I promised my six school aged grandchildren a “Leap is Over” party for Friday, March 23, 2007. The children had been taking the “high stakes” testing all week long at school and the party was planned for some release of the tension built up in the week long testing. They were very anxious for Friday to come.
On this past Thursday (3/22/07) at 12:15 p.m. I visited the Great American Cookie Company in the Alexandria Mall, Alexandria, Louisiana. I inquired about ordering a cookie cake for a special occasion. Before discussing what I wanted to order, I asked if I could get a cookie cake made with “White Chocolate Chunk” cookie dough rather than their normal Chocolate Chip cookie dough. The young man I asked told me definitely, yes. He asked another employee to please take my order since he was busy decorating a cake.
The other employee came up to the counter and I proceeded to tell him exactly what I wanted. My request was simple: a large pan cookie cake with the inscription “Congratulations It’s Over. That was easy enough. The young male employee took all of the information and wrote it down just as I requested. I then specified that I wanted the cake to be made with “White Chocolate Chunk” cookie dough instead of the Chocolate Chip. He told me: “We don’t do that anymore”. The first young man that I spoke with came over to him and said that they could do it. The order taker then went to the back of the store to ask someone else. He came back with a pleasant smile and apologized stating that he was told that it could indeed be done and at no extra charge. I thanked him for his efforts to help me. The cookie cake was ordered and I specified a pick up time of 3:00pm on the following day (Friday 3/23/07).
I was near the Alexandria Mall on Friday (3/23/07) at 12:15 so I thought that I would check and see if the cookie cake was ready and perhaps save me a trip back to that side of town. I approached the counter and waited in line for customers in front of me to finish their purchases. I asked if my cake happened to be ready yet. The young woman cashier asked another employee if it was ready. He answered her: “It’s not due out until 3:00”. I told her that was correct but since it was so close to that time I thought I would check and see if it might be ready.
The “TEAM LEADER” said that I would be lucky if he got to it by 4:00. I mentioned that I had ordered it yesterday for a 3:00 pickup today. He said that they had had some “DRAMA” up there and he was behind. He was carrying on a conversation with a young girl standing up next to the counter where he was working. I had been watching him “work” while I waited my turn in line. He was decorating a round cookie cake. He kept using his bare hand, putting it in the middle of the cookie cake to turn it while decorating it. I wasn’t pleased to see that bare hands were being used on someone food in this manner but that was not my concern at this time. I told the cashier that I would be back at 4:00 to pick up the cookie cake that I had ordered.
I was back at the Great American Cookie Company counter at 4:05 p.m. and requested my cookie cake. The cashier looked for it but couldn’t find it on the shelf where the finished cakes should be waiting. He said that the cake was not ready. After looking into the missing cake matter further, he found out that the cake I had ordered was never baked. This young man could not be faulted for the failure that occurred. I couldn’t unleash my temper and anger on him. After all, he had just come in to work. Someone else failed to do their duty this day.
This young employee offered to take a chocolate chip cookie cake that was baked and decorate it for me. I had no choice because my grandchildren were going to be at my house in half and hour expecting the party I promised them. I had to take this offer if I liked it or not, I had no alternative. The young man began to decorate the cake. Instead of the pink and blue icing I had requested, he used Rose and Chocolate (Brown). He began to write the inscription requested on the top of the cake. He wrote out “Congratulation” and ran out of room, he had no space left to add the “s” on the end of the word “Congratulations”. “OK”, I thought, “I can live with that”. Then he began to write the “It’s Over” part of the message. He looked up and asked, “How do you make a cursive “I”? I haven’t made one of them since I was in fourth grade”. I almost lost all control then but realized that he probably had problems.
He finally finished up this pitiful makeshift cookie cake. It was nothing that I had envisioned. The White Chocolate Chunk “cake” was plain old dull chocolate chip. The pretty pink and blue icing was rose and brown. The “Congratulations… It’s Over” was now “Congratulation It’s over”. Since I had such a problem the young man told me he would give me a 20% discount. I thought to myself, “BIG DEAL”! The discount in no way covered the extra gas to drive back to the store nor would it cover the time I spent waiting for the finished product. It definitely didn’t make me feel any better about getting an inferior product.
I am quiet sure that I will probably never return to Great American Cookie Company to make a purchase in the future. I at least felt like the manager on duty could have come out front and apologized for the inept employees working this day. The manager should have been keeping better watch over the employees and should not have been “holed up” in the back of the store. I feel like the price of the cookie cake should have been reduced much more than 20% because it was nothing like what I ordered and I had to wait much too long to get it.
I know that next time I want something special I will go to someplace much more reliable to purchase it.
Reference:
Great American Cookie Company is not so great after all.
