A reader we're calling Millie wasn't about to let a
reservation miscue nor a soggy pizza get in the way of a long-anticipated night
out with a half-dozen friends she hadn't seen for a while. "We had a good
time," Millie writes.
But the night didn't start off well. One of her friends
had made and confirmed a reservation at the agreed-upon restaurant, but when
they arrived, the hostess informed them that the restaurant didn't take
reservations. The estimated time for a table was about 15 minutes, they were
told. There was no bar for them to wait so they milled about near the entrance
to the restaurant. Finally, 30 minutes later, they were seated.
And they waited some more. The server arrived to take
their orders and Millie and two friends decided to share what was described as
an artisanal brick-oven pizza with a mozzarella and basil topping. They and
their friends placed their orders.
Twenty minutes later their dinners arrived. When Millie
lifted her first piece of pizza, the bottom crust was soggy and, as a result,
chewy. Millie didn't finish the pizza, but she enjoyed the time with her
friends.
When she got home that evening, Millie decided to leave a
review of the restaurant and recount her experience on Yelp. Millie commented
on the reservation miscue, that her pizza was soggy, but that some of her
friends enjoyed what they had ordered.
The next day Millie got a call from the friend who had
tried to make the reservation letting her know that the restaurant owner had
called her and asked if he could speak to the person who left the review.
Apparently, even though the restaurant doesn't take reservations, he had looked
up the number of the person who had made the reservation and called her. After
Millie gave the go-ahead to give him her phone number, he called.
"He asked me why I hadn't asked for a new pizza if
the one I had was bad," writes Millie. He went on to tell her how
important online reviews were to him, but he continued to tell her that she was
wrong to not have said anything if her food didn't meet her expectations.
"He was telling me it was my fault for not saying
anything while I was at the restaurant," writes Millie. Millie writes that
she occasionally has sent back food at restaurants, but that she chose not to
this night because she didn't want the evening with friends to be more
disrupted than it already was.
"Was it wrong to post a mixed review when I didn't
say anything to the server?"
Millie did the right thing by posting what was good and
bad about the meal. She had no obligation to send the meal back or to ask for a
refund. The restaurant owner could have responded directly to the Yelp review
if he had an issue with it. That he hunted Millie down to berate her for not
speaking up was wrong.
Millie writes that he ended their conversation by telling
her that she should come in again so she can try another pizza. Given her prior
experience and his call, she prefers not to do so.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School.
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
(c) 2019 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.
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