Ms. Chub the Fat Lands a Tough Gig at Pei Wei Edits:  Trying to get link to display on mobile. Ms. Chub I'm usually a shit poster, but tonight... well tonight I’m feeling like Internet bullshit is more important than it is and have an experience I'd like to describe in greater detail.  See the TL;DR at the end if you’re not really feeling the same way.   If you’re really feeling this, you can pretend that you’re a student in an Operations Management class and you’ve been tasked with a case study – figure out the problems at Pei Wei on this particular night and how they can be fixed. Mr. ButtesNWholes and I just got back from a 3-day trip and didn’t feel like cooking when we got back home.  Pei Wei has gotten better about listing the nutritional information in their food and also has a nicely portioned kid’s menu and steamed options, so we decided to get take-out from them tonight.    It’s around 20 minutes from the airport to the restaurant, so I decided to call in to order while we were heading home.  I get carsick from looking at webpages on my phone and don’t have a Pei Wei account to order online, so it seemed best just to call in and order.   Side Note:  Am I the only 30-something that still likes talking to a person for certain things?  I prefer booking hair/nail/spa services, dog grooming, and meals at certain places over the phone – especially if I haven’t used the service before.  Buying airline tickets and movie tickets and pretty much everything else I do online.   Anyway, I call the number and listen to the automated message – “Thank you for choosing Pei Wei… we are busy helping other guests” or something like that.  Followed by some kind of painfully generic ear rape piano/guitar ditty that was clearly meant for a short hold and sounds like death over speaker phone.   After waiting around 3 minutes the automated message says something along the lines of “Why not order online?  It’s super fast etc.”  Lol.  I wait for a bit and it starts to ring (finally) … but then goes immediately back into the same cycle. After 5 minutes I put it on speaker phone to get it out of my ear.   Mind you, I’m not mad, nor do I ever get angry during this experience.  I’m more curious about what’s taking so long.  It’s a mystery now.  Are they really that busy at 8 PM on a Sunday night?  Are they short staffed?  Is every fat in a 15-mile radius ordering regular portions with extra beetus for the whole hamily while I’m calling in?  I need to know.   After 12 minutes, I finally hear a voice at the other end say “Thank you for calling Pei Wei, how can I help you?” After chuckling a bit because of the length of the wait the voice disappears and the automated messages and the ditty return.   So I lul a bit with my husband and decide to see if I’ll still be on hold when we get to the restaurant.   Sure enough, 17 minutes rolls around and I’m inside ready to order.   There are two customers ahead of me in line ready to order and about six people waiting near the to-go area for food.  It seems pretty busy – Well, let me rephrase that.  It seems that there aren’t very many people that need to order and they aren’t short-staffed in the cooking area, but there are a lot of people waiting for food.   I’ve provided a labeled diagram for your viewing pleasure to walk you through the scene.   At (D) you can see the hair of a slim Asian girl that was taking orders and talking to customers (and everything else…).  No issues there. Where (E) is pointing, above (A) to the left, and at (C) there are boxes of prepared food ready to go out to customers.  The boxes at (E) are stacked double and at one point, there were four dishes at (B) as well.   Can you find the bottleneck?  Why isn’t the prepared food getting out to customers at a reasonable pace?  If you study (A) again, up and to the right, you’ll see another employee staring blankly at the order-tracking system.   Staring at the screen in front of it, this employee stands unable to package food until the shitgirl at (D) comes over to help (does it herself).   It has gotten so backed up that a busser is bringing food from the cooking area to place at (C) and (B) where customer orders are taken.   I’m interested in hearing your solutions to this case and advice for the restaurant.  In my humble opinion, trimming the fat at (A) would leave more room behind the counter for the shitgirl at (D) to either continue doing all of the work herself without a sack of crap in the way, or to find another shitperson to help.   Anyway, this is why I usually shitpost instead… I end up writing a short story.     TL;DR:  Waited 17 minutes on hold while driving back from the airport to Pei Wei.  Had to go in to order as a result -- a fat who couldn't put boxes of food into bags in a reasonable amount of time was the culprit.  Exhibit D shows the back of the petite Asian shitgirl taking to-stay and to-go orders and then doing the fat's work (Exhibit A) as well.