Dairy Queen

I’m in charge of the birthdays in my department – asking the birthday person what they want for their birthday treat, what date works for them for a party, and inviting all. Last Thursday Dan told me he wanted a Dairy Queen cake with all white ice cream and the fudge/cookie crunch layer, so I called our local DQ and ordered it for a 12:30 pick up today.

When I pulled up, I noticed there were grade school kids everywhere – lots of them. I parked the car and went inside to the order counter. ALL of the employees were involved with making the orders of the 2 ½ - 4^th grade classrooms of kids and their teachers orders. None of the school people were in any kind of line – just standing everywhere – both outside and in – and once the ice cream treat was made, the employee would have to say "Who ordered the peanut butter malt?" It was total disorganization. Finally one of the women clerks – I thought she was the manager because her shirt was a different color from the others, waited on me. I told her I was here to pick up the birthday cake I had ordered (it’s now 1:05). She went back to look for it and was gone for a bit. When she returned she asked, "What kind of cake was it?" I told her it was an all white cake (The birthday boy didn't want any chocolate ice cream.) with "Happy Birthday, Dan" written on it, plus balloons. She left and returned again and said it wasn't there. In the meantime the woman I thought was the manager told me there had been a management change over the weekend. The former one had been fired. Again, the employee informed me the cake was not there. Nor were there any cakes in their freezer in the lobby. It was completely empty with a sign in it saying it was broken. She told me she could make one, but it would take 2 hours to freeze once it was made. Well, I needed it at 3 pm today, so that wasn't going to work. She then said to wait because she wanted to give me a coupon for a free cake in the future. I thought that was pretty nice. I asked her if it would be good at another location, thinking I would just drive to Shakopee and get one for our party there. But she said the coupon would only be good at the Bloomington location.

I went out to the car and called Dan and told him the scenario and asked if he would be okay with whatever cake the other location had, or would a regular cake from Lund’s work. He suggested I go back into this DQ and get frozen ice cream and a container of hot fudge and serve ice cream sundaes instead, so that’s what I did. Guess what, this nice manager wouldn't let me pay for that and said to use the coupon for my next birthday cake. I thought that was really nice! Talk about good will.

By the way, the sundaes were delicious and everyone had a good time at the party!