You will never get in contact with those “in charge” because they have too much to worry about as-is without having to please every idiot who didn’t get there way. Most companies have entire departments that deal with complaints, and most of these complaints are ridiculous, so why waste money on something not worth it.

In my opinion, people that complain alot are just looking for free handouts anyway.

I know that this is ‘old blog’ by now (Feb. 1), but it is rather telling of how our society is being disconnected from that which controls what we see, hear and eat.

How many of the “managers” in franchises and chain stores have any say in policy and pricing? I doubt if any do.

These places are controled and run by remote corporate headquarters through a hierarchy of mangement. People at the top never hear from those at the bottom, and probably also never hear from customers (except through “focus groups” and advertising agencies and the like).

Almost all avenues to contact corporations — phone and websites — are the most maddening processes to deal with these days; one never actually reaches anyone “in charge.”

Even companies like Google — net savy Google — make it very difficult to contact them.

We are heading to a country where noone will ever meet those who run the corporate world, and us.

Whether or not their chicken nugget pricing scheme is appropriate I will leave to those who are more emotionally invested. However, the BK manager in this scenario did overlook the most obvious solution: Void the original sale on the cash register and re-ring the nuggets up at the cheaper price on a new ticket. Thus, the unhappy customer gets his way AND the register isn’t short money at the end of the night. Problem solved. I will acknowledge that during my tenure I was probably one of the brighter people involved in BK management, but shutting up yappy customers with petty grievances is not rocket science, especially considering how many of them must be dealt with on a daily basis when working in that kind of job.

There is no doubt about the same pricing inequity occurring similarly in grocery stores – to me it’s simply funny, since I am always aware of it, but others who don’t fare as well in math or observation are literally paying the price. Along the same line is the ‘shrinking’ of package or container sizes while keeping the price the same – unless you’ve observant, you’ll never notice the ‘stealth’ price increase. No regulation exists that forces stores to charge less on a per unit basis for larger amounts than smaller amounts, so common sense dictates that you price items yourself, using a calculator if you need to. If you don’t care about the price, no one is saying you should care, but Dylan’s response is to denigrate Jeff for posting his opinion on this. Belittling people is pretty easy – what I wonder about is WHY Dylan found such an unimportant post worth so much of his ‘way too serious’ time? What surprised me was that someone felt it necessary to slam Jeff at all – he was right on all counts.

By the way, Burger King is currently offering a ‘crown card’, which is a cash-balance card that you can charge from $5 to $100 and has no expiration date or maintenance fees of any kind. I mention this because a local BK is offering a free Whopper with the purchase of a $10 cash card. Since I probably stop once a month for a Whopper, this was a good deal, since I essentially earned 28.6% on my $10 investment ($2.86 would have been the Whopper’s total cost). It’s an even better deal because there are no conditions on the card, which means I can use it in combination with a ‘buy one – get one free’ Whopper coupon from my local Entertainment book. Using 4 of these coupons (I have more than one Entertainment book), I will be out of pocket $11.44 ($10 using the card) for 8 Whoppers – throw in the free Whopper and that’s 9 Whoppers for an average price of $1.27 each after tax, as opposed to $2.86 each, an overall savings of 55.5% per burger and a total savings of $14.31.

Service is damned good at that BK location, but service in general at fast food joints in Kansas City is lousy, in fact so bad at KFC that I’ve simply stopped going. I am not kidding when I say that 50% of the orders were simply wrong, and of the correct orders, probably 75% of the time the chicken was not up to snuff (greasy, small pieces, too much heat lamp, etc). I’m writing KFC a letter specifying the location and the fact that I won’t be eating the Colonel’s birds any longer, considering that the pieces seem to come from a large Rock Cornish game hen rather than a fryer (the wings are miniscule). Is this a big deal in my life? No, of course not, but the service problem is symptomatic of a much more pervasive service problem in the U.S. and by getting my licks in, I’m letting a few companies know that their way of doing business is no longer acceptable – if more people would do what Jeff did, maybe they’d get the message and improve their service – which would be a good thing, right???

Having a pricing structure in place that’s clearly designed to discourage people from clogging up their arteries by buying larger packs is a forward-thinking and innovative heath-positive strategy.

Even better if you could pay them a little more to throw it away before you eat it.

Kidding.

Anyway, that 58 cents means something. I’m throwing myself behind the “principle of the issue” team. I do that because skimming small amounts here and there is one of the ways that human beings from the lowest to the highest points of the economic ladder get an edge on their fellows. You do something small enough long enough and it adds up.

That, of course, shows that everything I learned about human nature came from “Office Space.”

ps - “We’re, uh, gonna have to, uh, ask you to come in on Sunday. MMmmm-hmmm. Yeaah.”

The condition of the schools today is such that people honestly don’t know how to add 2 and 2. Figures above 2 digits–forget it, too complex.

Have you ever heard the expression, ‘don’t sweat the small stuff?’

Well your post was more or less a bitch about something irrelevant to begin with and no one likes to hear such a stupid irrelevant bitch. You bloggers are the ones posting inane comments. Expect criticism and irreverance. What? Do you think all your posts are worthy of discussion? Do you think your posts are worthy of praise? What a laugh. If you say or post something stupid expect to be denegrated or ridiculed. BeDuh.

You are correct, there is certainly a worldview involved in everything, and I have one of my own. It is probably no surprise to you that, in addition to being a journalism student (which, though it was alluded as otherwise, I do pay for myself… As if that somehow lessons my point anyway) I am a waiter, so I feel a bit of sympathy for the manager that had to field your complaint.

You ask at what price would the rip-off be high enough to merit actual concern. I’m not going to pretend to have a definitive answer for that, but I can say that, at some point, there is a price miniscule enough that it doesn’t warrant the waste of time for either you or the managers you deal with (who don’t set the prices to begin with and have no control over the ability to refund you the money).

What is that price? I’d like to think that there’s a little common sense involved in that, but certainly 58 cents falls into that realm.

There’s nothing wrong with trying to save a few pennies. Frugality is a viture. However, it ceases to be a virtue when you make such a miniscule thing an issue.

Hormones and nitrates and sugars and salts - should all indicate that the health and well-being of the consumer is, indeed, a low priority and that profit is the King.

$0.58 is nothing. Ask your digestive track.

In any case, previous posters are right - fast food is crap, and the staff underpaid/disposable/disrespected…oh, yeah, and generally R-E-S-E-N-T-F-U-L, so their nonresponsiveness to your indignation is probably the least of your (and my) worries when eating out on the cheap. Welcome to the new economy! Would you like some Cipro or an Immodium with that?

On the other hand, more than once I’ve gotten fast food when the fries were apparently just classified as “old.” So instead of getting a small order they gave me a large one. And the fries were fine, no complaints from me. So, on balance, when it comes to fast food- I’m too fat and happy.

If your concern is the principle of fair pricing of Burger King chicken, God save the poor chickens that had an utterly inhumane existence to provide you a meal for $2.29.