In an ideal world what you say is so, Chef. In the real world, however, things don't always work out that way.
At any restaurant, in an ideal world, of course, EVERYONE gets perfect service. But in the real world, an unexpected large group (or three!) comes in and the "little guy" suffers through no fault of anyone but poor timing. Or, the little guy gets wonderful service and the large parties suffer. Human resources can only stretch so far. Yeah, hopefully there is a surplus of staff for cases like this but too much extra staff and the restaurant won't stay in business either so management must guess what their needs on a particular night are. Guess wrong and service WILL suffer, no matter the ideal. Extra staffing costs must be passed along, raising costs.
Anyone who runs a business knows the trade offs at work here.
A reasonable person can look around and tell the difference between temporarily overworked staff and poor service. I don't automatically blame a restaurant in cases like this, and certainly not the server who may be
running between tables now, trying his/her best. This is assuming there is even enough cook staff to get the food out. I wouldn't trash someone's reputation by complaining on a public forum before I knew it was common practice and not just overwork due to seasonal demands, despite trying their best.
I will give you a personal example. I was recently on the phone with a very nice gentleman who is purchasing 2 colonies from us, to be picked up in a few weeks. We were having a nice chat when the truck delivering our bees pulled in the driveway from California. I had to get off the phone very abruptly. If he WASN'T such a nice gentleman he might get on a forum like this and give us a bad rap for not being attentive enough to his very small order. I know this isn't a good analogy but the point is.....in most operations there are only so many hours in the day. If two (or a dozen) things are happening at once, how do you deal with everything in that particular time frame, short of having expensive human resources on hold for busy times, which are hard to predict? I simply must promise to call folks back. Most understand but it is the few who think the world revolves around them that urk me no end. Some people think everyone sits on our hands waiting for their phone call. (Or the entire restaurant staff is waiting for them) (Or the queen rearers are sitting around waiting for their order.) Etc, etc, etc. These are the few who think they must jump to the front of the line. These few are welcome to do business elsewhere and no one is sorry to see them go.
OK enough ranting
We are lucky that our customers are exclusivly great people.
My point is, at the absolute busiest times a business can have, it is common sense and the kind thing to give a little slack. !@#$% happens!
Queen rearers are shipping thousands of queens a day, and it is understandable (I didn't say justified) that a small order phone call slip his mind. He is worried about the 500 queen order he
has to have ready for shipment by the time UPS comes at 2pm. These guys are working under their own particular gun at this time of year.
Yes, this queen shipper
should have called, he inconvenienced the OP mightily, and I would be angry too, under the circumstances. I would suggest that the shipper's
attitude satisfy the OP, ie, if the shipper is sufficiently appalled at the problems he caused the buyer, maybe another chance would be justified. If not, find a queen rearer who is more focused on customer service and smaller orders, but expect to pay more.
Sheri