Restaurant refuses to sing happy bday to 6 yr old

[wtfsvi]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't think that the hostess is qualified to enter into an agreement on behalf of the establishment.

[/ QUOTE ] I think you are very wrong. I'm a foreigner, though, so I'm not familiar enough with US law to be 100% sure.

[guids]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't think that the hostess is qualified to enter into an agreement on behalf of the establishment.

[/ QUOTE ] I think you are very wrong. I'm a foreigner, though, so I'm not familiar enough with US law to be 100% sure.

[/ QUOTE ]


ARE YOU SERIOUSLY BRINGING THE LAW INTO THIS CONVERSATION..OMG YOU JUST [censored] PUT ME ON LIFE TILT IM SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING FLYING TO NORWAY AND SETTING TEH WHOLE [censored] COUNTRY ABLAZE. JESUS.

[wtfsvi]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't think that the hostess is qualified to enter into an agreement on behalf of the establishment.

[/ QUOTE ] I think you are very wrong. I'm a foreigner, though, so I'm not familiar enough with US law to be 100% sure.

[/ QUOTE ]


ARE YOU SERIOUSLY BRINGING THE LAW INTO THIS CONVERSATION..OMG YOU JUST [censored] PUT ME ON LIFE TILT IM SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING FLYING TO NORWAY AND SETTING TEH WHOLE [censored] COUNTRY ABLAZE. JESUS.

[/ QUOTE ] I wasn't the one who brought the law into the conversation. I understood the post I replied to as doing that. It's possible I am mistaken about that too, though. Since I am a foreigner, I'm not familiar enough with the English language to be 100% sure [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[blackize]

[ QUOTE ]

I don't think that the hostess is qualified to enter into an agreement on behalf of the establishment.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
I think you are very wrong. I'm a foreigner, though, so I'm not familiar enough with US law to be 100% sure.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm pretty sure that the hostess couldn't order plasma TVs for the restaurant so why should she be able to decide what duties the servers have to perform?

[wtfsvi]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I don't think that the hostess is qualified to enter into an agreement on behalf of the establishment.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
I think you are very wrong. I'm a foreigner, though, so I'm not familiar enough with US law to be 100% sure.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm pretty sure that the hostess couldn't order plasma TVs for the restaurant so why should she be able to decide what duties the servers have to perform?

[/ QUOTE ] Every time you buy something you make an agreement with the cashier, and he acts on behalf of the establishment. This is something he is authorized to do. Yet he cannot give his buddies salary raises or pay them salary from the cash register. And he can't order plasma TVs for the store either. Funny how that works.

edit: And if the cashier was not authorized to sell you an item, yet he did and you had every reason to expect he was, the store can't call you and tell you they're coming to take the item back.

[kazana]

... so you say 'Dance, monkey, dance!' But, oh, this monkey ain't dancin' no more...

OP: Got unlucky there, and things went wrong with the staff not knowing about the policy, but I really doubt this will end in a trauma even for a 6 yr old attention whore. Get over it. C'mon, you can do it.

[mason55]

Blarg,


[ QUOTE ]
To answer the question, yes, we would have most likely gone to one of the other places that were within 10 minutes of driving distance. This was a special night for his son, not for the rest of us. We aren't so lazy we would refuse to take the 1 minute walk back to the car, followed by the 10 minute drive.

[/ QUOTE ]


Also, you realize if the dad had called ahead, the person who answered the phone would have most likely been the same hostess?

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
Blarg,


[ QUOTE ]
To answer the question, yes, we would have most likely gone to one of the other places that were within 10 minutes of driving distance. This was a special night for his son, not for the rest of us. We aren't so lazy we would refuse to take the 1 minute walk back to the car, followed by the 10 minute drive.

[/ QUOTE ]


Also, you realize if the dad had called ahead, the person who answered the phone would have most likely been the same hostess?

[/ QUOTE ]

No way to know that one way or the other, but there's certainly a good chance. If the dad called ahead and got misinformation, he would be blameless for acting on misinformation. I'm still not a fan of his escalating the matter, though.

I may not be a fan of the manager/owner for not making sure his staff is better trained, too. As a general policy, any employee pretty much anywhere should know not to say you're going to do something for a customer unless you're absolutely rock solid positive you can do it. Otherwise you just get in a jam and everybody looks bad and has hard feelings, and sometimes you're out of some money.

For instance, simply registering a complaint can cost 75 bucks or more in some chains. They can mount up quickly and result in very steep fines and, in surprisingly short order, costly remedial programs. They do not have to have ANY merit to do so.

Maybe the hostess was just stupid. If so, she'd better get on the ball before she loses the joint any more customers, goodwill, and cold hard cash.

[iggymcfly]

OK, I replied to this thread on Page 1, then looked back at OOT, and saw it had ballooned to eight pages. I read through the first 3 pages, but I'm not going to spend an hour reading the whole thread to see if this has been addressed so here goes:

The "happy birthday" song was not a condition of the meal since multiple people had already driven to the restaurant. There's no way they were all getting up and leaving over that. If it was really that important, they would have called the restaurant ahead of time. The dad's just trying to make that into a big thing in retrospect because he wants his way here.

Also, regardless of whether the dad's at fault in his interaction with the restaurant, he's definitely at fault in terms of what he did with his son here. No 6-year old would really care that much who sang 'Happy Birthday' to him. He's just reflecting everyone around him who's making a big deal out of it and is upset by the commotion. The dad's the one who spoiled the birthday here, not the restaurant. Also, the idea that you fight tooth and nail and cause a commotion whenever some trivial thing doesn't go your way is a terrible life lesson for a young child. Just make the best of the circumstances, and don't let minor incidents ruin your day.

[RunDownHouse]

I don't agree with all the people who said that because the hostess said the kid would get a song, the restaurant is under some obligation to provide it. At the same time, its not unreasonable for the dad to expect it and be upset when its not given, but if I was the owner I'd tell the dad he'd get some sort of comp but also make it clear that there would be no song.

Also, guids took a bit of heat for saying the dad was an idiot for asking the hostess in the first place. I wouldn't go that far, but he is ignorant. Blarg's mock conversation is off because anyone who has spent any time in the food service industry wouldn't even ask the hostess in the first place, knowing she's likely some idiot high school kid. You just ask to talk to someone with some authority in the front straight away. Again, the dad isn't an idiot for asking her, just ignorant of the way things work in restaurants.