: Tonight, there's a new waitress, and she's doing a terrible job. She got half
: the appetizers wrong, one of you dropped a fork and it took her 20 minutes
: to bring you a new one, she's never around when you need more bread.

: One of you orders a spicy dish, and it's hotter than you'd expected. You have
: no water left, so you flag her down. You tell her you need water... right
: now. She says sure... and then she disappears again. She comes back to the
: table a bit later - but she doesn't have that water. "Oh, sorry, be
: right back."

: 15 minutes later, you're still waiting, and your mouth is burning.

: Finally, she arrives with the water.

: Do you

: 1) thank her sullenly and drink your fill
: 2) pointedly ignore her until she's done pouring, then drink while staring at
: her (or just drink)
: 3) say nothing because you picked up and left 20 minutes ago
: 4) say "that should have been here half an hour ago, bitch!"

Option 5, flag someone else down to get the fork or water refill. Or in this case, go to the game that works, aka Reach. If they didn't fix it, it would just be bad customer relations, and this isn't just about me personally as they've clearly received complaints from a multitude of people about many, many things. They may have finally brought the glass of water, but I already got it from another waiter by this point, and other customers aren't having a great time, either (and they clearly have other people serving them).

: You're doing #4 here - and I really can't imagine you'd pick that option in a
: restaurant. If you don't think she deserves thanks for something that
: should have been done a long time ago, that's one thing... but is there a
: need for rudeness? Do you berate people who don't do the job you expect
: them to do, if malice wasn't involved? Because you're berating 343 here,
: and I guarantee no malice was involved.

Would I berate the waiter? No way. You're absolutely right. Mistakes happen, no one's perfect, I'm not perfect, 343's not perfect. Now if I've already filled out the restaurant surveys for months, written reviews, complained to management (not that I have a direct line to 343), and many other people have had the same experiences with or without the same waiter I had, and those experiences keep happening, am I or they supposed to be thankful once the establishment finally corrects one of the problems? Well they figured out how to get the water to us faster, but all the food still comes out cold every time! Thanks! It's a start! I'm sure they'll figure out how to make food warm next week! No, sorry. It's expected that they fix this stuff, and if it goes to a manager, they'll probably knock it off your bill to show good will and genuine apology, at which point thanks is given. The restaurant probably doesn't have very great ratings or reviews in general, either.

In somewhat of a response to Grim, yeah, you thank your employees for doing the work whether they went above and beyond or not. If they're constantly making mistakes, costing you money (as it's clearly costing 343 to fix all of these mistakes), not showing up on time, but are at least there in some capacity most of the time and completing most of the work, are they worthy of thanks then? And as a consumer, if you're getting poor service or products from a company that would rather play cleanup after the fact instead of thoroughly testing their products prior to selling, should you be thankful once things start getting fixed? No. Give me my money back. I can't get any back in this case. Hell, you can't even get a refund for buying Sim City and that thing actually was a busted nightmare! All you can really do when dealing with video game corporations is deal with it or make it known that you're not satisfied and won't put up with this kind of service, and then take your business elsewhere.

I'm thinking we're gonna have to agree to disagree, Wu. When something is given to you, it's standard to say thank you, and I do say thank you and I am polite even when mistakes happen. This isn't a standard situation. 343 is not an individual who made an individual mistake or two on only one or two occasions. I can't adjust a tip here. I paid up front, I should have buyer bewared, that's my mistake, and I'm not satisfied with the service and all of the issues that continue to persist, and the only options there are at this point are to make my voice heard and not to play anymore.