Great bit from Jacqueline Church: “Confessions of a DiningIn 12-Stepper“.
“[The customer service supervisor] can understand why I’m upset, he’d like to help me. He suggests that it’s probably that they’ve run out of the items I ordered. I’m not buying it. He offers that it might be that the website had items that the catalog (printed four months earlier) did not have. (that’s the ‘sympathize with the customer’ part of the script) Nope, ordered from the admittedly more current website. Then he says, it’s probably an issue with the time of day. The items I selected might be only available on the lunch menu and by the time I finished the order, it was dinner menu time. I ask him why there is no indication on the website or the catalog of limited availability. Has no answer. Now, he’d like to help me by taking my order.
FOR GOD SAKES WILL SOMEONE MAKE ME A G&T ALREADY?”