in a personal manner? Would they do it in an automated generic manner? Would they do nothing at all? So far, I’ve seen automated generic + nothing.

I talked to my dad about this issue and he said it’s not surprising. Fast food places really don’t care who they hire anymore, as long as they have someone working. When the service is bad, many managers don’t care because a loss of 1 or 2 customers will not really hurt business, and definitely won’t change individual paychecks.

Believe it or not, I saw this firsthand when I went to Taco Bell last night. I ordered a soft taco with NO lettuce. The guy repeated my order back to me and said it exactly how I ordered it. Therefore my order should have consisted of: Soft taco shell, beef, shredded cheese. Instead I received a soft taco covered in lettuce, onions, nacho cheese, with a pinch of beef. By asking for no lettuce, did I actually annoy someone enough that they decided to add extra ingredients?

I thought about going back thru the drive-thru or calling the restaurant, but if they were jerks enough to intentionally mess up my order, there’s no way I’m going back and asking them to fix it.

Customer Service is definitely dead!

Several days ago I went to Wal-Mart and bought a 4-pack of spoons for $1.00. At least I thought I did. After I got home, I realized I wasn’t charged for them.

This weekend I went back to Wal-Mart and took the bar code with me so I could pay for what I had stolen nearly purchased. When I got to the Customer Service desk, the girl looked at me like I was crazy because I wanted to pay for the spoons. She said, “Wait a minute, you came back to pay for something we didn’t charge you for?!?!? Hold on…I have to go find someone else. This has never happened before!”

She went and grabbed another co-worker who gave me the crazy look. She said, “So let me get this straight…we didn’t charge you for $1.00 spoons and now you’ve come back to pay for them?!?” “Yep, that’s right,” I told her.

The next thing she told me was rather disappointing: “Don’t worry about it. It’s fine.” That didn’t sit right with me. I told her, “No, I want to pay for them.” She gave me the crazy look again and said, “Seriously, you can leave.  You don’t have to pay for these. It’s not a big deal.” Being adamant, I politely told her, “No, I can’t do that. I feel like it would be stealing from the company. I want to pay for them.”

When I said that, both Wal-Mart employees threw their hands up in the air in disgust and one of the girls said, “Fine! If you want to pay for them, then pay for them! That will be $1.09.” They seemed slightly perturbed that my decision to pay for the spoons was actually forcing them to do their jobs. My bad! [For the Sheldon's of the world...that was sarcasm] The looks on their faces didn’t get much better when I pulled out my credit card, but oh well. They reiterated once more that they had never seen that happen before. At that, I took my receipt, said “Have a good day” and left.

I’m not trying to pat myself on the back for anything. I didn’t do anything special. I just paid for something I forgot to pay for previously, and $1.09 at that. But there’s 2 things that really struck me about the ordeal:

1) The workers had never seen that happen before. I would think that sort of thing happens everyday, and yet so few people in our world have the ethical mindset to correct the issue. Several years ago, my grandmother left a store and realized she hadn’t paid for a pack of gum. When she went back in to pay for it, one of the cashiers announced it to the entire store in almost a mocking manner. More than anything he was shocked that she came back in. That shouldn’t be shocking; that should be the norm. Sadly, it’s not.

2) The attitudes of the workers. Obviously Wal-Mart has plenty of money as a corporation and my spoons were not going to affect the paychecks of the two workers. But I was very surprised to see how adamant they were about not having me pay. Their attitudes showed they thought it was dumb for me to come back, and they didn’t want to bother with fixing them problem…even though it only involved clicking the scan gun and handing me a receipt. Yes, it was only $1.09, but in principle it shouldn’t have mattered if it was a pack of spoons or a $1599.99 flat screen HD TV. Right is right. Wrong is wrong. It’s sad that we have lost sense of true values. Sad, yet not surprising.

In an interesting side note…I’ve yet to hear a word back from Sonic…

Last night a friend and I decided to go to Sonic to get ice cream. When we pulled into the parking lot, there were about 2-3 cars parked, and a few people outside ordering food. Didn’t seem like a busy night. After a few minutes, I pressed the big red button and ordered. My friend ordered a strawberry-banana fruit smoothie, and I ordered a banana split. 

It seemed to take a lot longer than usual to get our food. In fact, it was about 15 minutes before the girl brought it to us. However, 15 minutes wasn’t that big of a deal. She handed us the smoothie–no problem. That’s where the fun stopped. She handed me the banana split which was surrounded by 10-15 napkins (I’m not exaggerating). The napkins were covered in chocolate syrup. Apparently someone had filled the container too full and it was leaking out of every side. When she handed it to me, it immediately dripped through the closed container and onto my pants. After pulling it into my car, the banana split and the napkins leaked even more onto my pants, my car, and my friend. It was a mess!

Since things were getting nasty, I had to get out of the car. Once I got out, I started looking at the banana split. For some reason, all of the toppings were on the bottom of the container. It makes me think that the container got flipped upside down at some point. Also, the ice cream and whipped cream was not visible. Instead, there was a banana floating in a tub filled with milk. Either the thing had completely melted, or they filled it with a half-gallon of 2%. 

While I tried to lick the stickiness off my hands, my friend asked the waitress if I could get another banana split because mine was melted, leaking all over, and frankly a bowl of cereal without the cereal. She said sure and went back inside. Once again we waited…and waited…and waited…and waited…

After 20 minutes, I still had no banana split, even though I had ordered and paid about 40 minutes earlier. We finally decided to leave. My friend went inside Sonic and told them we were leaving. They told her they had completely forgotten about it and offered to make another one. She politely told them no thank you. One of the girls working asked if my friend if we had already paid. She nicely told them yes, but we were going to go somewhere else. 

We got in the car to leave, and I half-expected someone to come running out with my money, some ice cream, or coupons. None of that happened. Instead, I went down the road to McDonalds, where they got my order right…and delivered my food in less than 2 minutes. Thank you McDonalds.

I’m a pretty big stickler for Customer Service. I believe it is the job of employees to provide you with the service you pay for. I also believe people are human and make mistakes and we do have to understand that. However, when mistakes are made, I believe it is the job of the company/person/service to make things right. 

I called Sonic this afternoon to explain last night’s events. I didn’t call with a mean or demanding attitude. I called in a respectful manner to inform their Customer Service department of what had taken place. The girl I talked to was very nice and understanding. For someone who probably deals with complaints and angry customers all day, she did a great job of doing her job. She apologized several times, took down my information, and sent it to the management of the particular Sonic restaurant.

I hope to follow up with this story soon. I have no idea what Sonic will do, if they even will do something. But, in my eyes, they do have a chance to make things right. If they do respond, I’m curious if it will be in a personable way, or in an automated  ”this is standard procedure” way. Do they care about making things right with each individual customer, or do they care more about not making people mad?

Stay tuned… 

(For the record, if the picture above is what a banana split is supposed to look like, I have no idea what they brought me!)